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30 - What Do Lego and the Greatest Invention of the Twentieth Century Have in Common?

The Second Era of Globalisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2022

Johan Fourie
Affiliation:
University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
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Summary

The main reason for the long-lasting popularity of Lego bricks is their versatility. A back-of-the-envelope calculation will reveal that six bricks of 2 x 4 studs can be combined in almost 1 billion ways. And because Lego bricks made today still interlock with those first made in 1958, the year the toy was first patented, the possibilities for creative play are, quite literally, innumerable.

Two years before the patent that would turn Lego into the world’s favourite toy company, a man called Malcom McLean made the same discovery as Ole Kirk Christiansen, the inventor of Lego. McLean was not in the business of making children’s toys, however, but of shipping goods. On 26 April 1956 he was watching his idea come to fruition: in Newark, New Jersey, a crane was lifting fifty-eight aluminium metal boxes into an old tanker ship.

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Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom
Lessons from 100,000 Years of Human History
, pp. 181 - 187
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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