In the 1780's a Swiss mathematician developed the idea of arranging numbers in a way that any number or symbol happened only once in each row or column.
It's roots are more than likely in the mathematical concept of Latin Squares.
Howard Garns, an architect from Indianapolis, is said to have created the rule for Sudoku that each region may only have the numbers occurring once.
The name was introduced in Japan by Nikoli under the name of "Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru" which translates to - the numbers must be single or unmarried.
A retired Hong Kong judge, Wayne Gould, who is the author of Su Doku The Official Utterly Addictive Number-Placing Puzzle, came across the puzzle for the first time in a Tokyo Book store.
He started creating his own Sudoku Puzzles and introduced his puzzles to the Times, a British Newspaper as Su Doku on November 12, 2004.
Dell Magazines have published the puzzle under the name of Number Place for over 25 years and is a staple of Dell Magazine. Number Place is found in the Dell Collector's Series.
History of Sudoku facts for this article were found via wikipedia.
