A brief history of Solitaire, Patience, and other card games for one

Alone needn't mean lonely

Solitaire
(Image credit: Found Image Press/Corbis)

On Friday, Microsoft is kicking off a worldwide Solitaire tournament in celebration of the 25th anniversary of everyone's favorite time-waster. Of course, Solitaire has been around for a lot longer than 25 years. Before it was a game you played on your computer, Solitaire was, and is, a game you play with cards.

You're probably already familiar with the basic premise: You set up cards face down in a certain shape and flip them to build foundations in sequential order. For example, in Klondike, the objective is to uncover four aces and build sequential foundations from those cards.

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Angela Tung's essays on language and culture have appeared at Mental Floss, Quartz, Salon, The Week, The Weeklings, and Wordnik. Her personal essays have appeared at The Frisky, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere.