Another fun story, electrical discharge machining or EDM was independently developed in the USSR and USA at the same time, but for extremely different reasons.

In the USSR they had an abundance of tungsten which is incredibly hard to machine using cutting tools, being as cutting tools are made of softer or equally hard materials most notably tungsten carbide. To make use of the tungsten, EDM was the only process available. In turn many structures and aircraft from the period have parts that would be extremely financially irresponsible to produce in the USA.

However the USA at the time had developed aluminum to build lightweight structures and products across basically every industry and the only problem they faced was that their tools kept breaking inside the relatively soft metal. The solution for this issue was using EDM to burn the broken tool bits out of the workpiece.

Now EDM is used for many purposes beyond these two, and you'd piss off an EDM machinist if you asked them to stop what they were doing to get a broken tap out of something.