Official Lego history
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Official Lego History

If you manage to wade through the obvious commercialism, there are a few interesting facts. I discovered this article while surfing on behalf of my 6-year old and his lego-maniac buddies. While he found the story "interesting", all he wanted to do was get to the pictures of the stuff he could buy (or his parents could buy for the various celebrations in his life). You can too at the end of the article. By the way, in case you are wondering, I have no relationship with Lego, except as a customer. If you find other articles about children and their "toys" you think I should know about, please let me know.
Michael J. Harding, President

"Bricks & Pieces: The LEGO Story"

Did you know that 300 million children have owned LEGO sets since they were first made? And that you are one of the 68 million kids from around the world who like to play with LEGO building bricks today! Here's the story of how we grew...

Although the international LEGO Group is now very large, it is still a family-run company that started out quite small. More than 50 years ago, a carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen and his 12-year old son, Godtfred, started making toys in the little town of Billund, Denmark. Plastic had not been invented yet, so they made toy cars, trucks, yo-yos, animals, and other toys out of wood. They decided that a good name for their company would be LEGO, which means "play well" in Danish, and also, they discovered, happens to mean "put together" in Latin! Ole and Godtfred were very proud of their workmanship, and adopted the LEGO motto that "only the best is good enough."

When plastic became available after World War II, LEGO began to make both wooden and plastic toys. It was about this time that the idea of plastic LEGO bricks was introduced. Godtfred loved to build with these colorful new pieces, and was continually putting them together and taking them apart to build new designs. In fact, it was Godtfred who perfected the special design that makes every single LEGO brick fit together in any combination, over and over again. The first LEGO building set was made more than 30 years ago- and the bricks from that set can still be used with even the newest LEGO building set of today!

LEGO bricks first appeared in the United States in 1961 and quickly became as popular here as in Europe. The international LEGO group is now worldwide, and is run by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Old Kirk Christiansen's grandson. As the company keeps growing, so do the kinds of exciting LEGO kits that are now sold in 129 different countries...from DUPLO preschool to FABULAND, LEGO BASIC, to LEGOLAND, LEGO boats and trains to LEGO TECHNIC SETS. In fact, this year alone, we will make more than six billion bricks and building pieces for all the LEGO lovers 'round the world- like you!

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Taken without permission from _Brick Kicks_ #1 ("The official magazine of the LEGO builders club") (circa 1987 or 88?)
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