Constanin Fahlberg was working on the furthest thing from an artificial sweetener: coal tar. He was working late one night and completely forgot about his dinner. Without pausing to wash his hands, he sat down to eat, noticing a sweet taste to his bread. He thought little of it until after the dinner when he noticed even his napkin tasted sweet. At that point, he was intrigued. A little detective work later, and he traced it back to something he must have had in his lab. He recalled in an interview later that “There, in my excitement, I tasted the contents of every beaker and evaporating dish on the table. Luckily for me, none contained any corrosive or poisonous liquid.”

On this day, February 27, in 1879, Fahlberg announced a discovery that “outsugared sugar”, as he put it. Many wanted to buy or partner with him to market his invention, but Fahlberg went in alone, opening a factory to manufacture the saccharine.

The artificial sweetener had many advantages over the natural sugars in use at the time. It was more powerful: just two or three teaspoons were enough to give water a syrupy taste. It also never spoiled, making it a good preservative for many fruits.