Monopoly was originally built to make people hate capitalism

In 1904, American Elizabeth Magie patented a board game called "The Landlord's Game" — designed explicitly as an educational tool to illustrate economist Henry George's ideas about the dangers of monopolizing land.

The game had two sets of rules: one where players won together by sharing wealth, and a second, monopolist set where the goal was to bankrupt every other player. Magie wanted people to actually experience how destructive that second model was.

The twist: it was that second, "evil" rule set that survived — picked up in the 1930s (without proper credit to Magie) by Charles Darrow, who sold it to Parker Brothers as "Monopoly," the exact version most of the world still plays today.

The stakes: the game we now associate with families racing to bankrupt each other on game night was originally built as a warning against exactly that mechanism — an irony its creator never lived to see fully recognized.