Some kids have tons of them.

But, have you ever stopped and wondered who actually invented stuffed animals in the first place?

Let's find out on today's episode of Colossal Questions.

The very first dolls in the ancient world were made of hard stuff like wood or clay.

But the stuffed animal as we know it today really started with the invention of the rag doll sometime around 2,000 years ago.

The oldest rag dolls ever found were stuffed with rags, papyrus, or hay and usually woven with colorful string and trinkets like beads.

Over the next thousand some odd years, rag dolls remained a super popular toy for kids around the world in different cultures and classes.

Eventually, in the early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution started in England.

And before long, rag dolls went from being handmade to mass produced in factories just like tons of other toys and products.

Innovations, with the ability to print colorful or patterned fabrics, allowed companies to manufacture dolls that were super vibrant and super quick to make.

Okay, so that's how ancient wooden dolls morphed into soft and squishy rag dolls, but when did the stuffed animal come along?

When did stuffed dolls give way to stuffed animals like the teddy bear?

Well, it started in the late 1800s, when a German woman named Margarete Steiff invented the very first known stuffed animal, an adorable little elephant that was meant to be a pincushion.

But a couple years later, Margarete's nephew Richard, took her idea and turned it into a toy for kids, a stuffed bear.

Their new-fangled doll hit stores just a few years later in 1902.

Around the same time, a Russian immigrant named Morris Michtom, living across the Atlantic in the United States, came up with his own design for a stuffed bear toy.

Mr. Michtom based the design on a famous cartoon he saw in the newspaper.

The drawing shows President Teddy Roosevelt out on a bear hunt with a group of his pals.

Roosevelt was known as an avid hunter but just didn't feel right striking down a defenseless animal, so he told his men to let the bear go free.

Artists made the bear in the cartoon look adorable, and Morris Michtom knew it had to be a toy.

He sent a prototype of his inspired invention to Teddy Roosevelt himself and got the president's permission to use his nickname on the toy.

And just like that, the legend of the teddy bear was born.

Both versions of the teddy bear were an instant smash success in Europe and the U.S.

So, whether your favorite stuffed animal is a bear, a bird, a badger, or any other kind of creature, you can thank the good old teddy bear and the president who inspired it for your fluffy friend.