Lego is a popular line of construction toys manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects. Lego began manufacturing interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Since then a global Lego subculture has developed, supporting movies, games, competitions, and six themed amusement parks.
History[]
The company started in Billund 1932, with a skilled carpenter called Ole Kirk Cristiansen. After his last company shut down, Ole lost his wife, but he came up with an idea to make toys with wood he had saved from the carpentry production. One of his sons, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, started helping him after school as well. When word began to spread, a whole sailor ordered some which led to Ole rehiring his former workers, though it was Ole himself who delivered the toys before christmas after the whole sailor went bankrupt.
In 1934, Ole gave the company the name Lego and the company moved forward in 1936. They bought a milling machine, but Godtfred cheated the customers by only painting the ducks twice instead of three times. Ole then made Godtfred unpack all the ducks, repaint them and carry them to the train station. Lego was making a profit in the late 1930s, even whedfalakjnfofkljhfoklhjflhjafasihfiauhfaildfhasdklfjhaisfhaeibadsgkljhasdglkuashgkjaghlagfkuhalgfkjhaldgfuhasdfkljadhfaluihfaldfkjhasdfasdfasdfasdfasfasdfen World War II broke out, only for Ole's workshop to burn down in a storm in 1942. Ole then rebuilt the company despite his drawings and models being burned and he built a new factory.
In 1949, Ole visited Copenhagen and found a new machine that had just arrived in Dennmark: a plastic molding machine, which Lego bought. Using it, Lego made little plastic teddy bears and rattles, and later redesigned some little plastic bricks Ole had received at the fair he had seen the molding machine. Godtfred later sold the toys himself and brought his wife Edith for company and support. Godtfred succeeded in his trip around the company and returned for Ole's sixtieth birthday party. Ole and Godtfred then sat together with Godtfred's son Kjeld and a picture was taken of them.
In 1954, Godtfred met the head of a great shopping center on his way home from a trip to England. He stated the toys had no system which gave Godtfred the idea to put system into the Lego company. They later put a new way for kids to play with the toys using the Lego bricks as houses, which was sold to many countries. Shortly after Ole's death, Godtfred caused the bricks to have a tube inside them and studs on the top to place inside the tube, before another fire that almost destroyed his company. Kjeld joined him and they made an even bigger factory, where Godtfred made it so that they stopped using the wood and focused only on the Lego system.
In 1961, Godtfred built an airport to sell the toys to the whole world. Three years later, Billund airport was opened, which caused the Lego factory to be so crowded that the workers had trouble working, which led Godtfred to build an amusement park with a model in his office and he created Legoland, which had six hundred thousand quests in 1968. The Kristiansen family were there to greet the guests and they have kept up this tradition ever since. Kjeld later took over after Godtfred's death and later his son Jørgen Vig Knudstorp after his.