A Short History of Solitaire
Solitaire feels timeless, and in a way it is: people have been laying out cards to play alone for well over two hundred years.
Patience in old Europe
Card games for one player start appearing in European books in the late 1700s and grow popular in the 1800s, especially in Britain, France and Germany. The British called them "patience"; the French word "réussite" (success) is still used. Many of the classic layouts we know were described in 19th-century patience books.
Klondike
The game most people now call Solitaire takes its name from the Klondike region of Canada, the site of a famous gold rush in the late 1890s. How the name attached to the game isn't certain, but it stuck.
The Windows years
In 1990 Microsoft included Solitaire in Windows 3.0, partly to teach people to use a mouse by dragging cards. It became one of the most used programs on PCs. Hearts, FreeCell and Spider followed in later versions, and FreeCell's numbered deals turned into a worldwide puzzle as players tried to solve all of them.
Today
Solitaire now lives on phones and in browsers. On Cheettukali you can play Klondike, Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid, TriPeaks and Golf, all free.
FAQ
Why is Solitaire called Klondike?
It's named after the Klondike region in Canada, famous for its gold rush in the 1890s.
When did Solitaire come to Windows?
With Windows 3.0 in 1990.