At first glance, a game of sudoku may appear deceptively simple: a grid of numbers that must follow a certain pattern. But behind these neat lines, sudoku has endured a history that spans centuries, entire cultures, and vastly different disciplines.
When a quiet American architect devised what we now recognize as the modern puzzle, he could hardly have imagined the cultural storm it would unleash decades later. Even the official website for sudoku now receives around 40 million visitors monthly.
So where did this globally loved puzzle come from? Click on to find out.