Lego - A History Of These construction Blocks Of Imagination

Lego bricks. Creativity. Childhood. They go together like Mickey Mouse and Disney, wizards and Harry Potter. Lego has been a part of childhood for more than three generations. Nearly everybody under 50 has played with these construction blocks of imagination. There is no telling how many engineers and scientists were spawned by these plastic construction blocks.

Lego is synonymous with plastic toy bricks that can be literally transformed into buildings, space ships, cars, boats, trains and a myriad of other toys. The key is that the child gets to assemble the toy from the basic construction blocks. Each toy can be assembled, disassembled and reassembled in adequate new shapes and forms to tickle the imagination and stretch the youngster's creativity.

Lego

Today, Lego is much more that the straightforward blocks invented in 1949. It is toys, theme parks, movies, and Cds. Lego construction blocks and other products are distributed around the world. These tiny plastic bricks and the company they have built, are a phenomenon with a success as considerable as Mickey Mouse.

Lego Bricks become The construction Blocks Of Fantasy

Where did Lego come from and how did it get to be such an prominent tool for childhood creativity?

Our story begins in Billund, Denmark. It is 1932. Specialist carpenter and joiner Ole Kirk Kristiansen opened a new business. His exiguous company makes stepladders, ironing boards and wooden toys. He has just six employees. Nobody could have imagined, but Lego and the exiguous construction blocks of imagination had just been born.

Two years later, Kristiansen adopted the name Lego as a brand name for his toys. The name is derived from the Danish words "leg godt," which mean "play well." Ironically, he later discovered that Lego in Latin means "I put together." Lego has truly come to mean "put together" and "play well" in virtually every language. At this time, all of the company's toys were being made from wood.

In 1942, the Lego installation burned to the ground. Kristiansen rebuilt.

In 1947, the Lego company became the first company in Denmark to buy an injection-molding machine. It began manufacture plastic toy dolls and other toys. The famed bricks were yet to be invented.

It was not until 1949 that the Lego company introduced the automated Binding Brick, a exiguous plastic brick, some with four studs and some with eight. At this time, the company was producing about 200 separate plastic toys. The automated Binding Brick was sold exclusively in Denmark.

By 1950, plastic toys became half of the company's business. Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred Kirk, who had worked in the company since age 12, was appointed junior vice president at age 30.

In 1954, Godtfred Kirk made a trip to England to meet with a purchasing agent. The purchasing agent told Kristiansen that he thought the automated Binding Bricks lacked an idea and system. Godtfred returned to Denmark. The Lego system was developed.
The following year, Godtfred introduced the Lego system at a toy fair in Germany. It was the first time it was introduced surface of Denmark. The results were disappointing. Kristiansen did not give up. Later that year, the Lego system Play was developed. It was an improved system for the Lego bricks. The Lego system Play was exported to Sweden, where it sold well.

In 1959, Lego bricks and the Lego system were introduced in Great Britain, France, and Belgium.

It wasn't until 1961 that Lego bricks were first marketed in the U.S. And Canada. They were an immediate hit and distribution around the world continued. By the end of that decade, 843 citizen in Billund worked for the Lego company. The first Legoland film was produced. In 1969, the Duplo system for children under age five was introduced.

By 1970, there were approximately 1,000 employees at the plant in Billund.

In 1980, the Educational Products group was established. The Duplo Rabbit logo was introduced and a recognize showed that 70 percent of all Western European families with children under age 14 had Lego in their home.

As 1990 unfolded, the Lego Group had become one of the world's 10 largest toy manufacturers and the only toy company of that size in Europe. The others were in Japan and the U.S. More than one million citizen visited the Legoland theme park and Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen famed his 70th birthday. Lego Publishing was renamed Lego Licensing and the Legoland Band issued an Lp.

With the beginning of the new century, Lego continues to grow. It has also continued to remain a family owned company. These days, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the grandson of Ole Kirk, runs the company.

