Rubik’s Cube hits the world stage

January 29 1980 — The Rubik’s Cube makes its international debut at the London Toy Fair. It was invented by Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian inventor, architect and professor of architecture. He was born in Budapest on July 13 1944, the son of Ernö Rubik, a highly respected aircraft engineer, and Magdolna Szántó, a poet. Rubik’s education: He specialised in sculpture at the Secondary School of Fine and Applied Arts (1958-62); attended the Budapest University of Technology, becoming a member of the architecture faculty (1962-67); attended the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts in the faculty of interior architecture and design (1967-71). In early 1974, while teaching 3D design at the latter, he started developing his Cube to model 3D movement to his students. On January 30 1975 he applied for a Hungarian patent (granted on March 28 1977) on what he named the Magic Cube. In September 1979 Tom Kremer arranged a worldwide deal for a million Cubes with Ideal Toy Company. On January 4 1980 Viktor T Toth won a pioneering Cube-solving contest in Hungary with a time of 55 seconds. After Ideal’s introduction in London, the Cube moves to the toy fairs of Paris, Nuremberg and New York City. Rubik travels outside communist Eastern Europe for the first time. Ideal renames it “Rubik’s Cube” and the first batch is exported from Hungary in May 1980. The 3x3x3 world record average is 4.86 seconds, held by Max Park (US) and Tymon Kolasinski (Poland). Much of Rubik’s recent work involves the promotion of science in education.