The origin of the puzzles
Where do the puzzles come from? The puzzles come from the maps. Or, put another way, the first puzzle was a map. John Spilsbury , a former apprentice of the royal geographer of the English crown, invented the world’s first puzzle around 1766. As a cartographer, he mounted one of his maps of Europe on a wooden board and saw the edges of each one very carefully. of the kingdoms. The idea was to use it for children to learn geography ; When assembling the pieces, students studied the bonds of union between countries. Entertaining as well as easy. Its occurrence became a fad and in just two years, Spilsbury had already put up puzzles for sale with the themes that he thought the parents of theEnglish high society : the world, the four continents (at that time only Africa, America, Asia and Europe were known), England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Little by little, the theme was diversified and also used to teach mathematical tables, genealogies or scenes from the Bible. The puzzles remained mostly a pedagogical tool until 1820 when they began to be sold as a game for adults as well . They stopped calling themselves “dissections,” […]