Origins of chess

Chess developed from an Indian game called chaturanga, which appeared in the sixth or seventh century and represented the four parts of an army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. The earliest firm references come from Persia in the seventh century, where the game became known as shatranj and the terms still used today, such as check and checkmate, took shape. After the Arab conquests it spread across the Islamic world and reached Europe by the tenth century through Spain and Italy. In the late fifteenth century the rules changed markedly, giving the queen and the bishop their present long-range movement and making the game much faster. Competitive chess grew from the nineteenth century, and the first official world championship was held in 1886.

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