I don't think the author is using the term "monopoly" the right way. At least, the description of "The Nutcracker", while certainly interesting, doesn't meet any of the definitions at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly .
To answer the title's question, likely no. Even leaving out the indigenous JDs, I would be astonished if the children in Puerto Rico, St. Augustine, and Santa Fe (in 1620 about 100, 50, and 10 years old, respectively) didn't include some JDs.
I recall my Dad saying - this must have been around 1980 - that people once predicted the future interstates would all be simply grassy strips for hovercars to go on.
Their web site lists only 1398 jobs across all Big Lots stores, all for "Temporary Part-time -Store Associate/Stocker" - that's barely enough to employ my high school graduating class.
"Printer ink costs two times as much as Chanel N°5." .. in small consumer-oriented printer cartridges. But ink doesn't cost anywhere near that much at scale, otherwise the ink in a newspaper press will be protected like vault.
As kids we played it until it was obvious who was the likely winner. Also, I've read that the real rules are different than most people play it (at least, not the way I play it). Apparently, if you land on a square and don't buy it then it's supposed to go up for auction. http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CampaignRealMonopoly1.html .
"food without any preservatives or MSG" - What? Why? That eliminates citrus (ascorbic acid is a preservative, more specifically, an antioxidant) .,, and MSG is naturally found in mushrooms, grapes, tomatoes, and more. I can't help but think this is yet another diet piece aimed at the worries of people with too much money.
Miss C, it wasn't until you mentioned that that I realized how unusual that warning might be. I was born in Miami (where Dave Barry worked for the Miami Hearld) and lived in Leon County. I can't count the number of times I saw an alligator - most often in parks and wildlife areas, but also in the city, and tourist place like Silver Springs. Last time I was in Leon County we went for a walk in the St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge. The scores of gators weren't scary ... until sunset when they started moving.
FWIW, regarding "it's fine for adults to read children's books", I used to think it was silly to read children's books as an adult. I remembered that while I loved the Hardy Boys in elementary school, they were quite formulaic, and other stories I remembered were superficial. Now as a parent reading to our 3yo I found that some children's books are (shocking!) really very enjoyable. I've been known to read ahead, after he goes to sleep, because I wanted to know what happens. I apologize for my earlier snooty reaction to adults who read children's books.
328 feet is suspiciously close to 100 meters, and from the video it looks like he went down and back on a 50 meter lap pool. 262 feet is very close to 80 meters. And Croatia (like nearly the rest of the world) uses metric. So I'm going to guess they were going for nice round metric numbers, not odd-ball feet.
I can't help but think this is yet another diet piece aimed at the worries of people with too much money.