Who created the Rubik's Cube?

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980. It won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.

In the mid-1970's, Erno Rubik worked at the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest. Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a teaching tool to help his students understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart. He did not realize that he had created a puzzle until the first time he scrambled his new Cube and then tried to restore it.

Rubik's Cubes continued to be marketed and sold throughout the 1980's and 90's, but it wasn't until the early 2000's that interest in the Cube began increasing again. In the USA sales doubled between 2001 and 2003, and The Boston Globe remarked that it was "becoming cool to own a Cube again". Annual sales of Rubik branded cubes were said to have reached 15 million worldwide in 2008. Part of the new appeal was ascribed to the advent of Internet video sites, such as YouTube, which allowed fans to share their solving strategies.