What was the first video game? episode artwork

EPISODE · Jun 17, 2026 · 14 MIN

What was the first video game?

from History for Kids / History's Not Boring: The Kids History Podcast · host SCL

Did you know the gigantic, 180-billion-dollar video game industry started as a tiny glowing green dot at a 1958 science fair? Join Mira and Finn on an epic quest to discover who really invented video games! We'll travel back in time to play Tennis for Two on a chunky metal radar box, and find out how a simple table tennis game called Pong was so popular that the arcade machine literally broke from being stuffed with way too many quarters! But it wasn't always a high score. Discover the dramatic Video Game Crash of 1983 when games almost disappeared forever! Who saved the day? A 100-year-old playing card company from Japan called Nintendo, armed with a jumping, mustache-wearing plumber named Super Mario! From the addictive falling blocks of Tetris and the creature-catching adventures of Pokemon, all the way to the shocking truth that the very first version of Minecraft was built in just six days, this episode is packed with mind-blowing gaming facts! Press start and jump into this amazing history adventure!

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jun 17, 2026

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Did you know the gigantic, 180-billion-dollar video game industry started as a tiny glowing green dot at a 1958 science fair? Join Mira and Finn on an epic quest to discover who really invented video games! We'll travel back in time to play Tennis for Two on a chunky metal radar box, and find out how a simple table tennis game called Pong was so popular that the arcade machine literally broke from being stuffed with way too many quarters! But it wasn't always a high score. Discover the dramat...

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What was the first video game?

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This episode is 14 minutes long.

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This episode was published on June 17, 2026.

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