This Day in Pop Culture for March 29

1983: The Rubik’s Cube Gets a Patent

Erno Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture invented a “spatial logical toy” in 1974. It was widely believed that he created it to help his students understand 3D objects, but apparently, his actual purpose for doing so was to solve a structural problem of moving the parts separately without causing the whole cube to fall apart. It was only after he had scrambled it for the first time and couldn’t get it back together in the right order that he realized that he had just created a new puzzle. He obtained a Hungarian patent for this “Magic Cube” in 1975 with the first batches produced and released into Hungarian toy shops two years later. In 1979, he made a deal with Ideal Toys who changed the name to Rubik’s Cube which debuted at the New York Toy Fair in 1980. However, it wasn’t until this day in 1983 that Rubik received his U.S. patent (#4,378,116) for the cube. (Images: Wikimedia)

1978: The End of ‘The Carol Burnett Show’

Carol Burnett is one of America’s funniest comedians. Beginning in September of 1967, she was given her own variety/sketch comedy show on CBS. For 11 years, Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, Tim Conway and later Dick Van Dyke brought viewers to tears with laughter with such notable characters like Mr. Tudball, Mrs. Wiggins, Stella Toddler, Mother Marcus, Mama, Eunice, and The Oldest Man. After 278 episodes, the show aired it’s last on this day in 1978. During its run, the show won 25 prime-time Emmy Awards and is considered one of TV’s greatest TV shows of all time by TV Guide and Time magazine.