SERENDIPITY
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What is Serendipity?
According to Oxford English Dictionary, "Serendipity is the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident." The word came from the fairy tale, "The three Princes of Serendip", which is a story about three princes who had the gift of discovering things by chance. The story was published in Europe in 1557 by Michele Tramezzino. An English author, Horace Walpole read the story as a child and later invented the word "Serendipity" in a letter sent to Horace Mann, on Jan 28, 1754. The letter was about learning some things by chance and Mr. Walpole stated in his letter that, " this discovery indeed is almost of that kind which I call serendipity, a very expressive word, which as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavor to explain to you; you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity of things which they were not in quest of. For instance, one of them discovered that a mule, blind of the right eye had traveled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side; where it was worse than on the rightnow do you understand serendipity?"
As a student, I have learned a lot about certain inventions and discoveries by famous people and after knowing the word serendipity, I can say that these inventions and discoveries involved serendipity...