Klondike Solitaire, the classic free solitaire game everyone loves, first appeared in print around 1907 as “Seven-Card Klondike”—possibly inspired by the Gold Rush, though no one’s proven those chilly Yukon miners invented this addictive 1-card draw solitaire while freezing their boots off. By 1913 the one-card-at-a-time rule became the official standard for Klondike Solitaire, making free solitaire play a bit kinder than the tougher three-card version. Patience games had already been driving Europeans delightfully mad since the 1700s, but Klondike Solitaire’s clever layout really took off in North America. Then Microsoft packed free solitaire into Windows 3.0 in 1990, and suddenly the whole world could enjoy a quick, satisfying round of classic Klondike Solitaire in their spare time.