The LEGO Brick Turns 50 Today!

Guess what? The LEGO® brick turned 50 today at exactly 1:58 pm today! Wow, 50 years. That is just amazing.

I remember playing with LEGOS® as a kid and I don’t know a kid today who hasn’t played with them. It’s just one of those staple toys in child’s life.

In honor of the LEGO® brick 50th anniversary, here are some fun LEGO® facts for you:

• 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.
• LEGO bricks are available in 53 different colors including PINK!
• 2.16 million LEGO elements are molded every hour, or 36,000 per minute.
• Two eight-stud LEGO bricks of the same color can be combined in 24 different ways.  Three eight-stud bricks can be combined in 1,060 ways.  There are more than 915 million combinations possible for six 2 x 4 LEGO bricks of the same color.
• The LEGO bricks sold in one year would circle the world 5 times.
• 40 billion LEGO bricks stacked on top of one another would connect the earth with the moon.
• The LEGO brick has inspired generations of innovators, including Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, renowned cake decorator, Duff Goldman, of Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes”, and Jonathan Gay, inventor of Flash animation.
• LEGO may even be considered a global pop culture icon.  A January 2008 Google search produces 57.6 million references to LEGO bricks, while there are 55,600 LEGO videos on YouTube.

And here are some other random facts for you to enjoy:

Additional LEGO® Facts

• The word “LEGO” is formed from the Danish words “leg godt,” which means “play well.” Later it was discovered that LEGO means “I put together” in Latin.
• The LEGO Group is the world’s biggest manufacturer of vehicle tires producing 306 million per year.
• Four billion LEGO minifigures inhabit the world, which makes them the largest population group on earth.

This has really been a great year for LEGO. They are also celebrating the 30^th birthday of the LEGO Minifigure, the 10^th Anniversary of LEGO MINDSTORMS, continuing the LEGO Creativity Awards and hosting a global building contest.

Here’s how LEGO is celebrating their 50th:

To celebrate the 50^th birthday of the brick, the LEGO Group has developed two commemorative products, and will be announcing programs and activities through the entire year to engage families and children in the celebration.  Among the plans is a global building challenge inviting children from around the world to become the best LEGO builder in their country.  Each winner will then meet in Billund , Denmark , home of the LEGO Group, to compete in the ultimate building event.  Children ages 6-13 in the U.S. and Canada can find more details about the contest in the next issue of the LEGO Club Magazine or by visiting www.LEGO.com/Club in March.

Very exciting! Happy 50th LEGO Group from Play Library!

What’s your favorite thing to build with LEGOS? I can make a mean house!