Who Knew? Monopoly's Surprising History

Most people think Monopoly was an overnight success for Parker Brothers, which introduced it in 1935. But the game began 30 years earlier, when a woman named Elizabeth Magie Phillips designed a new way to teach economics.

A proponent of a “single tax” on property (rather than on income and consumption), she designed what she called the “Landlord’s Game” to instruct people about the justice of her economic scheme.

Fans of the game made copies by hand, improving the play as they went. By the time Charles Darrow, generally credited with “inventing” Monopoly, obtained a patent and sold it to Parker Brothers, the game had already been through three decades of beta-testing.

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P.S. Doesn't Parker Brothers have a monopoly on "Monopoly?"