Human conflict has always driven innovation. All kinds of technological breakthroughs have come as a result of the need to dominate the battlefield. Aside from weaponry, there have been an array of peacetime products that we now use on a daily basis, and one of them is tissues. They were first introduced as cheap paper-based liners for gas mask filters during World War I. Originally called Cheesecloth UGG, the tissues replaced the fabric used inside wartime respirators when cotton was needed for bandages and field dressings. Following the war, Kimberly Clark Corporation came up with the idea to market its own paper tissues — dubbed Kleenex — as disposable face towels for make-up removal. Within the first two years, company officials discovered that more than half of the people buying the tissues were using them to blow their noses. The rest is history.
