History is written by winners? 10 failure stories that changed the world

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Truman Capote once said, "Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor." In the same line, Benjamin Franklin claimed: "He that can have patience can have what he will." Patience and perseverance are fundamental when it comes to conquering the anguish of things not going as planned. Numerous scientists, inventors, actors, musicians, and writers throughout history have had to fail many times before achieving their goals. Are you familiar with the stories of these 10 great men who had to make mistakes to finally have success? Surely, you’ll feel inspired to overcome your own failures after reading this article!

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Besides having very good ideas, Thomas Alva Edison also had a lot of patience. And patience is fundamental to overcoming any failure. Between 1878 and 1880, he worked on at least three hundred theories with the aim of developing an efficient incandescent lamp.

It took him two years of trial and error to find the right elements to achieve his goal. After at least a thousand failed attempts, he achieved what would be his most resounding and revolutionary invention. "I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work," he later said.

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The golden age of Hollywood was highly competitive and cutthroat. Before becoming a superstar, the talented Fred Astaire experienced rejection firsthand. In the 1930s, when he was still taking his first steps, he was handed a performance report after a casting call: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances," it said. Astaire himself would say that the audition was disappointing for him.

In a 1933 notebook from RKO Pictures, film producer David O. Selznick described the audition as "appalling". Nevertheless, these awful remarks weren’t enough reason for the actor to be discouraged or for the studio to close its doors completely: Fred Astaire ended up starring in ten films for RKO.

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The famous Dutch painter died young, believing he was a failure. Vincent looked at his paintings with enormous frustration as he found it much harder to sell them than to paint them. He was tormented by the thought of what people might say about his works.

He was a gloomy, melancholic, and lonely artist who was unable to manage his mood swings. At the end of his life, he developed a depression that eventually led him to suicide. While he was alive, Vincent Van Gogh sold only a handful of his works, even though today he is one of the most famous artists in the world and his paintings are worth millions.

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Walt Disney, the man who created an empire out of pure creativity, didn't have it easy. Along the way, he failed, and failed badly. Walt was a mediocre student and had several jobs before becoming the dream maker we all know today. As a boy, he helped his father deliver newspapers in Kansas, enlisted in the army, wrote newspaper ads, and had several animation studios that went bankrupt.

Determined not to give up, he created Mortimer, which at his wife's suggestion would be renamed Mickey Mouse. Many of his competitors assumed that sound-animated films would be just a fad, but when Walt launched the short Willie on the Steamboat in 1928, it received excellent reviews. From then on, both Walt and Mickey continued to grow nonstop.

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All members of the Nobel family were great inventors, revolutionizing the arms industry in 19th-century Europe. Alfred, in particular, dedicated his life to finding a way to use and control nitroglycerin. However, in 1864, when success seemed to be the family trademark, a terrible explosion destroyed their factory. Five workers and Alfred's younger brother died.

Nobel decided to start again from scratch. After several attempts, he discovered that mixing the explosive with diatomaceous earth created a paste-like composition that kept nitroglycerin’s composition intact. This made it transportable, manageable, and safe. The unprecedented discovery was patented in 1867 under the name Dynamite. Dynamite eventually made Alfred Nobel one of the richest men of his time.

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Carrie, the King of Horror's first novel, received dozens of rejections from different publishers. Stephen King almost gave up, but his wife rescued the first pages of the story and convinced him to continue working. The author started collecting the rejection letters, and he later admitted he also received suggestions and advice that were key to perfecting his writing.

Finally, in 1974, the American publishing company Doubleday agreed to publish Carrie, which quickly became a bestseller. To date, Stephen King has published over 200 short stories and around 65 novels, many of them with record sales and multiple film and television adaptations.

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A series of bad business decisions bankrupted Charles Goodyear’s manufacturing company. After this setback, the self-taught inventor focused his energies on finding a way to create synthetic rubber that would be resistant to sudden temperature changes.

He had many attempts but couldn’t find the right formula. One day, by accident, he spilled a mixture of sulfur, rubber, and lead on a hot stove. Surprisingly, the material didn’t melt. Goodyear named this phenomenon vulcanization after the Roman god Vulcan. Although the invention didn’t make him rich and he ultimately died covered in debt, the vulcanization technology discovered by Charles Goodyear in the 1840s is still used today.

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The technology industry knows a lot about failure. They know about trial, error, observation, and constant improvement in pursuit of evolution. If there is one thing Bill Gates has experienced firsthand, it is embracing failure as a natural step on the path towards progress.

Among his forgettable list of disappointments is his first company, Traf-O-Data, an ambitious project that never prospered. But that didn't stop Gates as he began to forge what would become the future of the personal computer. Microsoft was not exempt from failures either, Windows Vista being one of the best examples. However, none of these setbacks ever stopped Bill Gates, who is, to this day, one of the richest and most successful men in the world.

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A doctor who is not comfortable with touching his patients? It seems like the perfect formula for failure! In the early 19th century, it was very common for doctors to bring their ears close to their patients’ chests to hear their breathing or heartbeat. But for the prudish French physician René Laënnec, physical touch was virtually impossible.

