Timeline of Toys By Katherine Slattery

4000 B.C. -2000 B.C. A Babylonian board game is played that was probably an ancestor of chess and checkers. First game resembling backgammon is played in Ancient Sumeria.

1000 B.C. Kites appear in China.

200 A.D. The first iron skates are used in Scandinavia.

969 Playing cards are first used in Asia.

1686-1705 In seventeenth-century Europe, dollhouses first gain popularity not as a children's toy but as a hobby for well-to-do ladies. After the Industrial Revolution, factories began mass-producing toys, and dollhouses become cheaper and more accessible to children.

1759 Roller skates are invented by Joseph Merlin.

1760 English mapmaker John Spilsbury pastes one of his maps to a board and cuts it in pieces along its borders, creating the earliest version of the jigsaw puzzle.

1800s Playgrounds begin to appear in American cities.

1840 The first American dollmaker is granted a patent and dolls begin to be mass-produced in America for the first time.

1870 German immigrant Frederick August Otto Schwarz and his three brothers open a modest toy shop in New York City; it will eventually grow into the enormously successful F.A.O. Schwarz.

1887 The speaking doll, which had first been invented by Johann Maelzel in 1820, is improved when Thomas Edison combines his phonograph technology with a doll, allowing it to speak.

1901 At just 22 years old, Joshua Lionel Cowen creates a battery-powered train engine.

1902 In America, toy bears begin to be called Teddy Bears" after President Theodore Roosevelt.

1903 Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith produce the first box of Crayola crayons.

1915 Johnny Gruellebegins to sell Raggedy Ann dolls.

1916 John Lloyd Wright invents Lincoln Logs.

1929 The yo-yo is popularized in the United States.

1935 Parker Brothers introduces Monopoly. By offering a way to "get rich quick" to Americans struggling through the Great Depression.

Early 1940s Affordable, detailed model airplanes begin to be mass-produced.

1947 A group of Minnesota teachers create Tonka Trucks.

1949 Ole Christiansen, a Danish toy maker creates Legos.

1950 Silly Putty.

1952 Hasbro introduces Mr. Potato Head.

1959 The Barbie doll is introduced at the American Toy Fair in New York City by Elliot Handler, founder of Mattel Toys, and his wife, Ruth.

1965 Stanley Weston creates a doll for boys, G.I. Joe.

1972 Magnavox introduces Odyssey, the first video game machine.

1983 A Japanese company, Nintendo, brings the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), a home video game system, to the United States.

1993 Toy inventor H. Ty Warner begins to market understuffed plush bean bag toys called Beanie Babies.

1996 Tickle Me Elmo.

1999 The collectible card trading game Pokemon becomes extremely popular in America.

2000 Selling for around $100 retail, the Razor Scooter becomes the top-selling toy of the year.

2005 The Ganz company releases a new line of plush toys called Webkinz.

2006 The next generation of video game consoles is represented by Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3, and Nintendo's Wii. sources:http://www.history.com/content/toys/timeline