❇️ This month in history ➡️ Monopoly Board Game ~ Cracker Jacks Prizes ~ Reader’s Digest
❇️ February Mini Bites of History ❇️
INVENTION 🎲
FEBRUARY 6, 1935–
Monopoly, the board game, goes on sale.
A man named Charles Darrow invented the game to entertain his friends, or did he really come up with the idea?
A patent was filed in 1904, by Lizzie Maggie, for a game called the “Landlord’s Game”. Her game board was square, with corners labelled “Go to Jail” and “Public Parking”, and nine rectangular spaces on each side. Sounding familiar? The game, had players circling the board collecting money, paying rent and buying up railroads. Wow, sounding very familiar. The “Landlord’s Game” was sold by a New York-based publisher for a while, but home-made versions soon took over.
A new design, and a new name, Darrow sold the game to Parker Brothers in 1935. That first year, Monopoly was an absolute hit. It sold 278,000 copies in the first year and over 1,750,000 in the next.
How popular is Monopoly? Well, it has been translated into 37 languages! It is in 103 countries across the world. And, since its introduction in 1935, it has sold over 250 million games.
These are just a few of the over 300 different variations that have been created:
- Star Wars
- Pokemon
- Game of Thrones
- Candy Crush
- Earthopoly
- Major League Baseball
- Bass Fishing
- Marvel (over 10 Editions)
FOOD 🍿
FEBRUARY 18, 1913 – Cracker Jacks inserts a prize into the box for the first time.
“The more you eat, the more you want.”
That’s the slogan that was registered with the Cracker Jack name in 1896.
The American brand of snack is considered the first junk food by some food historians. The caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts were a sugary sweet treat.
Small novelty prizes were included in each box starting in 1913. The early toy surprises included stickers, decoder rings, plastic figurines and during World War II, paper. The prizes continued until 2016, and they were replaced by a QR code which can be used to download a baseball themed game.
Toys or not, over 120 years of Cracker Jack popcorn is pretty impressive.
BOOKS 📖
FEBRUARY 5, 1922– Reader’s Digest is first published.
The magazine was started by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Acheson Wallace. It was first published in Manhattan, New York and this year is celebrating 101 years!
It is the world’s largest circulating magazine, with global circulation of 10.5million. If that is not amazing enough, it is in 70 countries and in 21 languages! AND, it was the first magazine to be printed in Braille; which happened in 1928.
How about here in Canada? Well, in 1947 the French-language edition was released in Canada and then in 1948 the English-language edition followed.
History is very interesting; tells us where we have been, how the world was and often what mistakes have been made. Memory Monday is based on fun and fascinating bits of history that may not be the big events, but helped shape or bring us to where we are today. If you are interested in this type of history and writing short articles like I've been doing, please contact me at stacey@yourlocalbuzz.ca
