A Short History of Chess

c500 CE Chaturanga, earliest chess precursor, created in the Punjab.

This is a game that was probably played with four players and a die, which would explain why there are two Rooks, Knights and Bishops on each side and why there are six unique pieces.

In the original game, the Queen (or counsellor as this piece was known) could only move one square diagonally and the Bishop could only move two squares diagonally.

The Rook was originally the Chariot
The Bishop was originally the Elephant
The Knight was originally the Horse (no surprise there) but the Knights move has never changed.

c. 600 Chaturanga reaches Persia. (Checkmate is a derived term from Shah Matt - Persian for the King is dead). The Moslems then spread the game throughout their empire.

712 Seville conquered by Arabs, Chess is brought to Europe. (although, according to this report http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2155916.stm, Chess was in Europe 100 years earlier)

c. 800 Chess reaches Italy

c.820 Chess reaches Russia via Caspian-Volga trade route

c. 1000 Chess widely known throughout Europe.

1013 Chess arrives in England with the Danes

1280 The first move option for pawns introduced in Spain. (Until the 1500's, two minor pieces could be moved to start and this continued in Holland and Germany until the late 19th Century.

1400's Queen and Bishop given increased powers so that they moved as modern chess pieces.

1500's En passent added to Pawn move, and Castling introduced. Firstly it was two moves, first the R-KB1 and then the next move would be K-KN1.

1561 Castling developed as one move. The exact squares that the King and Rook end on wasn't formalised until the 17th Century. In fact, the Italians had a unique version until the 19th Century.

1886 First world chess championship. Steinitz first world champion.

References:

The Batsford book of Chess

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chess_History/ (referred 10/8/02)

http://misc.traveller.com/chess/history/0-1799.html (referred 10/8/02)

http://www.chess-poster.com/english/chesmayne/the_pawn.htm (referred 10/8/02)

http://chess.about.com/library/weekly/aa082800a.htm (referred 10/8/02)

http://www.logicalchess.com/info/trivia/c.html (referred 11/8/02)

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