Amazing what interesting trivia you sometimes stumble across on the Internet. For example:
During WWll, the Red Cross delivered special Monopoly games to POWs that included real “get out of jail free” cards, writes Brian McMahon in the November-December issue of Mental Floss, a magazine of far-flung trivia.
In 1941, the British Secret Service asked the game’s British manufacturing licensee, John Waddington Ltd., to add secret “extras” to some sets, which the Red Cross delivered to Allied POWs inside Germany. These specially marked sets included metal files, compasses and silk maps to safe houses in the areas of the respective POW camps (silk, because it folds into small spaces and unfolds silently). Even better, real French, German, and Italian currency was hidden amongst the game’s fake money. Soldiers and pilots were told that, if they were captured, they should look for these “special editions” identified by a large red dot in the game’s “Free Parking” space.
Of the 35,000 prisoners of war who escaped prison camps, “more than a few certainly owe their breakout to the classic board game,” says McMahon.
Here are some more fun facts about Monopoly from the Hasbro site.