---
title: "Which came first, the aeroplane or Monopoly?"
description: "the aeroplane vs Monopoly: the aeroplane came first, by one year — 1903 against 1904. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-monopoly/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the aeroplane or Monopoly?

**Which came first, the aeroplane or Monopoly?: the aeroplane**

1903 — one year before Monopoly

the aeroplane came first, by one year. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

## Side by side

|  | the aeroplane | Monopoly |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1903 | 1904 |
| Date | 1903-12-17 | 1904-01-05 |
| Category | invention | media |
| What happened | The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. | Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord's Game. |

## the aeroplane

The first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 metres — less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. The Wrights' real contribution was not the engine but three-axis control, which they worked out with a wind tunnel of their own design after finding the published lift tables wrong. Sixty-six years separate that flight from the Moon landing, well within a single lifetime.

## Monopoly

Parker Brothers published Monopoly in 1935 and told the story of Charles Darrow, an unemployed man who invented it at his kitchen table. The truth is that Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord's Game in 1904 — a nearly identical board designed to demonstrate how land monopolies impoverish tenants, which is precisely the opposite of the message the commercial version carries. Parker Brothers bought her patent for $500.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the aeroplane or Monopoly?

the aeroplane, by one year — 1903 against 1904.

### When did the aeroplane start?

1903. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

### When did Monopoly start?

1904. Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord's Game.

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- [the aeroplane or the lightbulb?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-lightbulb/)

## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]