title: Mariska Hargitay

text: Hargitay is the founder and former president of the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization established in 2004 to provide support to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. According to Hargitay, she was inspired by an encounter with a school of dolphins that surrounded her while she was swimming off the coast of Hawaii at the age of 15. The encounter, which had ignited profound spiritual feelings within her, was one that Hargitay hoped to share with others. As of November 2010, the Joyful Heart Foundation has sent over 5,000 women and children on therapeutic programs in New York, Los Angeles, and Hawaii, which combine yoga, meditation, massage, journaling, and swimming with dolphins. Hargitay said, "I started getting fan mail from survivors who felt a connection to Olivia. In many of these letters, people would disclose their personal stories of abuse—some for the very first time. I remember getting the sense that many were living in isolation with so much shame, but the shame belonged to the perpetrators. I wanted to help find a way to help people reclaim their lives and live them with a renewed sense of possibility and hope. And that's what we work to do every day at Joyful Heart."Since Hargitay received these letters from women, she knew that she had to use her platform to do something meaningful. Hargitay's character, Olivia Benson, was heavily involved in rape and domestic violence cases in New York; in many episodes she defended the women, because she knew the trauma that they had experienced. Some women who watched the show felt a connection with her, which led them to send Hargitay letters because they thought she could do something with them. She, in fact, did; Hargitay became a certified rape counselor. With this, she was able to talk to these women, make them feel better, and let them know that they are not alone; she helped the victims to be able to live their lives again. According to Hargitay, the Foundation has raised $20 million and helped approximately 5,000 survivors as of April 2011. Reference to the Joyful Heart Foundation was worked into episodes of "Special Victims Unit", via a necklace containing two pendants representing the Foundation that Hargitay's character began wearing in the show's . The Foundation works with several brands to create products supporting the cause, including Me&Ro, Michael Stars, and AZIAM's Wife Lover Tanks.


title: Mariska Hargitay

text: Back in November 2009, Hargitay and the Joyful Heart Foundation built healing and wellness kits for women who suffered domestic violence attacks and were currently in the Los Angeles County's domestic violence shelters. They created enough kits to give one to each of about 600 women. In California, the domestic violence services budget was in a major crisis, and shelters were forced to turn women away. Hargitay and her foundation donated money to the cause. Hargitay has worked with Michigan Police and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy to raise awareness about the statistics of untested rape kits. She produced a documentary, "I Am Evidence", following the thousands of untested rape kits; Hargitay called this lack of testing "the clearest and most shocking demonstration of how we regard these crimes in our country." Hargitay appeared in the 17th season of NBC's "The More You Know" public service announcements in 2006, and again in the spring of 2009. She is an honorary board member director of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. On September 27, 2011, Hargitay donated $100,000 to her alma mater, the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television for scholarship. In 2012, Hargitay campaigned for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).


title: Mariska Hargitay

text: On August 28, 2004, in Santa Barbara, California, Hargitay married Peter Hermann, an actor whom she met on the set of "Law & Order: SVU", on which he plays the recurring role of defense attorney Trevor Langan. On June 28, 2006, Hargitay gave birth to their son by an emergency caesarean section. In April 2011, she and her husband adopted a baby girl and attended her birth. In October 2011, she and her husband adopted a son who had been born in 2011. In January 2007 she and her older son appeared in a "Got Milk?" advertisement.


title: Mariska Hargitay

text: In a 2010 interview with "Good Housekeeping", Hargitay stated that she considers herself a Christian.


title: Mariska Hargitay

text: Hargitay speaks five languages: English, French, Hungarian, Spanish, and Italian. She is the godmother of one of Christopher Meloni's children.


title: ADX Florence

text: The United States Penitentiary, Florence Administrative Maximum Facility (USP Florence ADMAX), commonly known as ADX Florence, is an American federal prison in Fremont County near Florence, Colorado. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. ADX Florence, which opened in 1994, is classed as a supermax or "control unit" prison, thus providing a higher, more controlled level of custody than a maximum security prison. ADX Florence forms part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Florence (FCC Florence), which is situated on of land and houses different facilities with varying degrees of security, including the United States Penitentiary, Florence High.


