During the holidays, Europe 1 returns to the origins of inventions that have become cult.

Today the Rubik's Cube, this puzzle sold in hundreds of millions of copies around the world created in the 1970s by Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian architect.

>> Every day in Historically yours presented by Stéphane Bern and Matthieu Noël, David Castello-Lopes looks back on the origins of an object or a concept.

During the Christmas holidays, Europe 1 invites you to rediscover ten inventions that have become cult.

Today the very popular Rubik's Cube, created by Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian architect in the 1970s.

>> Find all the chronicles of David Castello-Lopes in replay and podcast here

Invented by a Hungarian architect ...

The Rubik's Cube is one of the things named after their inventor: Ernö Rubik, who was a Hungarian architect and designer.

In 1974, Ernö was 29 years old.

While he used to spend part of his time making creative wooden objects, he one day created a cube only in raw wood, without color.

He then had fun turning a little in all directions and there, he realized that he could no longer give it its original appearance.

He said to himself: 'but that's cool!', And he filed a patent in Hungary.

Sensing the potential of this game, which is not yet one, Ernö Rubik went to see a Hungarian toy manufacturer who markets it.

Released initially only in the country, it sells 300,000 in a year.

Compared to the Magyar population of the time, that gives an average of one Hungarian in 35, which is enormous. 

... and popularized by an American company

The expansion will then go very quickly.

The concept was bought by a big American toy dealer, Ideal Toys and between 1980 and 1983, it sold 100 million around the world.

Ernö Rubik hits the jackpot.

And it's not over: to date, more than 350,000 million copies of its famous cube have been sold worldwide.

Almost impossible to solve the first time you see it

The only affordable way to solve the Rubik's Cube puzzle is through methodologies.

For forty years now, algorithms have been developed by fans.

Several thousand tutorial videos are available on the Internet to help you if you are just starting out. 

However, do not try to compete with the best in the discipline, because over time, more and more sophisticated and intelligent techniques have been developed, allowing the cube to be solved more and more quickly.

The result is incredible: if it was 23 seconds in 1982, the world record for solving the Rubik's Cube is now 3.5 seconds!