Let's Play: Monopoly Plus #2 | All Four Railroads?!?
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Monopoly is a board game where players roll two six-sided dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties, and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents, with the goal being to drive them into bankruptcy. Money can also be gained or lost through Chance and Community Chest cards, and tax squares; players can end up in jail, which they cannot move from until they have met one of several conditions. The game has numerous house rules, and hundreds of different editions exist, as well as many spin-offs and related media. Monopoly has become a part of international popular culture, having been licensed locally in more than 103 countries and printed in more than thirty-seven languages.
Monopoly is derived from The Landlord's Game created by Elizabeth Magie in the United States in 1903 as a way to demonstrate that an economy which rewards wealth creation is better than one where monopolists work under few constraints, and to promote the economic theories of Henry George—in particular his ideas about taxation. It was first published by Parker Brothers in 1935. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly—the domination of a market by a single entity. It is owned and produced by the American game and toy company Hasbro.
The history of Monopoly can be traced back to 1903, when American anti-monopolist Elizabeth Magie created a game which she hoped would explain the single tax theory of Henry George. It was intended as an educational tool to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies. She took out a patent in 1904. Her game, The Landlord's Game, was self-published, beginning in 1906.
A series of variant board games based on her concept was developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved both the process of buying land for its development and the sale of any undeveloped property. Cardboard houses were added, and rents were increased as they were added to a property. Magie patented the game again in 1923.
According to an advertisement placed in The Christian Science Monitor, Charles Todd of Philadelphia recalled the day in 1932 when his childhood friend, Esther Jones, and her husband Charles Darrow came to their house for dinner. After the meal, the Todds introduced Darrow to The Landlord's Game, which they then played several times. The game was entirely new to Darrow, and he asked the Todds for a written set of the rules. After that night, Darrow went on to utilize this and distribute the game himself as Monopoly. Because of this act the Todds refused to speak to Darrow ever again.
After the game's excellent sales during the Christmas season of 1934, Parker Brothers bought the game's copyrights from Darrow. When the company learned Darrow was not the sole inventor of the game, it bought the rights to Magie's patent.
Parker Brothers began selling the game on February 6, 1935. Several people, mostly in the Midwestern United States and near the East Coast, contributed to the game's design and evolution. This is when the game's design took on the 4×10 space-to-a-side layout and the now familiar cards were produced. Cartoonist F. O. Alexander is credited with creating the "Go to Jail" Officer Edgar Mallory, Jake the Jailbird, and mascot Milburn Pennybags characters. U. S. patent number US 2026082 A was issued to Charles Darrow on December 31, 1935, for the game board design and was assigned to Parker Brothers Inc. The original version of the game in this format was based on the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The Monopoly game-board consists of forty spaces containing twenty-eight properties—twenty-two streets (grouped into eight color groups), four railroads, and two utilities—three Chance spaces, three Community Chest spaces, a Luxury Tax space, an Income Tax space, and the four corner squares: GO, (In) Jail/Just Visiting, Free Parking, and Go to Jail.
There have been some changes to the board since the original. Not all of the Chance and Community Chest cards as shown in the 1935 patent were used in editions from 1936/1937 onwards. Graphics with the Mr. Monopoly character (then known as "Rich Uncle Pennybags") were added in that same time-frame. A graphic of a chest containing coins was added to the Community Chest spaces, as were the flat purchase prices of the properties. Traditionally, the Community Chest cards were yellow (although they were sometimes printed on blue stock) with no decoration or text on the back; the Chance cards were orange with no text or decoration on the back.
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