The First Video Game

Though 1972’s Pong has often been credited as the first popular video game, the mantle goes to Tennis For Two, which was created by a nuclear physicist, William Higinbotham, in 1958.

The primitive game was a sideways view of a tennis court, with the ball moving back and forth, and the two players watching the five-inch cathode ray tube display and using a mechanical-electrical system filled with wires, and the world’s first joystick: a large cube with a button and knob.

The video game arcade era went mainstream in the 80s, also a time when the physicist was finally credited for his pioneering work.