Many of you know the name LEGO very well. You might not know that the company was started in 1932.

First off, I would like to tell you that I am using Information from "The Ultimate LEGO Book" published by DK Publishing Inc.

The LEGO company was started by a master carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen in the town of Billund in Jutland, Denmark. In 1932, during the Great Depression, Ole had decided to diversify his buisness by making wooden toys. If there had been no economic depression, the LEGO brick might have never been invented. The name "LEGO" is a contraction of the danish for "play well" - "LEg GOdt"

After World War II new plastics technology made it possible for many new toys to be made. LEGO began producing plastic products in 1947 and two years later, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen (GKC), Ole Kirk's son pioneered the first forerunners of LEGO bricks, Automatic Binding Bricks. "Automatic Binding Bricks" were renamed "LEGO Bricks" in 1953.

In 1953, the LEGO company changed the material used to make LEGO bricks. They changed from Cellulose Acetate to Acrylnitrile Butadiene Styrine (ABS). The new material was more stable, more colorfast, and allowed greater modling prescision.

The first minifigure as you know today was created in 1978. Since then, more than 2.3 billion minifigures have been produced.

I hope this has given you a little preview into the vast history of the LEGO company. If you would like to learn more, I suggest you pick up "The Ultimate Lego Book".

This is bilboy signing off. I hopw you enjoyed my article.