Hasta La Gadget!

Nintendo celebrated its birthday yesterday. The company turned 121. Yep. If you live in the U.S., there’s a pretty good chance that you’d never heard of the Nintendo until 1985, when it unleashed the NES upon the world (the console had actually been available in Japan since 1983 as the Famicom).

Nintendo actually came into existence in 1889. It was founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, under the name Nintendo Koppai. In its first years, Nintendo’s primary business was Hanafuda, Japanese playing cards. In fact, the company continues to produce playing cards in its native Japan to this day.

The whole video game thing didn’t start until 1974, when the company began to distribute games for the Magnavox Odyssey console. Shortly after, the company hired a young student named Shigeru Miyamoto.

You know the rest, right?