1. Post-it Notes

We all are familiar with what Post-it notes are but did you know that in the year 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M (Formerly Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) accidentally invented a reusable pressure sensitive adhesive. In 1974, Arthur 'Art' Fry, a product development researcher at 3M started using the Silver's reusable adhesive to apply bookmark into his book. Later 3M, invented "Press 'n Peel" which proved to be a flop. The company relaunched it again in the same year as "Post-it Notes".

Post-it Notes come in 27 sizes, 57 colors and 20 fragrances. Its sales top $1 billion annually.

FYI : The now trademarked Canary Yellow color of Post-it Notes was actually chosen by accident, the research lab next door to the Post-it team only had scraps of yellow paper.

2. The Java Jacket

The java jacket is a life saver for many of us coffee drinkers but did you know that its inventor Jay Sorensen was inspired to invent them after he himself dropped scalding coffee into his lap. He launched Jave Jacket Inc. in 1993 with just $20,000. By 2001, they brought in over $8 million and sold 250 million sleeves.

FYI:  Enter the competition: Top five companies by volume of coffee sleeves sold in the U.S. are, in no particular order, International Paper, BriteVision, LBP Manufacturing, Java Jacket and Labansat & Schulz Manufacturing.

3. The Plastic Bag

Hate it or love it, we all need a plastic bag once every now and then but did you know that in 1960s, a Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin invented the lightweight shopping bag. It was later in 1964 that Cellopast patented the invention.

The annual estimated cost of bags to US retailers alone is $4 billion. They buy 102 billion bags a year.

FYI: 12 million barrels of oil go into the production of the 100 billion bags the US uses annually.

4. The Spork

It's a spoon, its a fork, no it's spork!

In 1874, Samuel Francis submitted a patent for a combined fork, spoon and knife. The word "Spork" was added to the English dictionary in the year 1909.

Sporks come in all shapes, colors and variety and can be found all over the world over. All sorts of materials like stainless steel, silver, aluminum, titanium and polycarbonate plastic have been used to manufacture spork.

FYI: Plastic sporks are common in prisons in the US because they are difficult to form into weapons.

5. Duct Tape

Oh! duct tape. Imagine your life without them

Again, it was 3M's Richard Drew that invented the adhesive tape in 1920s. In 1942, it was the need of the Army that inspired the creation of a tape that could be used to seal munitions against water, while strong enough to hold together equipment in need of repair. Permacell (of the Johnson and Johnson company), nicknamed the tape as "Duck tape". By 1950, it was available in the market an since 1965, it has also been on board every NASA outer space mission.

We buy an estimated $100 million of duct tape every year. The amount of duct tape sold every year could stretch to the moon 1.2 times or wrap around the equator 12.3 times.

FYI: Duct tape was most famously used by NASA during the Apollo 13 flight, when duct tape helped to seal the makeshift device to remove CO2 from the crippled ship.

6. Bread Clips and Twist-Ties

1952: Bread clips were invented in 1952 by Floyd G. Paxton and was manufactured by the Kwik Lok Corporation.

The packaging company T and T Industries Inc. invented twist-ties and it was marketed as "Twist-Ems".

FYI: Between Bread Clips and Twist-ties, annual US sales total $10.6 million.

These 6 items are the most basic but the most widely used products that generate a million dollar sales and the irony here is that we know so little about them.

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