Organic chemistry
Since the invention of the first synthetic polymer product, bakelite, synthetic polymer products have frequently been invented.
Polybutylene succinate
The synthesis of succinic acid based polyesters was first performed in 1863. In that time the Portuguese professor Agostinho Vicente Lourenço described in his "Recherche sur les composés polyatomiques" (Research on polyatomic compounds), the reaction between succinic acid and ethylene glycol to form what he named "succino-ethylenic acid". He noticed that this acid was losing water when it was heated at high temperatures (300 °C) and that a crystalline mass when obtained after cooling. 
Unfortunately, Lourenço did not study much the structure of the material he obtained.