Question

Here is an example: 19 century geometers extended Euler's formula V-E+F=2 to higher dimensions: the alternating sum of the number of i-faces of a d-dimensional polytope is 2 in odd dimensions and 0 in even dimensions. The 19th centuries proofs were incomplete and the first rigorous proof came with Poincare and used homology groups. Here, what enabled a rigorous proof was arguably even more important than the theorem itself.