In honor of National Play Monopoly Day, we offer this FactSlap column, Top Hat edition:

• Charles Darrow developed Monopoly in 1933, using materials from his own home for the first game. The cards were handwritten and a piece of oilcloth covered the board.

• The original houses and hotels were made from wooden molden scraps. The pieces themselves were recommended by Darrow’s nieces.

• Parker Brothers originally rejected Monopoly because they had issues with the game’s length, theme, and complexity. They reconsidered their decision to purchase rights to market the game after its success in local Philadelphia stores.

• The original Monopoly game sold for $2. Today, the average price for the classic version of the game is $18.

• After less than a year of the game’s release, Parker Brothers was making 35,000 copies of the board game per week.
• The standard amount of money in a Monopoly game is $20,580.
• The longest game of Monopoly lasted 70 straight days.
• Escape maps, compasses, and files were inserted into Monopoly game boards smuggled into POW camps inside Germany during World War II. Real money for escapees was slipped into the packs of Monopoly money.

• Tokens from the US Monopoly: Here & Now edition were flown into space aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2007.
• Monopoly is published in 47 languages and sold in 114 countries.