title: ADX Florence

text: ADX Florence was commissioned when the Federal Bureau of Prisons needed a unit designed specifically for the secure housing of those prisoners most capable of extreme violence toward staff or other inmates. As of August 2022, there are a total of 341 inmates housed. They are confined 23 hours per day in single cells with facilities made of poured, reinforced concrete to deter self-harm, and are under 24-hour supervision, carried out intensively with high staff-inmate ratios.


title: ADX Florence

text: The institution is unofficially known as ADX Florence or the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Florence, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the United States Department of Justice. The complex also includes an adjacent minimum-security camp that, houses more prisoners than the supermax unit. The number of inmates at the facility has significantly declined, with a Prison Rape Elimination Act audit in early 2021 reporting that two housing units were no longer operating due to a low population. According to this document, the facility has a maximum capacity of 551 inmates, with a current population as of June 1, 2022, of 344 inmates.


title: ADX Florence

text: USP ADX Florence houses male inmates in the federal prison system deemed the most dangerous and in need of the tightest control, including prisoners whose escape would pose a serious threat to national security.


title: ADX Florence

text: The BOP does not have a designated supermax facility for women. Women in the BOP system classified as "special management concerns" due to violence or escape attempts are confined in the administrative unit of Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.


title: ADX Florence

text: In 1983, Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain, members of the Aryan Brotherhood, fatally stabbed correctional officers Merle Clutts and Robert Hoffman at the United States Penitentiary, Marion. The stabbings took place only a few hours apart and were blamed on inadequate prison design.


title: ADX Florence

text: Federal Bureau of Prisons director Norman Carlson argued for the creation of a new type of facility where the most dangerous, uncontrollable inmates could be isolated from correction officers and other prisoners for security and safety. Under his guidance, the United States Penitentiary, Marion was operated in "permanent lockdown" for the next two decades. It became a model for the design of ADX as a control unit prison. Carlson said that such a prison would hold criminals desperate enough to murder corrections officers or other inmates in the hopes of being sentenced to death. He argued that as draconian as these measures were, they were the only way to deal with inmates who have "absolutely no concern for human life".


title: ADX Florence

text: USP ADX Florence opened on January 10, 1995. The county already had nine prisons, but the lure of 750 to 900 permanent jobs (plus temporary jobs during the prison's construction) led residents to raise $160,000 to purchase for the new prison. Hundreds of people attended the groundbreaking for the facility, which was designed by two leading architecture firms in Colorado Springs and cost $60 million to build.


title: ADX Florence

text: The supermax unit at USP ADX Florence houses 331 male inmates, each assigned to one of six security levels. It is designed for 490 inmates but has never been at full capacity.


title: ADX Florence

text: The facility is best known for housing inmates who have been deemed too dangerous, too high-profile, or too great a security risk for even maximum-security prisons. For example, Joseph Romano was sentenced to life in federal prison for plotting to murder the judge and federal prosecutor who helped sentence him to 15 years in prison for masterminding a coin fraud operation. While in prison, he plotted to murder an undercover officer who had taken part in the investigation. When this came to light, Romano was transferred to USP ADX Florence.


title: ADX Florence

text: The majority of current inmates, however, have been placed there because each has an extensive history in other prisons of committing violent crimes, including murder, against corrections officers and fellow inmates. These inmates are kept in administrative segregation. They are confined in a single-person cell for 23 hours a day and are removed under restraint (handcuffed, shackled, or both); their one hour out of their cell may occur at any time of the day or night. The hour outside of the cell is for exercise and a phone call if they have earned the privilege. Their diet is restricted to ensure that the food cannot be used to harm themselves or to create unhygienic conditions in their cell. Some cells have showers which further reduces the amount of handling of inmates that correctional officers have to perform.


title: ADX Florence

text: After at least one year, depending on their conduct, inmates are gradually allowed out for longer periods. The long-term goal is to keep them at USP ADX Florence for no more than three years and then to transfer them to a less restrictive prison to serve the remainder of their sentences. According to a 1998 report in the "San Francisco Chronicle", USP ADX Florence's main purpose is to "try and extract reasonably peaceful behavior from extremely violent career prisoners".


