//Timeline of Toys and Games
//Discovered and Prepared on 10-27-02
//Source: http://www.historychannel.com/cgi-bin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//www.historychannel.com/exhibits/toys/timeline.html
//© The History Channel's "Timeline of Toys and Games" 2002
//Prepared from a web site by 'copy and paste' method.
//By Jen F.
//CSE 143 JH
//Homework 2 Participation Assignment
200
The first iron skates are used in Scandinavia.  
600
An ancestor of chess begins to be played. It evolves from an Indian game called Chaturanga. In the fifteenth century, modern chess pieces were finally standardized and the queen and bishop pieces acquired the powers that they hold today.  
969
Playing cards begin to be used in Asia.  
1759
Roller skates are invented by Joseph Merlin.
1840
The first American dollmaker is granted a patent and dolls begin to be mass-produced in America for the first time.  
1800
(1800s)Playgrounds begin to appear in American cities. The idea stemmed from the efforts of city reformers who were searching for more healthful play options for children in urban areas, where parks and yards were scarce. The playgrounds started off as "sand gardens," inspired by those seen by an American social worker while visiting Berlin. Financed by local businesses, city playgrounds soon included swings and see-saws.  
1843
The Mansion of Happiness is developed by S.B. Ives in Salem, Massachusetts. It becomes the first board game sold in the United States.  
1886
The first BB gun is created. Made for children, it scares many parents because it is actually a working gun that can cause injury. The BB gun is a descendant of the cap gun, which was invented soon after the Civil War, when some shotgun manufacturers converted their factories to make toys. Penny pistols and other authentic looking toy guns also began to appear in the 1880s.  
1887
The speaking doll, which had first been invented by Johann Maelzel in 1820, is improved when Thomas Edison combines his phonograph technology with a doll, allowing it to speak.  
1896
A westernized version of the Indian game Parcheesi is introduced in England under the name Ludo. Parcheesi is a type of "cross and circle" game, which dates back to 300 A.D. and was played in the Korean, Syrian, and Aztec cultures.
1880
(Late 1880s) Maj Jongg, which was named for a Chinese word meaning "sparrow," originates in the Ningbo area of China. Games like Mah Jongg had been played as long ago as 800.  
1901
At just twenty-two years old, Joshua Lionel Cowen creates a battery-powered train engine as an "animated advertisement" for products in a store's display window. To his surprise, customers are more interested in purchasing his toy train, than the merchandise in the display. Lionel Trains is born.  
1902
In America, toy bears begin to be called "Teddy Bears" after President Theodore Roosevelt. In only a few years, Teddy Bear-mania sweeps the world and by 1915, large-scale toy bear manufacturing is in full swing.  
1903
Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith produce the first box of Crayola crayons.  
1913
Former Olympian (Gold, Pole Vault, 1908) and medical doctor A.C. Gilbert invents the Erector Set, a motorized toy made of steel parts that children use to build models of everything from ferris wheels and skyscrapers to record players and microscopes.  
1914
Charles Pajeau develops a toy similar to the Erector Set, but designed for younger children, called Tinker Toys. Pajeau was inspired by watching children poke sticks into the holes of thread spools.  
1915
Johnny Gruelle, a newspaper cartoonist, begins to sell Raggedy Ann dolls based on one he had made for his daughter, Marcella.  
1916
John Lloyd Wright, the son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright invents Lincoln Logs, interlocking toy logs children use to build imaginative structures. Wright was inspired by the way that his father designed the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan.  
1927
A tough, durable kind of plastic, polystyrene, is invented. Although the first plastic, celluloid, was invented in the 1860s, polystyrene is the first type strong enough to really suit toy making.  
1928
The Mickey Mouse character is created by Walt Disney. Two years later, Charlotte Clark began making stuffed Mickey Mouse dolls and Disney merchandising was born.  
1929
The yo-yo is popularized in the United States after entrepreneur Donald Duncan sees the toy being demonstrated in Los Angeles. Duncan buys a small yo-yo company for $25,000 and, thirty years later, sales of Duncan yo-yos reach $25 million dollars.  
1931
Alfred M. Butts, an unemployed architect from Poughkeepsie, New York, invents a word game called the Criss Cross Game. In 1948, Butts sells rights to the game to entrepreneur James Brunot who trademarks the game under the name Scrabble.  
1936
Parker Brothers introduces Monopoly.  
1940
(Early 1940s) Affordable, detailed model airplanes begin to be mass-produced. Originally designed to help manufacturers sell airplanes to the military, they begin to make practical toys with the introduction of plastic. Before plastic, models were made with balsa wood provided in kits. Otherwise, consumers had to cut their own wood pieces to fit a provided pattern.  
1943
While searching for a suspension device to ease rough sailing on battleships, navy engineer Richard James discovers that a torsion spring will "walk" end over end when knocked over. James brought the discovery home to his wife, who named the new toy "Slinky." If stretched end to end, the Slinky toys sold since 1945 would wrap around the world 126 times. Despite their enormous success, Slinkys are still made in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on the same eight machines that James began with over fifty years ago.  
1949
Ole Christiansen, a Danish toy maker, begins to manufacture toy blocks with a new twist. Christiansen creates a plastic brick that can be locked together in different configurations. The Lego, which comes from the Danish leg godt, meaning "play well," was born. The continuing popularity of the Lego brick probably stems from its ability to stimulate a child's imagination-just six bricks fit together in 102,981,500 different ways. Eleanor Abbott designs Candy Land while recovering from polio in San Diego, California. Abbott designed games for child polio victims and Candy Land's gingerbread-man game pieces, Peppermint Stick Forest, Gingerbread Plum Tree, and Gum Drop Mountain proved so popular with the children that Milton Bradley soon agreed to buy the game. Today Candy Land is recognized internationally as one of a child's favorite first games. 
