Board game:Scrabble

In the years of the Great Depression, an out-of-work architect created the board game Scrabble. With time on his hands, Alfred Mosher Butts set out quite methodically to devise a game that combined several elements of already popular games. He determined that popular games incorporated both skill and strategy (chess and checkers) and chance and luck (bingo). The game failed to find enthusiasts until he teamed up with James Brunot, another entrepreneur, who suggested some alterations including a name change. Scrabble (meaning to grope frantically) was born. After an executive at Macy Department Store played the game during a vacation, he ordered copies for the store. Within a year, Scrabble found its audience in such numbers that Brunot could not satisfy all the orders for the game without a licensing agreement with Selchow & Righter. The game's popularity grew steadily throughout subsequent decades. More than 100 million sets have been sold worldwide.