Hours 10 a.m.–5 p.m. | Fri. & Sat. till 8 p.m.
Inducted Year: 1998
Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all played with marbles made of stone or polished nuts. Shakespeare mentioned marbles in his play Twelfth Night. The earliest settlers brought them to America from Europe, and even a few founding fathers shot a skilled game! A kids’ game, marbles has also become an officially recognized sport with its own world championship competition governed by the Official Set of State and Interstate Rules. Stone or clay formed the earliest marbles, but the […]
LEGO
Inducted Year: 1998
Named “Toy of the Century” in 2000 by both Fortune magazine and the British Association of Toy Retailers, LEGO blocks have delighted generations of kids and their parents. In 1949, Ole Christiansen, a Danish carpenter, created a set of interlocking red-and-white “Automatic Binding Blocks”—LEGO bricks. In Danish, leg godt means “play well.” Educational theorists and developmental psychologists, especially those who follow Jean Piaget, find LEGO bricks an ideal toy, one that proves how children are not simply passive […]