10 fascinating facts you don’t know about Lego
The “building blocks” of generations of people’s childhoods, Lego was officially named “Toy of the Century” in 2000 by Fortune magazine and British Association of Toy Retailers. No other toy has achieved the enduring popularity of Lego so to celebrate this amazing creation that has brought so much joy to children and adults alike, let’s learn some interesting facts about the world’s favourite bricks.
1. Lego was originally called Automatic Binding Bricks
Although an accurate description, it just doesn’t have the same ring does it?
2. The name Lego comes from the Danish language
Lego was invented by Danish man, Ole Kirch Christiansen, who started it when he lost his job as a carpenter. He combined the first two letters of the Danish words “Leg” and “Godt”, which means “play well”.
3. Since 1958, every single Lego brick can interlock
Although Lego was created in 1949, there was a slight design change in 1958. However, ever since then all the blocks have been consistent so generations of children can use all their sets to create Lego masterpieces.
4. Three eight-studded bricks can fit together in 1,060 ways
Computers have figured out two bricks combine in 24 different ways, whereas six bricks staggeringly combine in 915,103,765 ways. Now that’s a lot of creations to be made.
5. A real house made entirely of Lego was once built
In 2009, James May, the presenter of BBC show Toy Stories, built the world’s first full-sized Lego house. Using 3.3 million bricks, May and 1,000 volunteers built the two-storey house which contained a working toilet and shower, as well as a bed. All were made of Lego. Unfortunately, the building had to be torn down when nobody wanted to buy it.
6. If Lego figurines were human, they would hold the record of the world’s largest population
The first Lego figurine was created in 1978 and since then four billion have been made. Each minifigure is exactly four bricks high without a hat.
7. During Christmas, 28 Lego sets are sold each second.
It seems Lego still remains a childhood favourite toy with 1,068 sets sold every minute around the world.
8. The annual production of Lego bricks averages 36 billion.
That’s 1,140 bricks per second.
9. Only 18 pieces out of one million are wasted during production.
The moulds used to produce Lego bricks are accurate within two-thousands of a millimetre so only 18 pieces are ever wasted in every million.
10. The largest commercial product Lego set is the Taj Mahal.
The set contained over 5,900 pieces to create the famous jewel of India. The Lego version of London’s Tower pieces comes in third with over 4,200 pieces.
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