Monopoly was based on the satirical Landlord's Game, which criticized the abilities Monopoly rewarded.

'Monopoly' was a progressive economic thought experiment before it was a board game

Before "Monopoly" became a best-selling board game, a woman named Lizzie Magie patented "The Landlord's Game" as a thought experiment to advance American economist Henry George's ideas about land ownership.

Mark Twain invented an unsuccessful board game

“Memory Builder” was based on pinning historical events in their correct chronological order. It was test-marketed in 1891, but never took off. One critic said, “The game looked like a cross between an income tax form and a table of logarithms.”

Robber barons, the monopolistic business people of the 19th century, explained

“Robber baron” was a term used to describe 19th-century businesspeople who engaged in monopolistic business practices and didn’t face much business regulation, resulting in significant wealth.

The board game Candyland was invented for children quarantined in polio wards.

Magic: the Gathering was inspired by baseball cards

Richard Garfield originally pitched a game publisher on a more complex game about programming robots, but he was told that they were looking for something less expensive and more portable. Inspired by the way baseball cards were collected and traded, he came up with the idea for Magic: the Gathering, which gave players packets of random cards, effectively pieces of the whole game, rather than the entire deck.

The board game Risk was created by an Academy Award-winning screenwriter.

Market concentration and high markups don't always signal a monopoly

When regulators and economists evaluate whether a company constitutes an illegal monopoly, they often consider its overall market share or its relatively high price markups. This piece argues that the Olley-Pakes decomposition is a better measure, identifying whether customers within a market are switching to more productive companies.

Patents arguably grant inventors monopolies for a short period of time

As a way to reward innovation, the government grants short-term monopolies on patented products. Patents block other companies from producing or selling that product, giving inventors the rights and opportunity to establish themselves in a market before other competitors enter.

The card game Uno was invented by an Ohio barber

Merle Robbins created the game in 1971 after an argument with his son about the rules of the card game Crazy Eights. The discussion led to the creation of his own game, which he then went on to sell from his barbershop.

Parents criticized 'Dungeons & Dragons' during the 'Satanic Panic'

The role-playing game became popular enough to attract the ire of special interest groups, like Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (or BADD) during the so-called "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s and 1990s, when parents believed the game was corrupting children.

One roadside attraction invented modern mini-golf

Garnet Carter and his wife Frieda owned and operated Fairyland, a roadside attraction on Lookout Mountain in Georgia. While other mini-golf courses tried to mimic the regal courses of its parent game, the Carters built obstacles and decorations from items they had around Fairyland, effectively inventing the leisure-minded version of the game.

Modern tennis was formalized in 1874

In the late 1800s England, a growing middle class could afford homes with lawns. With more lawns in England, Major Walter C. Wingfield saw an opportunity to bring lawn tennis to the masses. Modern tennis was formalized in 1874, when Queen Victoria granted a patent for Major Walter C. Wingfield's lawn tennis box set. The game was an instant hit, and by 1877, the new All England Club in Wimbledon began hosting a tournament.

Before 1920, a single baseball was used throughout a game

During the Deadball Era, pitchers doctored a baseball with spit, nail files, and licorice for a competitive edge, leading to discolored, mangled, and lopsided baseballs by the game's end. This concluded in 1920 when Cleveland Indians star shortstop Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a ball too dirty to see and died. The rules were changed to require an umpire to replace a dirty baseball and outlawed the spitball.

The term 'gerrymander' dates back to a 1812 Boston dinner party

The term "gerrymandering" arose when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a state senate map with a district so contorted it resembled a salamander. Critics dubbed it the "Gerry-mander," cementing the term for partisan map manipulation.

Dishonest brokers called ‘curbstoners’ once competed by placing signs on properties

In the 1910s, yards would be littered with dozens of signs representing competing and potentially dishonest salesmen. The concept of the “open house” developed during this period, as real estate agents would occupy a single home all day for what they called “open inspections.”

Famed American investor Jesse Livermore made millions when the stock market crashed in 1929

Livermore made his first major short against rail company Union Pacific in 1906, coincidentally before an earthquake in San Francisco, which ultimately tanked share prices. During a financial panic the next year, JP Morgan reportedly asked Livermore to increase his long-term investments to restore hope and restabilize the market—which Livermore did. However, Livermore began betting against the market in 1929, sensing that stocks were too hot, and was one of the few people to benefit from the 1929 stock crash.

One of the earliest known satires is an ancient Egyptian parody of life advice

“The Satire of the Trades” mocks the then-popular “wisdom literature,” which imparted life advice. In the text, a father, a scribe, explains why his son should work the same job, detailing the miseries of several other lines of work. His ultimate argument is that it’s best to be a manager rather than a worker: “See, there is no office free from supervisors except the scribe's. He is the supervisor!”

The original Mickey Mouse's copyright has expired, but Disney still owns the trademark

In 2024, "Steamboat Willie"—the 1928 Walt Disney animation with the first depiction of Mickey Mouse—entered the public domain. While anyone is free to build on the original characters and storyline of "Steamboat Willie," Disney still owns the trademark for Mickey Mouse, so any branding with the character's depiction that appears to be from Disney is off-limits.

Modern payday lending came about in the late 1990s

In the early 1900s, unlicensed "salary lenders" used to give consumers one-week loans at annualized percentage rates of more than 100%. But wage garnishment and financially abusive practices led some states to create special licenses for lenders and implement rate caps to protect consumers. In the 1990s, a series of deregulations in various states opened the door for the modern payday lending industry to take off.

Credit for inventing the laser was fought over for nearly three decades

Although Theodore Maiman built the first working laser in 1960, Gordon Gould coined the term earlier. Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow of Bell Labs filed a patent after Gould came up with the idea and name, but before Gould filed his patent.

How the New Yorker went from poker game to powerhouse

After 100 years in print, the New Yorker is still going strong, publishing weekly issues featuring the best in long-form journalism, cultural criticism, and short fiction. This history of the magazine's founding and early years shows how its balance of high and lowbrow culture, along with a fortuitous game of poker, led to its longstanding success.

‘Donkey Kong’ was based on the ‘Popeye’ franchise

Nintendo pursued the “Popeye” franchise in the early 1980s, hoping that developing an arcade game for the popular character would result in a hit. The bid failed, but Nintendo still used “Popeye” as the model for 1981’s “Donkey Kong.”

The quiz show scandals eroded trust in the media

Many viewers were attracted to the shows because they were filled with real people winning real money. After it was exposed that “Dotto,” “Twenty-One,” “The $64,000 Question,” and others had been fixed, the genre struggled to regain viewers’ trust. The government intervened, too: President Eisenhower called the shows’ deception “a terrible thing to do to the American people” and Congress amended the Communications Act in 1960, explicitly outlawing fraudulent game shows.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Washington condemned the Boston Tea Party

While he sympathized with the grievances behind it, he placed great importance on private property rights. He viewed the action as vandalism and believed those responsible should compensate the British East India Company.

Pop Mart is the company behind the viral Labubu toy craze

Labubus, the Chinese collectible toys, are being heralded as the next Beanie Babies. Pop Mart, the company behind the Labubus, is using a few psychological tools to keep the Labubu economy booming.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.