History of the board game Monopoly and the development of that land. By 1933, a board game had been created much like the version of "Monopoly" sold by Parker Brothers and its related companies through the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st. Several people, mostly in the Midwestern United States and near the East Coast, contributed to the game's design and evolution. By the 1970s, the idea that the game had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular folklore; it was printed in the game's instructions for many years, in a 1974 book devoted to "Monopoly", and was cited in a
Parker Brothers and "", and more. In early 1983, Parker Brothers spent US$15 million establishing a book publishing branch; their first titles featured the American Greetings franchises, Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. The branch published twelve titles by February 1984; sales of these books totalled 3.5 million units. Parker Brothers also operated a record label around the same time; one of its releases, based on Coleco's Cabbage Patch Kids and involving Tom and Stephen Chapin titled "Cabbage Patch Dreams", was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in July 1984. In 1985, General Mills merged the company with their