Who invented Monopoly?

The original concept for Monopoly was invented by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Magie in 1903. Her game was called The Landlords game. It featured a square board with properties, rotating around the board more then once, buying properties and renting them out. Originaly the game was created to highlight the negative aspects of monopolies. Lizzie Magie was an Georgist/anti-monopolist and hoped to show that land grabbing and expansion would only benefit land owners while the rest of the population lived in poverty. 

Originally Lizzie's game came with two sets of rules. There were anti-monopolist rules in which everyone was rewarded when wealth was created and monopolist rules where players were rewarded for creating monopolies and pushing opponents out of the market. Unfortunately, the monopolist rules set was the one that gain popularity.

For many years Charles Darrow had been incorrectly credited as the inventor of Monopoly. The real story is that he took an already existing game and put his own spin on it. He created his own version of the game with Atlantic City properties and sold it to friends/family. His version became popular in Philidelphia and Darrow was able to sell the game to Parker Brothers in 1934.

It wasn't until a court battle in the 1970's that the true history of Monopoly became known to the general public.  

Watch more about the history of Monopoly in this CBS News video.

Read more about this story in this Interesting Engeneering article. There is a wealth of information online about this topic, my article is just a basic summary.