By Online Solitaire Free Editorial Team · Editorial Standards
Solitaire wasn't invented in a single moment. It emerged across 18th-century Europe, traveled to America with immigrants, and became the world's most-played card game thanks to one Microsoft engineer in 1990. Here is the full story.
The first written references to solitaire-style card games appear in Northern Europe in the late 18th century. German game books from the 1780s describe a single-player card game called "Patience" — a name that stuck throughout Britain and much of Europe to this day.
One of the most persistent myths about solitaire claims Napoleon Bonaparte played it obsessively during his exile on St. Helena after 1815. While there's no historical evidence Napoleon invented the game, the story helped spread solitaire's popularity across Europe during the 19th century.
The variant most people think of when they hear "solitaire" — Klondike — is named after the Klondike region of Canada, where the 1896 Gold Rush took place. Prospectors waiting for their claims allegedly played the game to pass the time, giving rise to the name.
For nearly two centuries, Patience was strictly a physical card game. That changed in 1990 when Microsoft included Solitaire with Windows 3.0 — originally designed to teach users how to use a mouse. It became the most-played computer program in history, introducing a generation to both computers and cards.
Today, solitaire is played billions of times per year across smartphones, tablets, and browsers. The core game hasn't changed much in 200 years, but the technology around it has transformed it from a solitary card game into a global phenomenon.