Yoyo: The second oldest toy in history that Napoleon used to carry 

Ever played with a yoyo? We are sure you have. After all, it is one of the most common toys that we have had in our toy rack while growing up. For those unaware, yoyo is a toy comes with two disks connected together. They have a long string in between with which you can throw the yoyo downward and quickly bring it back as well. In earlier times, the disks used to be made of wood. However, plastic is the most used material now. the disks are now commonly made of plastic.  

If you have grown up playing yoyo, you must have flaunted some yoyo tricks to impress our friends! Ever wondered how it originated? According to various toy historians, it is the second oldest toy in history, the oldest being the doll. Come, let us take you through the journey of this toy through centuries. 

A toy of a different era 
The origin location of yoyo is not certain. It could be China, the Philippines and even Greece. However, the oldest mention of something like this toy has been found in a painting in Greece that dates back to 440 BC. It depicts a boy playing with disks made from wood, terra cotta and metal. It is believed that these terra cotta disks were used as an offering to the gods there when a child came of age. Similar drawings have also been traced in some Egyptian temples.  

Yoyo spreads to the rest of the world  
As with any other product and commodity, it is believed that yoyo too travelled to other parts of the world, most likely in the 1700s. In France, historical documents reveal that the this toy was a popular mode of play during the French Revolution. A picture of French emperor King Louis XVII shows him playing with a yoyo as a child. This tradition was carried on to the 1800s when some paintings show French military leader Napoleon throwing a yoyo before entering the battle of Waterloo. The toy also continued its journey around the world becoming a popular pastime in England, finally reaching America.  

Yoyo gains commercial success  
It wasn’t until 1928, that yoyo was produced commercially. Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant to the United States, opened the Yoyo Manufacturing Company in California and the business was soon a hit because of the product’s superior design, sophisticated motion, increased stability and suspension of movement during the free spin.   

Entrepreneur Donald F. Duncan saw the toy and he was fast enough to recognise its potential. He purchased the company with all its assets, including the Flores name in 1932. To fast sell the product, Duncan developed advertising campaigns and had demonstrators working for him in the US and West Europe teaching yoyo tricks and conducting contests. But it wasn’t only Duncan selling this product in the market now. Other companies too were beginning to take interest in it. Sensing this, Duncan filed for and was assigned a trademark for the word yoyo in 1932 and the competitors were forced to use alternate terms such as come-back, return, returning top, whirl-a-gig, and twirler for their versions of the toy.   

In 1946, Duncan moved his company to Wisconsin, which quickly became known as the yoyo capital of the world. The plastic version of the toy also started to be made in the 1960s and the sales kept growing. However, high television advertising expenses and excessive personnel and material expenses were killing the profits. An ongoing legal suit to hold onto the trademarked word yoyo was also turning out to be way too expensive which had the final blow on Duncan. In 1965, the court ruled that yoyo had become so widespread that it had become a common toy and accordingly, a permanent part of the language. So, in 1968 the Duncan family sold the company name and associated trademarks to Flambeau, Inc, which manufactures and sells Duncan yoyos today.  

Innovations in yoyo  
As the toy became all the more popular, it saw many technological innovations through the 1970s and 1980s. For example, Tom Kuhn, a yoyo celebrity, patented the "No Jive 3-in-1" yoyo in 1979, creating the world's first "take-apart" yoyo, which enabled the users to change its axle. Then, Swedish company SKF came out with its novelty yoyos in 1984 that had ball bearings. In 1990, Kuhn again introduced the SB-2 yoyo that had an aluminium transaxle, making it the first successful ball-bearing yoyo enabling longer and more complex tricks. The users enjoyed creating new tricks with the newer versions that were not possible with fixed-axle designs. Various complex designs of yoyo were released thereafter which could spin for a much longer time. We are sure that you would have tried one!  

Yoyo in space  
Do you know this little toy has also been on a space mission? Yes, in 1985, astronauts took yoyo on a space toy project mission. But why was that? The idea was to check what effect microgravity would have on a basic spinning yoyo. What did they discover? They concluded that yoyo could be released at slow speeds. It would move along the string but it refused to sleep. As there was no gravity to pull it down in space, it would rebound up the string.