A Swiss engineer named George de Mestral invented Velcro.
In 1948 he was walking through woods and fields with his dog, presumably yodeling into the mountains, when he got intrigued by cockleburs that were getting stuck to his pants and his dog’s coat.
Being an engineer, he took some home, looked at them under a microscope, and determined that J-shaped hooks are what kept the cockleburs stuck.
He figured out how to make some similar tiny shapes with plastic, and added a fabric with plenty of loops for the hooks to grab onto.
He named it “Velcro” from two French words: velour, “velvet,” and crochet, “hook.”
The results are something we’ve been stuck with ever since.
