Toys and Games (Part 3)

1. Did you know the game Senet is an ancient Egyptian board game (still available today ) for two players, dating back over 5,000 years, played on a 30-square board with a combination of strategy and chance? (The objective is to move all your pieces off the board by throwing four casting sticks or "dice" to determine movement.)

2. Did you know Chatty Cathy doll is a pull-string talking doll manufactured by Mattel from 1959 to 1965 was modeled after a real 5-year-old girl ? (By pulling a string on her back, the doll would speak a pre-recorded phrase through an internal phonograph, such as "I love you" and "Please take me with you". She was the second most popular doll of the 1960s, after Barbie.)

3. Did you know Candy Land was invented in 1948 by Eleanor Abbott a retired school teacher while she was recovering from polio in a San Diego hospital to entertain the lonesome kids in the hospital with the same disease ?

4. Did you know G.I. Joe was introduced in 1964 by Hasbro as a 12-inch "Movable Fighting Man" with 21 movable parts and was initially marketed as a realistic military figure representing different branches of the armed forces to open a market for boys ? (As the Vietnam War escalated, sales declined, leading Hasbro to rebrand G.I. Joe in the 1970s as an adventurer with more civilian-style looks and a "Kung-fu grip.)

5. Did you know The Magic 8 Ball was created by Albert Carter in 1944, inspired by his psychic mother's "spirit writing" device, and originally sold as the cylindrical "Syco-Seer" ? (After Carter's death, Abe Bookman and Brunswick Billiards transformed the design into the familiar black, billiard-ball-shaped object in 1950.)

6. Did you own any of these toys?