1952
Banking on the idea that children like to play with their food, Hasbro introduces Mr. Potato Head. Edward Haas brings the Pez mint dispenser to the United States. It was initially unsuccessful, but gained popularity after Haas changed the original lighter-like design by adding a cartoon head and replacing the mints with fruit-flavored candy. Jack Odell creates the original Matchbox car when he makes a small brass model of a Road Roller and puts it into a matchbox so that his daughter could bring it to school. Today, 100 million Matchbox cars are sold each year.  
1956
At a Fourth of July family barbecue, Milton Levine dreams up the idea for the first Ant Farm, complete with live ants. Play-doh enters the market as a wallpaper cleaner. Non-toxic and less messy than regular modeling clay, it is soon recognized that the cleaner makes an excellent toy. The innovative product made Joe McVicker a millionaire before his twenty-seventh birthday. To date, 700 million pounds of Play-doh have been sold. 
1957
When a group of Minnesota teachers realized their attempt to make and sell garden tools is failing, they decide to use their extra materials to make toys. They name the toy trucks they create, Tonka trucks, after nearby lake Minnetonka. Fifty years later, they've sold thirty million of the miniature vehicles, and used up 120,000 gallons of paint on their signature yellow dump trucks.  
1959
The Barbie doll is introduced at the American Toy Fair in New York City by Elliot Handler, founder of Mattel Toys, and his wife, Ruth. Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr begin to market Hula Hoops, after getting the idea from a friend who saw schoolchildren in Australia twirl bamboo hoops around their waist for exercise. Melin and Knerr were actually reincarnating a toy that was probably used as long ago as 1000 B.C. in Egypt, and, later, Greece and Rome. In the first year of production, fifteen million Hula Hoops were sold. 
1960
Ohio Art markets the first Etch-a-Sketch. They have since sold more than one hundred million of these popular drawing toys. The Etch-a-Sketch was invented by Arthur Granjean in the late 1950s and was originally called L'Ecran Magique. In 1869, Milton Bradley invented a game he called The Checkered Game of Life. Its popularity began Bradley's career in the game business. In 1959, executives at Bradley's company asked game inventor Reuben Klammer to come up with a game to commemorate Milton Bradley's anniversary. Inspired by one of Bradley's old Checkered Game of Life gameboards, Klamer designed the now-classic Game of Life.
1965
Stanley Weston creates a doll for boys based on a new television show called The Lieutenant. The doll, G.I. Joe, proves more popular than the TV series, to the surprise of many toy manufacturers who had assumed for years that boys wouldn't play with dolls. Interestingly, a female G.I. Joe doll introduced years later was a flop.  
1966
Elliot Handler, one of the co-founders of Mattel, Inc., invents Hot Wheels when he decides to add axles and rotating wheels to small model cars. His gravity-powered car with special low-friction styrene wheels reaches 300 miles per hour.  
1969
Parker Brothers markets the first Nerf ball, a polyurethane foam ball that is safe for indoor play. By year's end, more than four million Nerf balls are sold.  
1972
Magnavox introduces Odyssey, the first video game machine, featuring a primitive form of paddle ball. Other companies soon invested in the video game business and, by 1976, hockey, tennis, and squash were available.  
1973
Dungeons & Dragons is invented by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. The game creates a whole new fantasy/adventure category of toys, which has become a $250 million market.  
1976
Nolan Bushnell sells his video game company, Atari, to Warner Brothers. Atari's popular Pong and Super Pong video tennis games soon gave way to a home video cartridge system that ran full-color games, from baseball to Pacman. By 1982, Atari was making $2 billion a year, but lost its business just as quickly through over-licensing. In 1983, Atari sent thousands of cartridges to Texas to be used as landfill.  
1977
Kenner Toys introduces a line of Star Wars action figures, capitalizing on the popularity of George Lucas's blockbuster film. They dominate the action figure market.  
1983
A Japanese company, Nintendo, brings the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), a home video game system, to the United States. With fifty-two colors, realistic sound, and high-speed action, it catches the attention of retailers who were initially skittish due to Atari's collapse. The NES, as well as the popular Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda game cartridges, were the top-selling toys for the 1987, 1988, and 1988 holiday seasons. In 1989, Nintendo released Game Boy, a battery-powered, hand-held video game system.  
1986
Artist Xavier Roberts introduces his Cabbage Patch Kids into the mass market. Each of the dolls comes with an adoption certificate and unique name. Although more than three million of the dolls are produced, supply cannot keep up with demand. Cabbage Patch Kids become the most successful new dolls in the history of the toy industry. Roberts first designed the dolls in 1977 to help pay his way through school. They had soft faces and were made by hand, as opposed to the hard-faced mass-market dolls, and were called Little People. Rob Angel, a twenty-four-year-old waiter from Seattle, introduces Pictionary, a game in which partners try to guess phrases based on each other's drawings. 
1987
Engineer Scott Stillinger invents the Koosh Ball in an effort to teach young children how to catch. He tied rubber bands together to make a small, easy-to-catch ball. The name "koosh" comes from the sound the ball makes as it lands in a person's hand.  
1993
Toy inventor H. Ty Warner begins to market understuffed plush bean bag toys called Beanie Babies. The toys are designed to be inexpensive so that a child could purchase them. Warner began with nine Beanie Babies (a dog, a platypus, a moose, a bear, a dolphin, a frog, a lobster, a whale, and a pig). The toys were not an instant success. It was only after the first eleven Beanie Babies were retired in 1996 that they became a collector's item.