LEGO's 50th anniversary

Today is LEGO's 50th birthday, or rather the anniversary of the patent approval for the original brick. Joel Johnson has more at Boing Boing Gadgets, including a timeline of LEGO technology advances. From LEGO.com:

 Images Lego Brick
The LEGO history began in 1932 in Denmark, when Ole Kirk Christansen founded a small factory for wooden toys in the unknown town of Billund in the south of the country. To find a name for his company he organized a competition among his employees. As fate would have it however, he himself came up with the best name: LEGO – a fusion of the Danish words "LEg" and "GOdt" ("play well").

Link and Link