See Also:
Beginning of a FAMOUS Hero: The Milton Hershey Story.
Life Lesson #88 – There is NOT Nothing To Do.
Did you ever wonder where yo-yos came from? Actually, the yo-yo has been around for thousands of years, believed first used in China and other eastern countries. Later it was introduced in Europe and in the Philippines. The word “yo-yo” in the native Philippine language simply means “come back.”
In the late 1800s, a little boy named Pedro Flores was born in the Philippines. When he was still very young, his family moved to America. When Pedro was 29-years-old, he decided he wanted to be in business for himself. He remembered playing with a yo-yo back home in the Phillippines when he was a child and thought that maybe American children would enjoy them as well. First, he made one dozen yo-yos by hand and began selling them for children in his neighborhood. In just a few months, he had machines to make yo-yos, and in just a little over a year later, his company was producing 300,000 yo-yos a day. The yo-yo frenzy spread all across the United States.
Pedro Flores never claimed he invented the yo-yo, but he was certainly the one who began making the toy popular in America. Your grandparents played with yo-yos and so will your grandchildren, thanks to a little boy named Pedro who grew up to make a fun toy for children all across America!
– Jim Lord