The Rubik's cube and its history

The Rubik's cube is one of the most famous 3D combination puzzles of our time. However this status was not the basic intention of its creator Ernő Rubik while designing it in 1974.

Ernő Rubik
(Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Rubik_Ern%C5%91_cropped.jpg)

Ernő Rubik is an Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture. He worked at this time at the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest. As at this time computers were not yet the powerful and accessible machines that we know today, Ernő Rubik wanted to create a teaching tool to help his students illustrate spatial relationships in 3D. This was the birth of the Rubik's cube. However Ernő Rubik called it initially the "Magic cube" .

The first batches of Rubik's cubes were released in May 1980 and with the first advertisements in televisions, the puzzle won rapidly in popularity.

Rubik's cubie commercial from 1980
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcYqApvg4Bc)

Already at the end of 1980 the Rubik's cube won a German Game of the Year special award and also similar awards for best toy in the UK, France, and the US. The cube grew in popularity worldwide and it is estimated that in the period from 1980 to 1983 around 200 million Rubik's Cubes were sold worldwide.