A paper airplane is a thing of beauty. It can be made anywhere using little more than a single sheet of paper, and provide hours of wholesome fun. On Thursday, this simple, beloved toy was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, alongside the board game Clue and the Wiffle Ball. Feeling nostalgic yet?
Each year, the public nominates toys and the internal museum advisory committee checks the nominees to see if they meet the museum's criteria. The toys must be beloved by children across generations, giving them longevity and icon status. Other contenders on the shortlist for this year's inductees included the Magic 8 Ball, Transformers, Risk, and Uno. Sixty-five toys have been inducted into the Hall of Fame since it opened in 1998 as part of the Strong Museum of Play. This year's honorees now sit alongside classic toys like Barbie, alphabet blocks, jump rope, bubbles, and the Candy Land game.
In case you needed a reminder, this guy proves you're truly never too old to enjoy a good paper airplane. Elianna Spitzer
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Bluetoothing: the phenomenon driving HIV spike in FijiUnder the Radar ‘Blood-swapping’ between drug users fuelling growing health crisis on Pacific island
-
Marisa Silver’s 6 favorite books that capture a lifetimeFeature The author recommends works by John Williams, Ian McEwan, and more
-
Book reviews: ‘We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution’ and ‘Will There Ever Be Another You’Feature The many attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution and Patricia Lockwood’s struggle with long Covid
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
