One of my heroes! In 1948 Alfred Mosher Butts, an unemployed architect, invented the greatest word game in the history of the world: Scrabble Brand Crossword Game. He named it Criss-Cross Words and didn't make much money from it. He sold the rights to a family called the Brunots who renamed the game Scrabble and marketed it from their home. It got plenty of rave reviews in the early 1950s. Demand for Scrabble became so great that the Brunots could not keep pace with the orders. They in turn sold the rights to Scrabble to a manufacturer. Over the years Scrabble's ownership has passed through several companies. Hasbro presently owns the North American trademark name of Scrabble. Each year millions of games are sold and hundreds of tournaments are held under the aegis of the National Scrabble Association. (Yours truly is an expert ranked player who directs an official NSA club in Canada. I can often be spotted officiating major Scrabble events. Look for me at the 2008 U.S. Nationals in Orlando in July!)