Tide’s story begins in the 1930s, when a group of P&G scientists were quietly working on a mysterious cleaning agent they believed had great potential as a heavy-duty synthetic detergent. Behind closed doors, it was known as Product X.

But after 200,000 hours of slow, painstaking tests to get the formula right, they couldn’t make it work. One by one, all of the scientists were reassigned to other projects, and were instructed to abandon their heavy-duty detergent research.

One man refused to walk away from Product X.

Watch the rest of the story in this video of Tide's beginnings, and history of firsts.

For more information about Tide, visit tide.com, or find Tide on Facebook and Twitter.