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History
- 1932: Ole Kirk Christiansen, master carpenter and joiner, establishes his business in the village of Billund, Denmark.
- 1934: business adopts the name lego meaning “play well”
- 1935: creates lego duck
- 1937: Ole Kirk’s son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen starts creating models at the age of 17.
- 1924: Lego factory burns to the ground but wooden toys continued to be produced.
- 1947: lego group buys first plastic-molding machine for the creation of toys
- 1949: around 200 plastic and wooden toys
- The company produces around 200 different
plastic and wooden toys, including Automatic Binding Bricks, a forerunner of the LEGO bricks we know today.
- 1953: The Automatic Binding Brick’s new name: "LEGO Bricks"
- 1955: Lego System of Play is launched first in Sweden. It was not well received.
- 1958: Ole Kirk Christiansen, the founder, dies and the son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen , becomes head manager
- 1960: wooden toy warehouse is destroyed by fire and wooden toys are discontinued forever.
- 1963: Godfred Christiansen presents ten product characteristics for LEGOs:
- Unlimited play potential
- For girls and for boys
- Fun for every age
- Year-round play
- Healthy, quiet play
- Long hours of play
- Development, imagination, creativity
- The more LEGO, the greater the value
- Extra sets available
- Quality in every detail
- 1966: Battery-driven LEGO Train introduced
- 1977: Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the third generation, joins the LEGO group management
- 1986: first computer controlled LEGO products are released
- 1996: www.lego.com is launched
- 1998: LEGO MINDSTORMS is introduced
- 1999: LEGO is named product of the century by Fortune magazine
- they are the fourth largest company behind Mattel, Hasbro and Bandai
- Legoland is built in California as family entertainment with 50 Lego based rides
- 2002: Robotic invention system 2 is introduced which is a remote controlled constructible robot
- 2006: next generation of LEGO MINDSTORMS
introduced the NXT robot