It’s National Yo-Yo Day! This day honors the late businessman Donald Duncan’s birthday, who helped popularize the toy here in America. Yo-yos have been around for a really long time. There’s proof it existed in 440 BC, though it’s believed the toy originated in China much earlier. In 1928, a Filipino immigrant named Pedro Flores opened the Yo-Yo Manufacturing Company in California. Just a year after opening, his company was selling 300,000 yo-yos annually. The ability to do tricks was the main selling point of Flores’ yo-yos, and he started some of the first yo-yo trick competitions. Donald Duncan saw the potential of this new fad and bought Flores’ company and all its assets. Duncan’s company generation millions of customers by staging trick contests and with a national TV ad campaign in the 1960s. Yo-yos were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999. Learn more in the audio below.