Lego Toys

The History of LEGO, The World’s Most Popular Toy

by Alastair Booker

The History of LEGO Simple block toys have been around for sbobet88 hundreds of years, but it took someone as genius as Ole Kirk Christiansen in the 20th century to create the block shapes we now know as LEGO blocks. The story begins in 1932 in the village of Billund, Denmark, long before LEGO was known as a toy brand. Ole, who is a carpenter, opened a building materials shop and a carpentry workshop with his son Godtfred who was only 12 years old at the time.

Quoted from Mental Floss, they produce ladders, ironing boards to wooden toys. It wasn’t until 1934 that they adopted the LEGO name for their company. LEGO is taken from the Danish word leg godt which means to play well.

The company grew from just six employees in 1934 to 40 in 1942. LEGO was also quite progressive, and became the first company to use the latest materials and technologies. In fact, LEGO became the first Danish company to have a plastic injection machine.

The History of LEGO, The World's Most Popular Toy

In 1947, Ole adopted the idea of ​​making British toys with the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks design. But two years later, they started producing their own version, in which the blocks were created with a peg model at the top and a hollow hole at the bottom, which allowed toys to be attached by creating complex structures, which was never possible with simple wooden blocks.

This became the forerunner of today’s LEGO blocks. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t ready for plastic toys at the time, so sales of plastic LEGO toys in the early 50s were mediocre. Unfortunately in 1958, Ole died of a heart attack at the age of 66, so he could not see the glory of his company.

The company was taken over by his son and in the same year, the beam was perfected with a hollow cylinder at the bottom which made the grip even stronger. But in 1960, the factory burned down so LEGO finally focused on producing plastic toys and abandoned wooden toys.

In 1962, the first LEGO wheel was created for building vehicles from LEGO blocks. After that, the Lego Railway System was also produced and opened the first Legoland Park in Billund in June 1968. Until now, LEGO toys have become one of the most popular toys in the world, with various series and modern versions with the most expensive prices reaching tens of millions of rupiah.