Inventions are the ingenious gadgets and machines that have made our lives a little more fun, interesting, and easier. Real inventions are the things that we did not think were possible yesterday, and yet, it would be difficult to live without today. From the tiny paperclip to the massive jet engine, every month we will explore the history behind our world’s most famous inventions and learn about the innovators that designed them.
This month we explore the history behind an invention that most of us likely just take for granted…
LEGO Bricks
It is quite amazing that any LEGO brick produced since 1955 can interlock with any other. But, what is even more incredible is that there are 915 million different ways you can combine six eight-studded LEGO bricks!
- Ole Kirk Christiansen
Christiansen was born in 1891 in the village of Filskovand, Denmark.
- Automatic Binding Bricks
LEGO bricks were originally called Automatic Binding Bricks.
- Godtfred Kirk-Christiansen
Godtfred Kirk-Christiansen introducing children to LEGO sets.
- LEGO System
Pictured above is the first moveable Brick Built LEGO Train which was introduced in 1964.
- LEGO Timeline
The LEGO story started in a Danish woodworking shop in Billund, Denmark. Ole Kirk Christiansen was a creative and talented carpenter. As a young man, Christiansen turned his hobby of whittling and working with wood into a business and in 1916 he opened his own little shop.
It turned out that Christiansen was a brilliant toymaker as well. In 1932, he established his own toy company and was assisted by his 12-year-old son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen. Ole refused to cut corners for the toys his company produced. Soon, his prototypes for model cars and animals and his cute pull-toys became quite popular. His bestseller, which is still a collectible, was a wooden duck whose beak opens and closes when pulled.
“Play Well”
In 1934, Christiansen named his business LEGO, which came from the Danish words “LEg GOdt,” meaning “play well.”
After World War II, many common manufacturing products used to produce consumer goods simply weren’t available. As a result, many manufacturers looked to advances in plastics to create cheap alternatives.
One substitute involved plastic-injection molding, in which melted plastic is forced into the cavity of a precise mold. However, due to materials shortages the Danish government forbade its commercial use until 1947. Despite the ban, Christiansen bought Denmark’s first plastic-injection molding machine in 1946 and began to experiment with it for his toys. In 1947, the ban was lifted and Christiansen was able to use his molding machine to mass-produce plastic toys.
Over the next several years, the company grew rapidly. From just a handful of employees in the early years, LEGO had grown to 50 employees by 1948.
In 1949, LEGO produced about 200 different kinds of toys, which included automatic binding bricks, a plastic fish, and a plastic sailor. The automatic binding bricks were the predecessors of the LEGO toys of today.
The LEGO Brick Is Born
In 1953, the automatic binding bricks were renamed LEGO bricks. In 1957, the interlocking principle of LEGO bricks was born. Each brick had circular nubs on the top that could be pressed into depressions of the bottom of another brick. This stud-and-coupling system was patented in 1958.
Godtfred Takes Over
When Ole Kirk Christiansen passed away in 1958, his son Godtfred became head of the Lego company.
By the early 1960s, Lego had gone international, with sales in Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, and Lebanon. Over the next decade, LEGO toys were available in more countries, and they came to the United States in 1973.
LEGO Sets
In 1964, for the first time, consumers were able to purchase LEGO sets that included instructions to build a particular model.
Four years later, the company opened its first LEGOLAND amusement park in Denmark, utilizing more than 50 million bricks to build exhibits.
Since the middle of the 20th century, these small plastic bricks have sparked the imagination of children around the world, and LEGO sets have a stronghold on their place at the top of the list of the world’s most popular toys.
The company, still headquartered in Billund, turn out more than 19 billion individual bricks from its factories every year!