Trivial Pursuit debuted in 1982 and became an instant hit. Suddenly people all over America who had paid too much attention in school or whose brains were otherwise stuffed with arcane pop-culture related bits of information had a purpose: to demonstrate by dint of a board game their intellectual superiority to any and all doubters. The problem with Trivial Pursuit was that, unlike say Monopoly, a wanna be winner could spend hours going through the answer cards memorizing them when no one was around, which hardly made for a fair game. There were other problems with the game as well, most notably incorrect answers on the cards that really made for some heated arguments, and in recent years there have been complaints from many circles that the makers of Trivial Pursuit seem to have run out of worthwhile trivia. Instead of asking knowledge-based questions like "what constitutes hypersonic flight" (5 times the speed of sound or greater, in case you were wondering), newer versions of the game have gone in a slightly different direction. For instance: “Which Christina Aguilera fragrance was created to be ‘a special treat, fit for a queen?’” I kid you not, that is an actual question introduced this year. (If you know the answer to that question I fear for your soul, but that's just me.)

Heated arguments and charges of dumbing down aside though, Trivial Pursuit established itself pretty quickly as a decent night's diversion for most folks, as long as you didn't take things too seriously. The original Genus edition of the game has given way to dozens of specialized editions, everything from the Country Music edition to the Lord of the Rings DVD edition and the World Cup edition. All told over 88,000,000 copies of the game have been sold worldwide making it one of the best selling board games of all time.

Go ahead. You know you want to.

Released on May 22, 1980, at time when Asteroids and Space Invaders ruled the video arcade, Pac-Man took the world by storm gobbling up the competition on its way to becoming the most popular arcade game of all time. No one could resist and the proof was in the ka-ching. Pac-Man has devoured some 10 billion quarters since its introduction and spawned countless spinoffs and copies. Only 6 people are known to have received a perfect score of 3,333,360 before being shut out by the kill screen. The most recent to do so acheived his perfect score in 3 hours, 41 minutes and 22 seconds: a new world record.

The most popular arcade game of all-time: Pac-Man

Erno Rubik was a professor at the Academy of Applied Arts in Budapest Hungary in the 1970s. Some people say that he developed his cube as a way to help his students visualize 3D objects, others say his interest had more to do with the structural problems associated with trying to hold a 3x3x3 cube of mobile parts together. Whatever his motivations he discovered that his cube of colored squares made a neat little puzzle and applied for an Hungarian patent in 1975. After gaining a foothold in the Hungarian toy market his puzzle caught the attention of toy giant Ideal who stepped in and released it for sale in the West in 1980.

It was an immediate hit. Like the Swatch watch it seemed like suddenly everybody had 3 lying around their house. They became part of the cultural landscape and gave the people that could solve them something to gloat about. Contests were organized everywhere and somewhere along the way something called the World Cube Association also came into being to put a formal stamp on records related to solving the cube. The first World Champion in 1982 solved his cube in about 23 seconds. Over the years that number has come down significantly and the current record for solving the cube is a ridiculous 5.6 seconds.

In the years since its introduction some 350 million Rubik's Cubes have been sold and it is generally recognized today as the most successful toy in history.