When Norman Stingley was experimenting with a high-resiliency synthetic rubber, he accidentally came upon a new object, a small ball which when compressed under a large amount of pressure would exhibit incredible abilities to bounce.

Stingley named the compound Zectron but the ball become known as the Super Ball.

The Super Ball was capable of bouncing 92 percent of the height from which it was originally dropped. It was marketed by the fad toy giant Wham-O and by 1965, more than six million had been sold. The toys ended up in the White House as Cabinet member McGeorge Bundy passed them out to staff members.

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