Birth of Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov was born on 13 April 1963 in Baku. A Russian chess grandmaster and political activist, Kasparov became the youngest undisputed world champion in 1985, at the age of twenty-two, by defeating Anatoly Karpov. He dominated the game for two decades, holding the highest rating, and played a famous series of matches against the IBM computer Deep Blue, losing the rematch in 1997. He retired from professional chess in 2005 to focus on politics, becoming a leading critic of Vladimir Putin and a founder of the opposition coalition The Other Russia. He has lived outside Russia for years and written books on chess, strategy and human rights.

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