Do you feel like you know more things than your family? Do you like lording obscure knowledge over others? Prove it! This game is a new twist on our popular Timeline games posted earlier this spring. This game can be played by one to four players – if you have more players, we suggest working together in teams.

1. Download the game cards here. Color the cards and then cut them out; also cut out the dates included in the three print-outs. Note: set aside the six bonus/extra cards if this is your first time to play.
2. Lay out the years in a line on a flat surface (like a table or a floor) with plenty of room around each of the years.
3. Equally divide the cards among all the players.
4. Have each player play all of the cards in their hands, guessing card goes under which year. (There's no need to take turns -- just have each person place his/her card at a different point around the year, so the score can be tabulated at the end). Each year will have three things:
   1. Something that was published
   2. Something that was new (invented/created/manufactured/installed)
   3. An event that happened

Variation:

• If you have added in the bonus/extra cards, six years of the years will have with four cards on them

Scoring:

1. Once all of the cards have been played, download the answer sheet here and check for all the right answers.
2. Everyone is scored individually. You get a point for every card you played that is under the correct year.
3. Whoever has the most points wins!
4. Note: Since everyone is being scored individually, there can be more than one card for each of those categories around each year (because one of them might be wrong).

By CYNTHIA TOTH
Museum Intern

Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a wild (or relatively calm) ride: Dresden figurines are here!

In 206 B.C.E, China created the world’s first porcelain. This new and beautiful form of ceramic was a hot trading item for hundreds of years -- and an expensive commodity at that. China and Japan both mastered the technique long before Europe, and the race to catch up with their trade was a long and hard one.

In 1709 C.E., Augustus the Strong placed alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger under house arrest. (It was rumored that Bottger could turn clay into gold.) In his quest to figure out how to turn clay into gold, Bottger accidentally discovered how to make pure porcelain. Augustus the Strong immediately established a royal porcelain factory in Meissen, Germany -- one of the greatest pottery achievements in Europe -- and the Dresden figurine obsession began.

Slowly but surely, the new porcelain made its way through Europe, finally landing in England in the mid-1700s. Since porcelain was considered the "gold of ceramics," it was a trinket only the wealthy could afford. England is credited with making options for the lower classes. Called "Staffordshire Figures," the figurines were created out of a cheaper stoneware and painted by factory workers. Though not as high-quality as Dresden porcelain, women from all classes could collect and enjoy the knick-knacks.

Simple scenes such as animals, young couples and mothers with children were the most popular. Nostalgia for "days gone by" was high and the idea of a pure and simple life brought joy to many people. Later, as immigrants came to America to build new lives, they brought their figurines with them -- and the craze began sweeping the United States, lasting well into the 19th century.