Lego celebrating 50th birthday

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Happy brickday! Lego fans are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the tiny building blocks.

The toy is so popular that about seven Lego sets are sold every second!

Its makers are planning a series of events for 2008, including a world record attempt to build the biggest Lego tower ever.

From Easter onwards, there will be a Lego Brick Road tour around the country and a special pack will be available for collectors.

Click here to watch a video on how Lego is made

Lego was founded in Denmark in 1932 when carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen began making wooden toys.

Two years later he stumbled on the Lego name by putting together the first two letters of the words Leg and Godt, which mean "play well".

Lego stats Credit: The Little Artists Kids spend 5 billion hours a year playing with Lego More than 400 million people will play with Lego bricks this year On average, every person in the world owns 62 Lego bricks About seven Lego sets are sold every second Lego is sold in more than 130 countries 33,824 Lego bricks are made every minute

In 1947, Mr Christiansen started using plastic, like today's bricks, and in 1948 he patented the idea - which means he officially claimed it as his own invention so no one could copy it.

As well as kids playing with the sets, there's been some pretty fabulous models made.

In 2006, a team at Legoland in Billund, Denmark created a model of the world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380 superjumbo.

Made of 75,000 Lego bricks in eight different colours, it was around 3m long and took more than 600 hours to finish!

And the toy is so popular it's even got its own theme park!

Head of Lego's fanclub, Simon Bennett, said: "I think it is that it is still the same product it was in the 1950s. A brick bought now will connect to a brick bought back then.

"I don't think there's any reason why it should ever fall out of favour. It's an excellent toy."

Is Lego still cool?