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Lego, the world's most famous toy, turns 80

Looking at Lego's most impressive creations -- its giant "Star Wars" sets, its Master Builder Academy initiative, its programmable Mindstorms system -- it's easy to forget that it was 80 years ago that the global behemoth had much more humble beginnings when Ole Kirk Christiansen started a little wooden toy company in Billund, Denmark.

Today, Lego is celebrating its 80th birthday, and touting its growth from a tiny outfit in a single building in Billund to the world's third-largest "producer of play materials," employing 10,000 people, many in its variety of production facilities in Europe and beyond.

As the company is fond of pointing out, "Lego" comes from the combination of two Danish words, "leg" and "godt," meaning "play well." And in the early years, when it was focusing its energies on wooden toys, it was by no means a world-changer. … Read more

How Lego changed the world of toys

BILLUND, Denmark--Though it's hard to imagine a time without Lego, the world-famous plastic bricks didn't exist until 1949. And today's brick, with its three little tubes that ensure a snug fit with other bricks, didn't come on the scene until 1957.

But the Lego company has been around much longer than that. It may be something most people have never even heard about; Ole Kirk Kristiansen's little outfit began in this small Danish town as a one-man operation turning out wooden toys. Being a world-famous brand was surely not on Kristiansen's mind at the … Read more

Watching Lego make its world-famous bricks

BILLUND, Denmark--There are a lot of different Lego sets. There are pirate sets, Star Wars sets, city sets, space sets, and many more. But at the heart of it all, at the heart of a toy empire with many millions of passionate fans throughout the world, is the brick.

A single Lego brick is nothing special. But put two together and you can start to make things. Add another, and another, and the number of things you can make starts to go up exponentially. Let's say you had six standard four-by-two red bricks. With those pieces alone, there are … Read more