Puzzle history
A Brief History of Puzzles
Follow the development of puzzles from ancient riddles and dissection puzzles to jigsaws, mechanical brain teasers and modern twisty puzzles.
Read articleStories behind the mechanisms
Puzzle history and reference library
Explore the origins of jigsaws, puzzle boxes, burrs, tangrams, metal disentanglements, pentominoes and the Rubik’s Cube, then follow the links into the solution archive.
Dissection and mathematical puzzles
The Stomachion shows an early tradition of rearranging geometric pieces.
Dissected maps
John Spilsbury’s wooden maps helped children learn geography.
Tangram and manufactured puzzles
International puzzle crazes and industrial production widened the audience.
Mechanical puzzles documented
Puzzle books recorded burrs, wire puzzles and secret-opening mechanisms.
Polyominoes named
Solomon Golomb introduced a systematic language for connected-square shapes.
The Magic Cube
Ernő Rubik created the mechanism later known worldwide as the Rubik’s Cube.
Design and preservation
Precision manufacture, 3D printing and online archives support new puzzle communities.
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History articles and reference pages
Every page contains source links and routes to related Crafty Puzzles solutions.
Puzzle history
The History of Jigsaw Puzzles
Discover how eighteenth-century dissected maps developed into wooden, cardboard and three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles.
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Puzzle history
A History of Puzzle Boxes
Explore secret-opening boxes, Japanese himitsu-bako, Hakone yosegi marquetry and the development of modern puzzle boxes.
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Puzzle history
The History of Wooden Burr Puzzles
Learn how the six-piece burr or Chinese Cross developed into interlocking wooden cubes, stars, balls and complex coordinate-motion puzzles.
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Puzzle history
Tangrams and Dissection Puzzles
Trace dissection puzzles from the Stomachion to the seven-piece tangram and modern shape-making challenges.
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Puzzle history
The History of the Rubik’s Cube
Follow Ernő Rubik’s 1974 Magic Cube from a three-dimensional design experiment to a worldwide twisty-puzzle phenomenon.
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Puzzle history
The History of Metal Disentanglement Puzzles
Explore wire, ring and cast-metal disentanglement puzzles, from historical Chinese rings to Victorian and modern brain teasers.
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Puzzle history
The History of Pentominoes
Learn how Solomon Golomb named polyominoes in 1953 and how twelve pentomino pieces became a classic packing-puzzle system.
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Puzzle history
Types of Puzzles: A Visual Guide
Identify interlocking, assembly, opening, disentanglement, sequential-movement, folding, dexterity and other puzzle types.
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Puzzle history
Puzzle Glossary
Definitions of burr, key piece, coordinate motion, disentanglement, himitsu-bako, pentomino, polycube and other puzzle terms.
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Puzzle history
The Crafty Puzzles Story
How Crafty Puzzles grew from a small family business selling at shows into an online shop and, later, a free puzzle-solution archive.
Read articlePractical solving guides
The history section explains where puzzle types came from. The separate guide library covers identification, old diagrams, safe handling and solving techniques.