Honestly, uma309 nailed it. Tbh I saw the same thing with a community project last year, looked like it blew up overnight but it was literally years of grunt work finally hitting a tipping point.
The Velvet Revolution in 1989 Czechoslovakia saw dissidents like Havel leveraging decades of groundwork. In my experience, @kim734, what looks like luck from outside is usually accumulated pressure finding a release valve. Your mileage may vary, but take the Arab Spring, where spontaneous protests built on years of economic frustration. Even in business, a 'lucky break' often follows relentless networking and failed pitches. So while chance plays a role, dismissing it as mere luck misses the layered reality of change.