A fascination for tangrams has been held by many famous people including Napoleon and Edgar Allan Poe. Lewis Carroll, celebrated writer and mathematician, is said to have created the main characters of his novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland using the seven pieces of the tangram.
Today, nearly 1000 years after its inception, tangrams remain a popular pastime puzzle as well as a teaching aid for many elementary and not so elementary mathematical concepts..!
China, one of a handful of countries that can boast of an ancient civilization, has a nearly 5000 year old history. The rise and fall of the great dynasties forms a thread that runs through Chinese history. Learn more.