serendipity (serənˈdipitē) noun

1. the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way : a fortunate stroke of serendipity

2. a series of small serendipities.

DERIVATIVES serendipitous |-ˈdipitəs| adjective serendipitously adverb

ORIGIN 1754: coined by Horace Walpole, suggested by The Three Princes of Serendip, the title of a fairy tale in which the heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”

"It is true that my discovery of LSD was a chance discovery, but it was the outcome of planned experiments and these experiments took place in the framework of systematic pharmaceutical, chemical research. It could better be described as serendipity."
Albert Hofmann