A brief history of what happened when in the world of toys starting at the very beginning .....   2500 BC  Royal Sumerians in Ur played a board game one of the                    oldest known 2000 BC   Spinning tops used by the Ancient Egyptians 1300 BC   A boardgame called Senet popular in Eygpt 1000 BC   Egyptian children played with toy lions 500 BC     Greeks played with toy chariots and yo-yos 400 BC     Greeks played with jointed clay dolls 300 BC     Rag dolls, spinning tops and balls are popular in Egypt                     A game like football is played in China 300s         Roman children played with pull along horses 500           Chess invented in India c550          Mention of kites in China c900          Vikings play hnefatafl 1100s        Draughts invented in Spain or France 1120          Bartholemew Fair founded in London 1300s         Pictures of toy windmills and battledore appear in England                       Dolls of flat, baked clay are made in Germany                       Playing cards reach Europe from Asia 1413           First professional doll maker in Nuremburg, Germany 1558           Earliest recorded dolls house made for Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria 1560           Pieter Bruegel paints ‘Childrens Games' (in The Netherlands) 1610           First known rocking horse made in England 1640           Athanasius Kircher first describes the magic lantern 1644           Parliament bans maypole dancing 1647           Parliament bans Christmas celebrations 1672           Clockwork toy soldiers made in Nuremburg 1746           A craze starts in France for pantins (jumping jacks) 1760           Andreas Hilpert of Coburg mass produces ‘flats' 1761           John Spilsbury sells ‘dissected maps', the first jigsaws 1778           Lotto introduced 1800           Wooden bricks and model building kits advertised in Nuremburg 1811           Toy theatres appear in England 1824           P M Roget investigated persistence of vision 1826           Thaumatrope (turning marvel) invented                       The first mechanical tin toys made by the Hess company,Nuremburg 1834           Zoetrope (wheel of life) invented 1835           Germans began making toy trains at first out of wood 1842           Jumeau dolls made in Paris, France 1843           First world chess champion, Howard Staunton 1846           Marble scissors invented (glass marbles could be made                       more quickly) 1849           Cockfighting banned in Britain 1850s          Toys first made from India rubber such as bouncing balls                        Steam power introduced in some German toy factories 1851            Great exhibition, London.  Tin plate toys first shown 1853            First velocipede, a model horse mounted in a tricycle 1856            First clockwork toys manufactured in the USA 1863            First four-wheeled roller skates appear 1866            Bru dolls made in Paris, France 1870            Celluloid, an early type of plastic invented                        Clay marbles manufactured                        Dolls' heads made from porcelain                        De La Rue introduced rounded corners on playing cards 1876            Ludo first played in Britain 1880s           Introduction of baby carriages 1880             Ernst Lehmann introduced coil-spring clockwork                         First manufactured soft toys made by Steiff firm                         Framed rocking horse invented 1885             Slazenger firm started 1888             The game Othello invented 1889             Tiddlywinks invented 1890s            First machines for making marbles invented                          First toy cars made 1893              First electric toy trains made                          William Britain invented process to make hollow, fully rounded                          toy soldiers 1893              First cinema opens in Paris 1897              Chad Valley toy firm started 1901              Frank Hornby produces the Meccano construction set named                          Mechanics Made Easy 1903              First teddy bears made in America 1905              Child sized toy cars made 1907              The name Meccano adopted by Frank Hornby for his model kits 1930s             Toys linked to film characters, such as Mickey Mouse, appear 1934               Danish toy maker Ole Kirk Christiansen calls his company Lego 1936               Television broadcasts begin in the London area 1958               Hula hoop craze sweeps through Britain and the USA 1959               Barbie doll created in the USA 1970s              First computer games produced 1972                First video game appeared in the USA 1975                First personal computer appeared in the USA 1990s               Virtual reality games and internet became widely available                             Companies moved to market toys that had an educational                              element 2000s               Merchandising of film characters drove the toy industry                         ‘Retro' toys many from the 1970s and 80s made a come back