In 2003, a description 1.63 million citizen visited the Legoland theme park in Billund. The Lego mini-figure famed its 25th birthday and the Bionicle film "Mask of Light" was released to great success. Representations of the Lego mini-figures Biff Starling and Sandy Moondust are the first earthlings to reach the planet Mars onboard the Nasa Mars rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity." The Lego instruction town in Shanghai opened. The thought was aimed at children from age three to age twelve. There are more than 80 Lego instruction Centers in Korea alone. Http://www.lego.com receives around four million visitors per month.

Lego bricks are more than just construction blocks. They are learning toys. They build on popular themes and children's stories and allow the child to practice his or her own imagination and creativity. Offshoots of the basic brick comprise such toys as Lego Robotics, Star Wars Lego, Harry Potter Legos and many other construction toys and kids' games. It is truly astounding what a few bricks and a full part of imagination will produce.

Lego - A History Of These construction Blocks Of Imagination

The History of Lego

In 1916, Ole Kirk Christiansen was a carpenter that made houses and furniture for local farmers. Unfortunately in 1924, the workshop burned down due to a fire caused by Christiansen's two small children. Taking this as an opening to best his business, Christiansen rebuilt the workshop in a bigger and more efficient place. While the Great Depression, he made stepladders and ironing boards, which soon gave him the inspiration to begin making toys. Some of Christiansen's early toys included cars, trucks and wooden pull toys.

In 1934, the word Lego was coined from the words leg godt, meaning 'play well'. It was then that Christiansen began producing the small, interlocking bricks, similar as we know them today. These were named automatic Binding Bricks and were based off of samples of interlocking bricks from another toy company.

Lego

Although a creative idea, automatic Binding Bricks were not favoured by children, and were often returned because of their lack to stay associated together.

In 1947, the premise then purchased a plastic moulding engine to focus on making plastic toys. At this point in time, wooden toys were more widely produced, putting Christiansen one step ahead of his competition. In the early 1950's, Christiansen's son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, became the Junior Vice President of the factory. His strong dedication helped to make plastic toys even more successful and popular. In fact, by 1951, plastic toys were half of the requested orders, making wooden toys second.

It was then in 1958 that the contemporary day Lego compose was created. Hollow tubes were made to go underneath the bricks, creating the Lego toys to interlock with one another and stay put. Lego toys were quickly more favoured as they were more garage to build with. As these sure changes were made, Ole Kirk Christiansen died, leaving his son to be the head of the factory. Shortly after, the former wooden toy warehouse was destroyed in a fire, leaving the premise to focus solely on the output of plastic toys.

In 1963, Abs plastic was added to the Lego toys in place of cellulose acetate. Abs plastic made the toys stronger and held on to the rich colours that the toys are so often known for. These new Lego toys were made safer as well because Abs plastic is non-toxic.

In 1967, Duplo was introduced to the market, which are larger version of Lego toys made for children 5 and under. Lego has continued to grow to be an empire, familiar and loved over the world. The introduction of Legoland Parks have reached over the world as well, giving people of all ages the opening to build and generate anyone their imagination allows them to.

The History of Lego

History of Lego Star Wars

Lego Star Wars has quite the entertaining history when it comes to the fact that the game entertains children everywhere. It all stems from the favorite plastic building blocks that can be used to build cars, space ships, buildings, and anything a child's imagination can think up. anything under the age of 60 has most likely played with Legos, so that means that many of the children playing with them today have grandparents who once used their imaginations to do the same exact thing.

The Lego saga began in 1932 in Billund, Denmark, where a carpenter by the name of Ole Kirk Kristiansen began a new company that made wooden toys, stepladders, and ironing boards. What no one realized at that time was that Legos had been born.

Lego

It was in 1934 that Kristiansen created the name Lego, which is derived from "leg godt," which are the Danish words for "play well." However, in Latin, the word Lego means "I put together." Unfortunately in 1942, the plant burned down and Kristiansen had to rebuild, but just two years later, Kristiansen's plant purchased an injection molding machine that created plastic toys, but he was yet to form the building blocks.

