What is the history of Sudoku?

Sudoku was first designed in the 1970s by a retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor, Howard Garns. The puzzle was first published in 1979 in New York by Dell Magazines and was titled ‘Number Place’. In 1984, the puzzle was introduced in Japan by puzzle magazine ‘Nikoli’ and titled ‘Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru’ which in Japanese meant, “the numbers must occur only once”. This was abbreviated to Sudoku; ‘Su’ meaning number and ‘Doku’ meaning single.