Brick History
There have been many attempts over the years to create a single tool that can be used for anything. The most successful of these was, for centuries, the humble club which could perform any task imaginable for early man; it could club animals, or it could club people. Then it could hit them, for a change. It really was the original essential tool for everything.
However, times changed, and there soon came many inventions to rival the might of the club; spears, swords and can openers all helped to usurp the once-mighty club which was simply cast aside in favour of the possession of a variety of individual tools for separate occasions.
In about 1915, people gradually realised that having to go through all fifteen of your pockets was a right waste of time if all you wanted was a small screwdriver. As a result the Swiss - having nothing better to do, with it being the middle of the Great War - invented a tool that incorporated all the others, and called it a pen-knife.
Nowadays, of course, pen-knives are little more than a quaint souvenir of a bygone age in which you could legally carry a large blade and assorted death-dealing spiky things in your pocket [Note to Americans: This is to do with keeping citizens safe from weapons. Why not try visiting Europe someday?].
After thousands of pounds worth of research and development, one candidate was slowly but surely singled out as the only possibility for ruggedness, reliability, build quality and consistency. Independent experiments had verified that they lasted centuries with little maintenance, and a team of well-paid marketing executives managed to dream up a ridiculous number of uses.
The invention upon which they had decided was the Brick.