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On December 31, 1935, the now ubiquitous winner-take-all board game Monopoly was patented (Patent Number 2,026,082). Since that day, it has been translated into 37 languages and evolved into over 200 licensed and localized editions for 103 countries across the world. The game of capitalism, competition and business strategy has firmly established itself as a significant piece of popular culture.
Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, PA created the game known today during the Great Depression. In 1934, he presented the game to executives at Parker Brothers and was rejected. A year later, after he sold 5,000 homemade copies of the game, Parker Brothers bought the game.1
Controversy has surrounded the invention of the game, whether it was created by Charles Darrow in 1934 or Elizabeth Phillips (Elizabeth Magie), who had been issued a patent for the Landlord's Game in January 1904 (Patent Number 748,626; see also Patent Number 1,509,312) as means of educating citizens on Henry George's single tax movement.2 Parker Brothers bought the Landlord's Game rights from Phillips for $500 with an agreement to manufacture the game for distribution and thus was free to pursue development with the game known today as Charles Darrow's Monopoly.3
By 2010, over 250 million sets of Monopoly® had been sold since its invention and the game had been played by over half a billion people making it possibly the most popular board game in the world.4
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.
The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle : During a David and Goliath battle, Anti-monopoly Uncovers the Secret History of Monopoly by 
Everything I Know about Business I Learned from Monopoly by 
The Monopolists by 
Monopoly by 
The Monopoly Companion by 
Under the boardwalk: the Monopoly story by These freely available online resources provide additional information on the topic.
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