"Ever Cheat At Monopoly? So Did Its Creator: He Stole The Idea From A Woman"

"The true story of Monopoly begins a few decades before Darrow rolled the dice, with a Washington, D.C., woman named Lizzie Magie. In 1904, Magie patented something called the Landlord's Game, which was, in some great irony, an argument against the concentration of wealth. Her game spread around the country, including to the Quakers of Atlantic City, N.J., who added all their city's street names (Atlantic Avenue, Kentucky Avenue, Park Place). Darrow got his hands on the game through a Quaker friend — and then sold it to Parker Brothers as his own.

The company, like much of America, went with the tale of this down-on-his-luck Depression-era salesman. Pilon says, "I think there's something about us psychologically that just makes us really wired to loving the Darrow story.""
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/03/382662772/ever-cheat-at-monopoly-so-did-its-creator-he-stole-the-idea-from-a-woman?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150303

It makes me think about how often things become true because they make a good story. How the way that we communicate about life is often in a form of repeated narratives that necessarily simplify and exaggerate.