If there is one thing children the world over have played with, it would be Lego toys. The famous plastic interlocking toys company is based in Billund, Denmark.
But Lego may not have existed if it was not for a fire. The journey of the Lego Group started in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1916. At first, the shop produced furniture such as ladders, stools and ironing boards. After a set of wood chips in the shop caught fire and burnt down the building, Christiansen had to start life anew. He chose to create inexpensive toys with the wood he had. In 1932 he founded his new company and named it Lego—from the Danish words leg godt, meaning “play well”. After World War II, in 1946, Christiansen bought Denmark’s first plastic-injection moulding machine and began experimenting with it for his toys. In 1947, he was finally allowed to use it for goods he could sell. According to Lego, the fact that the name was English and not Danish was an homage to the allied forces that liberated Denmark and helped end the world war.
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