Written by Did you know that at one time, the king of hearts in a deck of cards represented Charlemagne? Or that the king of Diamonds was Julius Caesar? Perhaps you never knew that the king of clubs was Alexander the Great and the king of spades was King David from the Bible? These incredible identities, along with special significance for the other court cards, were developed by the French who were instrumental in bringing the pleasures of playing cards to people first in Europe and then the rest of the world.
The earliest playing cards are believed to have originated in Central Asia around the 10th century. Historical documents tell us that the Chinese began using paper dominoes by shuffling and dealing them to create new games. Four-suited decks with court cards evolved in the Muslim world and were imported by the Europeans prior to 1370. Cards were originally hand-painted and only the very wealthy could afford them, but with the invention of woodcuts in the 14th century, Europeans began mass-production. It is from French designs that the cards we use today have been developed. France gave us the suits of spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts, and the use of simple shapes and flat colors helped facilitate manufacture. French cards soon flooded the market and were exported in all directions. They became the standard in England first, and then in the British Colonies of America.
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