Lego bricks used to recreate significant 2011 events

What isn’t there to like about Lego bricks? They’re small and colourful and can be assembled to form anything – from a giant Christmas tree to a monster truck. But a testament to the popularity of the toy, made by Danish family business Lego Group, was recently shown when fans recreated some of the important news stories of the year using these plastic bricks.

Presented on Flickr, an image hosting website, and compiled by British newspaper the Guardian, the scenes depicted significant events over the year.

It included the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, better known as William and Kate, and the now-iconic image of US president Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the time of Osama bin Laden’s death.

The riots in the UK got a plastic-made memory, as did the fighting in Libya. The global economic crisis also got its due, with one scene depicting the Occupy Wall Street movement and the other a meeting between Obama and German chancellor Angela Merkel.

The widely criticised move by a police officer to pepper spray students in California was also depicted using Lego, as was Armistice Day on 11 November 2011.

A family business leader was also featured in the display. Media giant News Corp’s head Rupert Murdoch – who hit headlines over the year due to the ongoing phone-hacking scandal – was shown during a government select committee hearing, when wife Wendi Deng protected him from being cream-pied.

And of course, celebrating the year in Lego would have been incomplete without Lego Group’s own contribution to making news. The Guardian compilation also featured the giant Lego Christmas tree, recently unveiled at London’s St Pancras station. The tree, at a height of 40 feet, is the tallest tree ever made using Lego bricks.

Founded in 1932 as a group making wooden toys, Lego Group is currently in its fourth-generation of family control and is headed by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.