50th anniversary of the LEGO brick

Did you know? January 28 is the 50th anniversary of the Lego Brick. On this day in history, the Lego brick was officially created, and millions of children (and adults!) all over the world had a great new hobby. Here are some fun Lego facts:

• There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world's 6 billion inhabitants.

• Children around the world spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO bricks.

• More than 400 million people around the world have played with LEGO bricks.

• 19 billion LEGO elements are produced every year.

• 2.16 million LEGO elements are molded every hour, or 36,000 per minute.

• More than 400 billion LEGO bricks have been produced since 1949.

Here are a few fun videos about LEGO bricks. First, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" reproduced with LEGO bricks:

Next, a LEGO bricks version of Grand Theft Auto:

Last, a LEGO bricks fight scene:

The History of LEGO Bricks

The Lego Group had a very humble beginning in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. Christiansen began creating wooden toys in 1932; the company began calling itself "Lego" two years later in 1934. The company expanded to producing plastic toys in 1947. In 1949, Lego began producing the now-famous interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based largely on the design of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which were released in the UK in 1947. The first Lego bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another; however, these plastic bricks could be "locked" together. They had several round "studs" on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. The blocks snapped together, but not so tightly that they could not be pulled apart.

The company name Lego was coined by Christiansen from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well". The name could also be interpreted as "I put together" or "I assemble" in Latin, though this would be a somewhat forced application of the general sense "I collect; I gather; I learn"; the word is most used in the derived sense, "I read". The cognate Greek verb "λέγω" or "lego" also means "gather, pick up", but this can include constructing a stone wall.[1]

The Lego Group's motto is "Only the best is good enough", translated from the Danish phrase, Det bedste er ikke for godt. This motto was created by Ole Kirk to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly. The motto is still used within the company today.

The use of plastic for toy manufacture was not highly regarded by retailers and consumers of the time. Many of the Lego Group's shipments were returned, following poor sales; it was thought that plastic toys could never replace wooden ones.

By 1954, Christiansen's son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that struck the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their "locking" ability was limited, and they were not very versatile. It was not until 1958 that the modern-day brick design was developed, and it took another five years to find exactly the right material for it. The modern Lego brick was patented on January 28, 1958, and bricks from that year are still compatible with bricks today

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Popular Lego Brick Sets

Many people love to collect LEGO brick sets and build them, and some of the most popular are Harry Potter-themed Lego Brick sets such as the following:
10) The Graveyard Duel

The Harry Potter Graveyard Duel is kind of creepy and in somewhat bad taste, since this is the duel from the Triwizard Tournament where Cedric Diggory got killed by Voldemort. So, uh, neat, but a bit awkward. Let's move on.

9)Snape's Class

Yay! It's Snape's Class! Even though I grudgingly like Snape by the end of the books, I still wouldn't be averse to pinching his Lego head a few times - how about you?

8) The Sorting Hat

Okay, so how tempting would it be to put The Sorting Hat on Harry here and send him to some college fraternity at UCLA or something? Or maybe that's just me.

7) Aragog

Oh, yes -let's create an Aragog Lego set so we can continue the madcap adventures of a GIANT FREAKING SPIDER. Like we weren't already all squigged out in the first place by this thing, NOW we're going to build it out of Lego blocks. Most likely, this will be used to scare the daylights out of various little sisters.

6) Dumbledore's Office

Now, here we go with Dumbledore's Office, a super set that looks to be fairly complicated yet way worth the effort. You could even think of your own passwords in order to get in the thing, although you'd have to hide them from yourself so you wouldn't figure them out.....yeah, that didn't make any sense to me either. Hmmm. Cool set!

5) The Shrieking Shack

I always thought that the The Shrieking Shack sounded kind of like a 50's doo-wop song. You know, like "let's go down to the Shrieking Shack, we don't know when we'll ever be back, doo doo wop".

4) Chamber of Secrets

So guess how many pieces the Chamber of Secrets set has? 600. Yep, just in this one set, there are 600 teensy little pieces. I think that's probably the biggest appeal for me, even though I know within 20 minutes of breaking it open I'll have lost at least 1/3 of those pieces.

3) Hagrid's Hut

Hagrid's Hut is cool for one reason and one reason only: it includes a mini-Hagrid figure AND (I realize this is two reasons, go with me) what looks to be a giant bear trap in the front of the hut. Awesome.

2) Quidditch

Show of hands, and let's be honest here: how many of you would take the mini Draco Malfoy figure that is included in this Quidditch set and totally whack him over the head with a few Bludgers?

drumroll please AND THE BEST HARRY POTTER LEGO SET IS.....

1) Hogwarts Castle

Seriously, LOOK AT THIS THING. It's Hogwarts, for pete's sake. It's got secret rooms and all sorts of kickass Lego stuff. I want to build it and put it on my coffee table and make everyone jealous of how awesome it is.

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