Troll dolls

John Lloyd Wright, son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, invented this classic building set.

The original instructions included plans for a replica of Abraham Lincoln's cabin, obviously, but also directions for building Uncle Tom's cabin.

Hula Hoops have been around forever in various formats, but the official Wham-O toy was invented in 1958.

The inventors promoted it by going around to playgrounds and parks, giving children samples, and showing them how to use them.

• The Slinky was invented by naval engineer Richard James.
• While he was working to develop springs that could keep ship instruments stable in choppy waters, he knocked a metal coil off a shelf.
• The coil did what a Slinky does: It stepped down to a stack of books, then to the ...

• The sock monkeys that we have come to know and love today—the ones made with Rockford Red Heel socks—are thought to have come about in 1932.
• The distinctive red heel (the monkey's mouth) was given to the socks so customers would know they were getting authentic Rockford socks.
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• The dolls were invented by writer and illustrator Johnny Gruelle.
• Raggedy Ann was created in 1915 for Gruelle's daughter. Gruelle reportedly named the doll after two poems from a book by James Whitcomb Riley: The Raggedy Man and Little Orphan Annie.
• Ann inspired Gruelle to ...

The sculpting clay with the trademarked scent was first sold as a wallpaper cleaner. It was rolled on the walls to remove coal dust.

• A precursor to the familiar LEGO brick, the plastic Self-Locking Building Brick was developed in the late 1930s by the British toy inventor Hilary Fisher Page.
• A decade later, a Danish master carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen examined the British bricks and designed a similar to...

These little critters are actual live animals called brine shrimp. They were "invented" in 1957 by Harold von Braunhut, the man who invented X-Ray Specs.

Brine shrimp are ideal for packaging because they enter a natural (shippable) state of suspended animation in certain environments. When...