- The name LEGO comes from “leg godt” — Danish for “play well.”
2. The LEGO company began as a woodworking shop opened by Ole Kirk Christiansen in a Danish village in 1916.
3. Before making toys Christiansen manufactured stepladders, stools, and ironing boards.
4. His bestselling wooden pull toy was a duck whose beak opened and shut.
5. The company survived three fires, in 1924, 1942, and 1960. After the third fire it abandoned wooden toys and concentrated on plastic.
6. Christiansen bought Denmark’s first plastic-injection molding machine n 1946.
7. LEGO bricks were inspired by a British product called Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks and were originally called Automatic Binding Bricks.
8. The original bricks had pegs but not the internal tubes they have now. (The stud-and-tube configuration was developed and patented by Ole Kirk Christiansen’s son, Godtfred Christiansen.)
9. All LEGO bricks manufactured since 1955 are compatible.
10. Billund, the obscure Danish town where Ole Kirk Christiansen opened his woodworking shop, is now a tourist destination.
Sources
- “The Disastrous Backstory Behind the Invention of LEGO Bricks” by Erin Blakemore via History.com
- “The Early History of LEGO” by Ransom Riggs via Mental Floss