Monopoly

My wife hates this game. For me, it was a family pastime. My brothers even once raised money for WCLV's annual Cleveland Orchestra marathon by playing the game in a tree in our yard for thirty-six hours.

We were fascistic about the game, and did not allow "house rules." As I have explained to my wife repeatedly, the reason she believes the game is tedious is because of house rules, which do nothing to make the game more enjoyable, but only prolong the play until all the joy has been sucked out of your evening.

Of course, there are few tactics to the game, and as the tactics employed in my family are ingrained by everyone (1. buy everything until you run out of cash 2. mortgage what you need to to keep purchasing property until all the property is gone 3. once all the property is bought, sit on your hands until you win, go to jail and stay there if you can) it really is a crapshoot.

And kind of boring.

Based on "The Landlord's Game" - an educational tool to teach young minds of the evils of capitalism - what we recognize as Monopoly was created by Charles Darrow in 1933 and sold the Parker Brothers in 1935. In 1936 alone it sold over 1.8 million copies. Darrow had applied for a patent to Parker Brothers once before in 1934 but they passed, calling the game "too complicated, too technical, [and] too long to play."

There was a "standard" version which kept all pieces and cards in a small black box with the board separate, and a "deluxe" edition with a box large enough to hold the board. The cheapest edition was $2.00.

This year was also the introduction of the "Rich Uncle Pennybags" character.

Sources:
Monopoly History
Wikipedia