Laënnec recalled seeing two children playing with a hollowed-out tree trunk, listening to sounds. He knew he had found a way around his struggles. He looked for a wooden cylinder, hoping to achieve the same sound effect. He succeeded: he could hear the heartbeat at a long enough distance. This experimental object worked so well that it became the genesis of the stethoscope, a fundamental tool for physicians to this day.

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According to his first music teachers, little Ludwig was a mediocre musician and a lousy violinist who had no talent for creating harmonies and melodies. To prove them all wrong, Beethoven's father forced his son to practice complex pieces of music in order to produce a "child prodigy" who could be considered "the new Mozart".

Eventually, the pressure paid off. In 1782, at the age of 12, Beethoven published his first piano composition. At the age of 40, at the height of his musical splendor, he became completely deaf. Despite his difficulties, Ludwig van Beethoven went on to publish 138 works during his career and is considered one of the most brilliant composers and pianists in history.

See you later, big lizard

Is it a breeze to eat jerky in the ranch? Words borrowed from Spanish

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If you ask an English speaker which common words originate from Spanish, the answer might be something like taco, tostada, or sombrero. They wouldn’t be wrong—but Spanish influence goes much deeper than that.

Spanish has entered the English vocabulary in many ways, and we now use Spanish-derived words to talk about weather phenomena, animals, food, or metals. Let’s take a look at some of these terms.

Alligator

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Alligators are infamously known as the protagonists of strange Floridian news. They are a species native to only the U.S. and China, so when Spanish explorers first encountered one in Florida, they likened it to what they knew—a big lizard—and called it el lagarto ("the lizard").

English speakers gradually adopted the term, first as allagarto or allagarta, and eventually as alligator.

Tornado

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This term was half-borrowed from Spanish, half-created by English speakers, who mixed the word tronada (meaning "thunderstorm," from tronar, "to thunder") with tornado (the past participle of tornar, "to turn").

In Spanish, tornado was originally only used as a verb, and its current use as a noun was actually borrowed back from English. A true full-circle moment.

Platinum

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Spanish settlers first came across platinum mixed with gold in Mexican and Colombian mines, mistakenly believing it to be a gold impurity. Due to its silver color, they named it platina ("little silver")—a diminutive that carried the idea of being "lesser than."

English later adopted the word platina, which eventually evolved into platinum.

Breeze

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Experts are divided on this one: some say breeze has Old English roots, but the most widely accepted etymology traces it to Spanish (and Portuguese) origin. The word briza (now brisa) originally referred to a "northeastern wind," but later came to describe any gentle, light wind. It was incorporated into English in the 16th century.

Cafeteria

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The suffix -ería is used in Spanish for places where something is done or sold. So, the cafetería is the place where coffee is prepared and served.

English speakers adopted the word from Mexican Spanish, but by the late 19th century, its meaning shifted from "coffee shop" to "self-service diner."

Key

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We’re not talking here about the object used to lock doors, but about the small island. Also spelled cay, this word comes from the Spanish cayo, which in turn derives from the Taíno cairi or caicu, meaning "island" or "land."

Jerky

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If you like to go camping in the wilderness, you know that jerky is a great snack to have. But did you know that its name comes from the Inca Empire via Spanish?

The Quechua word ch’arki (meaning "dried meat") was adopted into Spanish as charqui, and the term spread throughout the territories of the Spanish Empire. In U.S. regions with Spanish influence, the word eventually evolved into the modern English form: jerky.

Cockroach

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We don’t know if the English didn’t have roach infestations before or simply didn’t have a name for this unwelcome critter, but the fact is that, around the 16th century, they borrowed the Spanish word cucaracha, which first appeared in English as cacaroch.

Folk etymology eventually connected the word to other animal names, and the spelling evolved into its current form: cockroach.

Albatross

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In Spanish, this bird is called **alcatraz**—a name you might recognize—which comes from the Arabic al-qattas ("the diver"), a term once used for both albatrosses and pelicans.

Originally, albatross was used in English for many large seabirds, but it’s believed that the Latin albus ("white") influenced its modern form and spelling.

Ranch

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The Spanish term rancho derives from the French word ranger (meaning "to line up" or "to arrange"), and one of its meanings is a stock farm or estate—distinguished from a hacienda, which refers to a plantation farm.

English first adopted the term ranchería (meaning a group of small farms or settlements) and later shortened it to ranch.

Cowboy

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The term cowboy is a direct translation of the Spanish word vaquero (a mounted cowherd), with an alternate loanword being buckaroo, a phonetic adaptation of vaquero. Other cowboy-related terms of Spanish origin include rodeo (from rodear, "to round up" or "to gather"), lasso (from lazo, "noose"), and bronco (from bronco, meaning "rude" or "rough").

Fun fact: cowboy hats are sometimes called "ten-gallon hats," a corrupted form of either tan galán ("so handsome" or "fine") or galón (meaning "trim" or "braid" of the hat).