Tornado Alley (PROG)

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The shady origins of five popular board games

Feb 28, 2013
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Monopoly and the Quakers
You may have heard the legend that an unemployed salesman named Charles Darrow invented the game of Monopoly during the depression, somewhere around 1935. That's not entirely true [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/3795784/Toy-stories-Combination-of-luck-and-skill-that-gave-birth-to-some-of-our-favourite-games.html ].
A Quaker named Lizzie Magie, in fact, first created the game in 1904 to showcase the evils of property ownership (the original title was "The Landlord's Game".) Magie was a supporter of the Quaker tax reformer Henry George, and the game focused on players extorting one another.
It was a hit in the Quaker community -- a big one. One enthusiastic fan was a hotelier named Charles Todd, who would sometimes play with his guests. One regular visitor was (you guessed it) Charles Darrow, who asked Todd to write up the rules for him.
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http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/shady-origins-five-popular-board-games-202719027.html [with comments]