Chess began in India during the Gupta Empire, spreading to the Persian Sassanid Empire, and then to the Middle East after Muslims conquered Persia. From there, it spread to Europe and Russia.
The number of possible unique chess games is much greater than the number of electrons in the universe. The number of electrons is estimated to be about 10^79, while the number of unique chess games is 10^120.
The longest chess game theoretically possible is 5,949 moves, which would take about 33 hours to playon average.
The longest time for a Castling move to take place was the match game between Bobotsor vs. Irkov in 1966: 46. 0-0.
As late as 1561, Castling was two moves. You had to play R-KB1 on one move and K-KN1 on the next move.
The word “Checkmate” in Chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the King is dead.”
The longest official chess game lasted 269 moves (I. Nikolic – Arsovic, Belgrade 1989) and ended in a draw.
From the starting position, there are eight different ways to Mate in two moves and 355 different ways to Mate in three moves.
The new Pawn move, advancing two squares on its first move instead of one, was first introduced in Spain in 1280.
