(2 of 2)
Died. Charles B. Darrow, 78, inventor of Monopoly, the dice-and-scrip game of tabletop capitalism on which two generations of Americans have sharpened their wits; of a heart attack; in Ottsville, Pa. Like so many others, Darrow lost his salesman's job in Depression 1929, and dreamed up his game because "I decided the most exciting thing in the world would be to play with money." It was so much fun for everybody that Darrow was soon in production, selling first to his friends, then to stores, and finally selling out to Parker Bros. in 1935. Over the years, he collected more than $1,000,000 in royalties from the sale of some 45 million sets. "I'm not greedy," he said, as he lived his life of happily retired leisure, growing orchids and touring the world in style with his family.
Died. Sidney Bradshaw Fay, 91, authority on German history and longtime (1929-67) Harvard professor, who in his classic two-volume analysis, The Origins of the World War (1928) was the first to disprove the idea that Germany was World War I's sole villain; following prostate surgery; in Lexington, Mass. In Fay's dispassionate, meticulously researched study, virtually all of Europe shared Germany's guilt—Austria for its desire to crush Serbian independence, Serbia's leaders for their foreknowledge of the Sarajevo assassination plot, Russia for its encouragement of the Serbs, France for its secret pledge of support to Russia, and Britain for its indecision at the pivotal moment; in fact, wrote Fay, Germany made belated but genuine attempts to contain the fighting in the first few days after Archduke Ferdinand's murder.
Died. Florence Jaffray ("Daisy") Harriman, 97, grande dame of the Democratic Party and Averell's cousin by marriage, a spirited New York socialite who in 1922 founded the Woman's National Democratic Club, later won F.D.R.'s appointment as Minister to Norway, where in 1940 she barely escaped the invading Nazis, after which she conducted a celebrity-filled Washington salon, keeping, as she said, her "box seat at the America of my times"; after a long illness; in Washington.