title: ADX Florence

text: One cell block at Florence was once known as "Bombers Row" because four notable terrorists, three of whom are domestic terrorists, were held there: Terry Nichols, Ramzi Yousef, Eric Rudolph, and Ted Kaczynski.


title: ADX Florence

text: Despite the extreme security measures to deter disruptive, violent, and dangerous behavior among inmates, there have been murders at ADX. Silvestre Rivera and Richard Santiago were both charged with the first degree murder of Manuel Torres, a high-level member of the Mexican Mafia. Left alone with no guard supervision in the prison yard on the morning of April 21, 2005, Rivera and Santiago were videotaped brutally beating and stomping Torres to death. Rivera pled not guilty due to self-defense. Prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty against Rivera and Santiago, but they were both given life sentences for the murders. Today, Santiago remains incarcerated at ADX, while Rivera is currently serving his life sentence in USP Hazleton.


title: ADX Florence

text: In January 2021, a British judge ruled that Julian Assange could not be extradited to the US on the grounds that Assange would likely be housed at ADX, where there was a high risk he would commit suicide due to the conditions at the facility. This ruling was later overturned on appeal in December 2021.


title: ADX Florence

text: ADX Florence is a complex located at 5880 Highway 67, in an unincorporated area, with a Florence, Colorado, postal address. It is located about south of Denver and south of Colorado Springs. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Florence (FCC Florence) which consists of three correctional facilities, each with a different security rating.


title: ADX Florence

text: The majority of the facility is above ground, with the exception of a subterranean corridor that links cellblocks to the lobby. Each cell contains a desk, stool, and bed, constructed almost entirely of poured concrete, as well as a toilet that shuts off if blocked, a shower that runs on a timer to prevent flooding, and a sink lacking a potentially dangerous tap. Rooms may also be fitted with polished steel mirrors bolted to the wall, an electric light that can be shut off only remotely, a radio, and a television that shows recreational, educational, and religious programming.


title: ADX Florence

text: The 4-inch-by-4-foot (10 cm × 1.2 m) windows are designed to prevent inmates from knowing their specific location within the complex. They can see only the sky and roof through them, so it is virtually impossible to plan an escape. Inmates exercise in a concrete pit resembling an empty swimming pool, also designed to prevent them from knowing their location in the facility. The pit is large enough only for a prisoner to walk ten steps in a straight line or thirty-one steps in a circle. Correctional officers generally deliver food to the cells. Inmates transferred to USP ADX Florence from other prisons may be allowed to eat in a shared dining room.


title: ADX Florence

text: The prison as a whole contains a multitude of motion detectors, cameras, and 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors. Officers in the prison's control center monitor inmates twenty-four hours a day and can activate a "panic button", which immediately closes every door in the facility, should an escape attempt be suspected. Pressure pads and razor-wire fences surround the perimeter, which is patrolled by heavily armed officers.


title: ADX Florence

text: The facility houses inmates at six differing security levels: General Population Units ("Delta", "Echo", "Fox", and "Golf" Units), the Special Housing Unit (SHU), the Special Security Unit ("H" Unit), the Control Unit, Intermediate/Transitional Units ("Kilo" and "Joker" Units), and Range 13. Many of the security levels at ADX have special purposes or missions for the inmates who occupy them. The Control Unit houses inmates who have committed serious conduct violations or acts of violence at other institutions. It also houses high-level members of organizations deemed as threats, such as prison gangs. "H" Unit houses inmates who are members of terror groups so designated by the Department of Justice or who have had special administrative measures (SAMs) placed on them. Range 13 is a special four-cell wing within the Special Housing Unit for inmates in need of the tightest control. As of 2022, the only inmates publicly known to have been incarcerated in this unit are Thomas Silverstein and Ramzi Yousef. The two Intermediate Units house "step-down" inmates, who can earn transfer to another institution if they remain incident free while housed in the unit. This is the only unit in ADX where inmates secure themselves in their own cells, can walk freely in their range, and associate with other inmates. From there, inmates will typically be transferred to the supermax step-down unit in USP Florence High.