It was in 1949 that the self-acting Binding Brick was introduced for sale only in Denmark and looked like a tiny plastic brick with eight or four studs. However, by 1950 the Lego accounted for half of the company's business. From then on, the Lego began spreading colse to the world and through the years had developed varied themes such as sets that focused just on building cars or on just building buildings. The possibilities were endless.

However, the Legos of today are much different than the Legos both we and our parents played with. Our children are playing with Lego theme parks, there are Lego themed movies, and there are even Lego themed video games that are based off of single toy lines created by Lego. One of those toy lines is Lego Star Wars, which later led to the Lego Star Wars video game.

The video game was first released in 2005 and is based while the prequel trilogy to the actual Star Wars Trilogy that began in the late 1970's and early 1980's. However, the game was certainly released a month before the last of the Star Wars films was released.

It was developed by LucasArts and Eidos Interactive for the Sony PlayStation2, the Microsoft Xbox, and for personal computers running the Microsoft Windows Operating System. It was also developed for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. In August 2005, A Mac port was developed for the game to be played on Mac computers and in October 2005, a version was released for the Nintendo GameCube.

Lego Star Wars received the Kidsworld.com award of Game of the Year and received very good reviews. In May 2005, it even peaked at the top of the charts in the Uk to eventually lose its important spot to the episode Iii game that was later released. However, its position as a top game for kids remained high for quite some time.

In September 2006, Lego Star Wars Ii: The original Trilogy was released and a year later was followed by a prequel game released in November 2007 called, Lego Star Wars: The complete Saga. Some deem the Lego Star Wars video games as the coolest games in history and they consistently receive ratings between 4 and 5 stars out of a potential 5 stars on many gaming websites. The games are great for children and are a great way for the Lego heritage to live on through the electronic world.

History of Lego Star Wars

A History Of Star Wars Lego Sets - The Year 2002

Lego has produced Star Wars sets for over ten years and in their third year of the licence, the firm began to issue sets from the second of the Star Wars Prequels, assault Of the Clones.

Released in 2002, the sequel to The Phantom Menace was well received and inquire was high for Star Wars Lego in this year. Lego prolonged the broad range of sets, releasing 22 in all. These included a amount of greatest collector and Technic Sets as well as their quarterly range of models based on both prequel and primary trilogy films.

Lego

In regards to long-term collecting interests the most paramount sets of the year included the greatest collector Star Destroyer (10030). The set came in at 3096 pieces and measured 37'inches long by 23'inches wide. At the time of release, it was the largest Star Wars Lego set and genuinely the largest Lego set ever produced. It still commands high prices on the secondary market.

Demand has also remained high for the Republic Gunship (7163), the first of its kind released in Lego format and the first set to contain clone troopers. The ship featured in assault Of the Clones as both a vehicle and assault gunship and the set, while small by today's standards at 693 pieces was a popular with fans who wanted to start their clone army.

The most enduring frame of the year would have to be the frame of Jango Fett, featured in the set Jango Fett's Slave 1 (7153). Surprisingly Jango Fett has never been repeated in a Lego set since this first issue and so the set and the frame inquire high prices in today's market. The set also featured the unique frame Boba Fett as a boy. While cute, baby Boba has not proven to be as popular as his father.

Other sets worth noting from 2002 contain Final Duel and Final Duel Ii (7200 and 7201) two very small sets that attracted alot of attention for their minifigs and parts and were very well priced at .99 each. Similarly priced were Jedi Defence I and Jedi Defence Ii (7203 and 7204) which offered similar value for Prequel Trilogy figures and settings.

Other sets in this year included Ewok assault (7193) which was the first appearance of the furry warriors from Return Of the Jedi, Jedi Duel (7103) which remained collectable for years afterwards because of the Yoda and Dooku figures and the Tusken Raider Encounter (7113) which featured Anakin and the first (and only) Tusken Raiders released.

2002 was a great year for Star Wars Lego as it vast the universe even further, allowing fans and kids to play with and accumulate more of the vital moments of the films.

A History Of Star Wars Lego Sets - The Year 2002