The History of Chess
From an ancient Indian war game to the world's most studied board game.
Origins in India
Chess descends from chaturanga, a four-player war game played in northern India around the 6th century CE. Its four divisions - infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots - each moved differently, foreshadowing the pawns, knights, bishops and rooks of today. The game's name comes from a Sanskrit word for these four military arms.
From India, the game travelled west to Persia, where it became shatranj and picked up words that still echo in chess today: "shah" (king) gave us "check" and "checkmate," from "shah mat," Persian for "the king is helpless."
Spread Across Continents
Following the Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century, shatranj spread across the Islamic world and into Europe via Moorish Spain and Byzantium, reaching most of the continent by the year 1000. Medieval Europeans reshaped the pieces to match their own society - the vizier became a queen, and the war elephant a bishop.
The game's biggest overhaul came in late-15th-century Spain and Italy, when the queen and bishop suddenly gained their sweeping modern moves. The change was so dramatic the new game was nicknamed "Mad Queen chess" - and it's essentially the chess played worldwide ever since.
The Modern Era
Rules were gradually standardized through the 19th century, and the first official World Chess Championship was held in 1886. FIDE, the international chess federation, was founded in 1924 and has organized the championship since 1948.
Computers reshaped the game once again: IBM's Deep Blue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, and today engines like Stockfish and AlphaZero play far beyond human level, changing how the game is studied even at the very top.