National Scrabble Day Timeline

1984

Scrabble's newest word: TV

"Scrabble" aired as a daytime game show on NBC. Its tagline was "Every man dies; not every man truly Scrabbles." Your host? Chuck Woolery.

1952

Macy's ordered the game

Jack Straus, president of Macy's, placed a large order for this game after playing it on vacation. This was the big break that changed Scrabble's future.

1948

New name

James Brunot bought the rights to the game and called it "Scrabble," which means "to scratch frantically."

1938

Lexico?

Inventor Alfred Mosher Butts created Scrabble as a variation on an earlier word game and called it Lexico.