The game of chess is believed to have originated in India, where it was call Chaturange prior to the 6th century AD.
The game became popular in India and then spread to Persia, and the Arabs.
The Arabs coined the term “Shah Mat”, which translates to “the King is dead”. This is where the word “checkmate” came from.
Archeologists have discovered ivory playing pieces and chess artifacts in Uzbekistan dating back to 760 AD – chess spread quickly and far!
The game of chess reached Western Europe around the year 1000.
Around 1475, changes were made to the game and it evolved into its more current form. Also around this time formal rules began to appear.
In 1749 the first standard chess manual was written by chess master Francois-Andre Danican Philidor.
The period of time from the 18th century until the 1880’s was known as the Romantic Era of chess, and included the discovery of pawns as strategic pieces, stalemate rules, and the convention that white pieces moved first.
