Look on Youtube for an old BBC series 'Connections."

It’s the history of science, showing how one change can cascade through time. To continue the story; the new insurance companies wanted their ships to survive. They studied the matter and figured out that pine tar was the best way to stop leaks. There were plenty of pine trees in the New World, so they contracted some Americans to make pine tar, promising to buy all they could deliver. The process had other byproducts, and eventually drinking coffee led to the creation of the chemical industry.