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Lego is a line of building toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Denmark.

The Lego group had it's beginnings in 1932. A carpenter from Buillund, Denmark -- Ole Kirk Christiansen began a company creating wooden toys.

Fifteen years later (1947) the company expanded to producing plastic toys.  In 1949, they began producing the now-famous interlocking bricks. (Baising their design on a locking brick system from a company called Kidicraft.)

Initial sales were poor.  The industry thought that...

Plastic toys could never replace wooden ones.

(Wow...maybe they didn't have very good plastics back then.. but that sure sounds funny to hear today.)

It was not until 1958 that the modern-day brick design was developed, and it took another five years (1963) to find exactly the right material creating the brick we know today. (About 14 years of marketing and refinement.)

They've kept the system compatible and Lego bricks from 1963 still interlock with those made in 2007.

The success of lego brand is reflected in their production.  20 billion Blocks per year, or about 6000 pieces per second.

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego