Happy 50th Birthday LEGO Brick, my old friend

The infamous LEGO brick that we all know and love turned 50 years old today.

Personally, I have been a fan of LEGO for as long as I can remember and much to the credit of my forward-thinking parents (or were they just hoarders?), I still have pretty much all of it to this day. In recent years, I have discovered a renewed appreciation for this wonderful toy, mainly due to my 9 and 5-year old nephews and my 3 year-old daughter, all of whom play with the myriad of less-than-shiny bricks, wheels, windows, roof tiles and mini-people on an almost daily basis.

Amazingly, the boys have lots of their own (modern) LEGO but seem to prefer the simplicity and imagination of my collection. There aren’t many toys that could survive intact for over 30 years and still hold the imagination of today’s tech-hungry children for so long!

The LEGO company itself was actually first formed way back in 1934 by a Danish carpenter, Ole Christiansen, who had been making wooden toys for a number of years prior to that. It was in 1934 that he first named his company “LEGO”, a name that was derived from the Danish phrase leg godt that means “play well” but interestingly, LEGO also means “I assemble” in Latin. It was not until much later, in 1958, that the first LEGO brick was patented.

Gizmodo have also put together a great LEGO timeline in celebration of this momentous day.

Sources: SlashDot, WikiPedia


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