National Play Monopoly Day on November 19th recognizes the iconic board game that lands us on Park Place, Boardwalk or even in jail.
- 1903 – American anti-monopolist Elizabeth Magie created a game in order to explain the single tax theory of Henry George.
- 1904 – Magie called the Landlord’s Game, in order to explain the effects of monopoly into simpler terms and thus created her patent in 1904 and published her game in 1906.
- 1933 – Charles Darrow, of Philadelphia, a semi-copyrighted game of Monopoly. He sold the rights to Parker Brothers two years later.
- 1935 – Parker Brothers originally rejected the game. They said there were “52 fundamental errors” with the game, including details about the theme, length, and overall complexity. But after it proved successful in local Philadelphia stores, they changed their mind in 1935.
- 1937 – The first set included 4 small wax wood pawns and in 1937, die-cast metal tokens were introduced.
- 1940 – The Little Dog, a classic figure in the game of Monopoly was added in 1940.
- 1943 – Due to World War II, there was a shortage of metal and the tokens were once again made out of wood.
- 1973 – The first winner of the World Monopoly Championships was Lee Bayrd from the United States, which was held in 1973 in Liberty, New York. The last time a U.S. player won the championships was in 1974.
- 1991 – Hasbro, which took over Parker Brothers, organizes a national Monopoly tournament on a train from Chicago to Atlantic City.
- 2000s – National Play Monopoly Day is created to recognize Monopoly as one of the most loved board games.
- 2008 – The first-ever mobile edition of Monopoly was released in 2008 for the iPhone. Since then, many mobile- and PC versions of the game have come out.
- When Parker Brothers originally published Monopoly in 1935, the game contained eight playing pieces known as tokens including a battleship, boot, cannon, thimble, top hat, and iron. Soon a race car, purse, lantern, and rocking horse were added, bringing the total to twelve.
- As of 2017, the Monopoly board game includes the top hat, battleship, race car, dog (all introduced before 1941), cat (introduced in 2000), t-rex, penguin, and rubber ducky (all introduced in 2017).
- The game has been played by an estimated 500 million people since 1935.
- The character locked behind the bars is called Jake the Jailbird. Officer Edgar Mallory sent him to jail.
- Mr Monopoly’s true name is Rich Uncle Pennybags
- It’s been said that the Monopoly Man was inspired by J.P. Morgan, a powerful banker who helped finance the construction of railroads and organized several major corporations including General Electric.
- Escape maps, compasses and files were inserted into Monopoly game boards smuggled into POW camps inside Germany during World War II. Real money for escapees was slipped into the packs of Monopoly money.
- Monopoly Icons have been featured on postage stamps.
- The Monopoly board is based in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
- More than six billion houses and 2.25 billion hotels have been made.
- The total bank is really only $20,580
- More Monopoly Money is printed every year than real money.
- The top three most landed-on spaces in a traditional game are Jail, Illinois Ave., and Go.
- You have a 64% chance of landing on one of the Railroads each time you go around the board.
- Jail may seem like the worst place to be during a game of Monopoly, but being locked up could be a winning strategy. According to Natalie Fitzsimons, 2015 UK Monopoly champion, at the end of the game, it’s best to sit in jail and collect money from your opponents rather than land on their properties and end up owing money.
- The most common square you’ll land on is Illinois Avenue. Based on probability, that is. The least common? Mediterranean Avenue.
- When Parker Brothers originally published Monopoly in 1935, the game contained eight playing pieces known as tokens including a battleship, boot, cannon, thimble, top hat, and iron. Soon a race car, purse, lantern, and rocking horse were added, bringing the total to twelve.
- There’s a special edition of Monopoly, “Monopoly: Cheater’s Edition,” where you are allowed to borrow money from the bank and avoid rent payments.
- The classic version of Monopoly has 15 tokens. However, there are special editions of Monopoly where the tokens are designed to follow a specific theme such as a goalie, soccer ball, and referee in Monopoly: World Football Stars.
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