Bizarre Board Game Facts

The Egyptian game of Senet was a best-seller some 4,000
years ago. Even King Tut had one. He liked it so much he was
buried with it.

The first American board game, "The Mansion of Happiness,"
was produced in 1843. Its theme was Victorian: players tried
to avoid Passion, Idleness, Cruelty, Immodesty, and
Ingratitude. Drunkenness was punished by a trip to the
stocks.

In 1860, Milton Bradley bought a lithographic press and
began printing board games. His first game was called "The
Checkered Game of Life." Object: Get to "happy old age"
while avoiding "disgrace" and "ruin."

Mark Twain invented a game he called "Mark Twain's Memory
Builder: A Game for Acquiring and Retaining All Sorts of
Facts and Dates." In the introduction to the rules he wrote:
"Many public school children seem to know only two dates -
1492 and 4th of July; but as a rule they don't know what
happened on either occasion. It is because they have not
had a chance to play this game.

The earliest board game on record is the royal game of Ur,
which was invented more than 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia,
the site of present-day Iraq. It was a "race" game; the
first player to complete the course was the winner. Moves
were governed by throwing dice-like objects. Archaeologists
believe it is the forerunner of backgammon.

Parcheesi, the original male chauvinist game, was created in
the 1500s in India by Akbar the Great. It was played in the
palace courtyard with young women as game pawns. "Home" was
originally the emperor's throne.

In 1988, the 23rd foreign language version of Monopoly was
manufactured - in the USSR. Among the changes: a Russian
bear token, real estate names corresponding to Moscow
locations (Broadway became the Arbat Mall) and rubles
instead of dollars.