Sixty-two years ago today on January 28, 1958, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen submitted a patent application for a toy building brick which was approved six months later. That patent for his “highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system” has since led to LEGO becoming one of the largest toy companies on the globe.

The original Danish patent not only covered a single brick but an entire building system where multiple interlocking plastic building elements “could be put together in a great number of mutually different positions” including several early brick designs pictured below, courtesy of LEGO.

So let’s celebrate our love of LEGO today by building a new set or seeing what LEGO was doing the decade we were born. Sort those parts you’ve needed to, create something new from scratch, or re-build that one LEGO set you loved as a kid. Play well, everyone.

Want to know more about the history of LEGO and the fan community? Check out The Brothers Brick LEGO History timeline.

Sixty-one years ago today on January 28, 1958 Godtfred Kirk Christiansen submitted a patent application for a toy building brick which was approved six months later. Little did Godtfred know that his “highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system” would lead to LEGO becoming one of the largest toy companies on the globe.

So let’s celebrate our love of LEGO today however we can, by building a new set or seeing what LEGO was doing the decade we were born. Sort some parts, create something new and amazing, or re-build that one set you loved as a kid. Play well, everyone.

Want to know more about the history of LEGO and the fan community? Check out our LEGO History timeline!

To celebrate the 60th birthday of its iconic 2×4 brick, LEGO created a red 10-foot tall brick and placed it in New York City right in front of the Flatiron Building. The larger-than-life brick weighs in at 1,200 pounds, is made up of more than 133,000 individual bricks, and took 350 hours to make.

Even more mind-blowing than seeing such a plastic monolith in a concrete jungle is that a LEGO brick from 1958 still interlocks with a LEGO brick made today. This is due to precision injection molding and the original idea of using tubes to create clutch power. Before the Kristiansens settled on the familiar tube underside, they considered several 0ptions for the original pattern of LEGO bricks.

Click to take a closer look at the massive brick in NYC

Sixty years ago today on January 28, 1958, at 1:58pm, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen submitted a patent application for a toy building brick which was approved six months later. Little did Godtfred know that his “highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system” would lead to LEGO becoming one of the largest toy companies on the globe.

We’ll have more on the LEGO brick’s 60th anniversary later today, but we wanted to celebrate across all time zones. So today, let’s build a set, sort some parts, or create something new and amazing. Play well, everyone.

Want to know more about the history of LEGO? Check out our LEGO History timeline!