Chess
Last updated on Tue, 07/07/2009 at 12:46am.
Chess is a game played between two players using 32 pieces (16 each of two distinct colors) on a 64 square board.
The earliest known ancestor of modern chess was an Indian game called Chaturanga, where the knight, King and Rooks moved the same but there was no castling, two square move for the pawn and the Bishop and Queen where much weaker. It then moved to Persia where it was known as Chatrang, eventually making it's way through the still youthful Islamic Empire, where it was known as Shatranj, into Southern Spain. By the 1500's it had spread all through Europe and there were many different ways to play, including one where both King a Queen can move at the same time. The modern rules where adopted in Spain and later the rest of Europe sometime in the 1500's.
Legend has it that the Queen's power on the chess board was an idea of Spanish chess players modeling it after Queen Isabella, arguably one of the most powerful female monarchs in European History.
Chess is has been acknowledged as a sport by more than 100 countries, FIDE (Fédération Internationale des échecs) is the third largest sporting body in the world (behind the IOC and FIFA) and has a delegate to the IOC and will be in the Olympics sometime soon. Making Chess one of the most popular, if not the most popular, sport in the world.