who knew?

Every invention has an official birth date. For the Cube this date is 1974 when the first working prototype came into being and a patent application was drafted. The place was Budapest, the capital of Hungary. The inventor's name is now a household word. At the time, Erno Rubik was a lecturer in the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest.*

The first Rubik's Cubes were exported from Hungary in May 1980.

--from http://www.rubiks.com/lvl3/index_lvl3.cfm?lan=eng&lvl1=inform&lvl2=medrel&lvl3=histry

*i've been there! a gorgeous building with a unique green-tiled roof and gold trim.