Candy Land is one of the most popular children’s board games of all time, selling an average of one million units a year. You may have even played the game with your young kids over the past weeks. But did you know it was created in response to another pandemic? In 1948, retired schoolteacher Eleanor Abbott invented the game in a San Diego hospital. She had been diagnosed with polio. During her convalescence, she was surrounded by children suffering from the same horrible disease. She wanted to create a game that would entertain them during their painful and lonely days. Candy Land became so popular among the young hospital patients that Abbott decided to pitch it to Milton Bradley, one of the leading toy-manufacturing companies. It quickly became their best-selling board game. Who knew?!