title: ADX Florence

text: The Bureau of Prisons allowed the media to take a guided tour of USP ADX Florence on September 14, 2007. Attending reporters remarked on "an astonishing and eerie quiet" within the prison, as well as a sense of safety due to the rigorous security measures. "60 Minutes" producer Henry Schuster said: "A few minutes inside that cell and two hours inside Supermax were enough to remind me why I left high school a year early. The walls close in very fast."


title: ADX Florence

text: In 2012, eleven inmates filed a federal class-action suit against the Bureau of Prisons in "Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons". The suit alleged chronic abuse and failure to properly diagnose prisoners who are seriously mentally ill. At the time of the lawsuit, at least six inmates had allegedly died by suicide; a seventh did so after the original lawsuit was filed, and an amended filing added him to the case.


title: ADX Florence

text: Critics claim that the use of extended confinement in solitary cells adversely affects prisoners' mental health; numerous studies support this conclusion. settlement negotiations were underway with the help of a federal magistrate. Some changes have already been made by the Bureau of Prisons.


title: ADX Florence

text: Prisoners held in Unit H are subject to special administrative measures that prevent them from communicating with journalists or privately with their own lawyers or family members.


title: ADX Florence

text: In 2020, a British magistrate refused to extradite Julian Assange to the United States on espionage charges in part because he would possibly be subjected to solitary confinement and special administrative measures at ADX. On July 7, 2021, the High Court of Justice for England and Wales agreed to allow the United States to appeal this decision with the understanding that Assange "will not be subject to SAMs or imprisoned at ADX" if he is extradited.


title: ADX Florence

text: This list contains foreign citizens who committed or attempted to commit terrorist attacks against United States citizens and interests. All sentences are without parole.


title: ADX Florence

text: This list contains U.S. citizens, regardless of origin, who committed or attempted to commit terrorist attacks against United States citizens and interests.


title: Elle Fanning

text: Mary Elle Fanning (born April 9, 1998) is an American actress. She made her film debut as the younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning's character in the drama film "I Am Sam" (2001). As a child actress, she appeared in several films, including "Babel" (2006), "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", and "Phoebe in Wonderland" (both 2008). In 2010 she starred in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" (2010) earning her a Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer nomination. In 2011 she received attention for her starring role in J. J. Abrams' science-fiction film "Super 8", earning a Spotlight Award at the Hollywood Film Festival. She subsequently had leading roles in the comedy-drama film "We Bought a Zoo" (2011), the drama film "Ginger & Rosa" (2012), and as Princess Aurora in the fantasy films "Maleficent" (2014) and "" (2019).


title: Elle Fanning

text: Following "Maleficent", Fanning began working in independent cinema, collaborating with auteurs in lead and supporting roles in films such as Nicolas Winding Refn's "The Neon Demon" (2016), Mike Mills' "20th Century Women" (2016), Sofia Coppola's "The Beguiled" (2017), John Cameron Mitchell's "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" (2017), Woody Allen's "A Rainy Day in New York" (2019), and Sally Potter's "The Roads Not Taken" (2020). In 2019, aged 21, she became the youngest person to serve as a jury member at the Cannes Film Festival. She plays Empress Catherine II in the Hulu series "The Great" (2020–present), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series nomination as well as two Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy nominations and three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. In 2022 she starred as Michelle Carter in the Hulu limited series "The Girl from Plainville".


title: Elle Fanning

text: Fanning was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Heather Joy (née Arrington), who played college tennis, and Steven J. Fanning, who played minor league baseball for teams affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals.


title: Elle Fanning

text: Her maternal grandfather was American football player Rick Arrington, and her aunt is ESPN reporter Jill Arrington. Counted amongst the Arrington family's most notable ancestors is the gentleman farmer William Farrar. Fanning is the younger sister of Dakota Fanning, who is also an actress. Both were brought up in the Southern Baptist denomination.


title: Elle Fanning

text: Fanning started acting before turning three years old. She began her acting career by playing the younger version of her older sister Dakota's characters in the miniseries "Taken" and the movie "I Am Sam." In 2002, at the age of four, Fanning won her first role independent of her sister in the comedy "Daddy Day Care". Anecdotal evidence of her emerging skill was seen in the decision to cast her in the role of Ruth in "The Door in the Floor" (2004) opposite Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger. The film's producers originally planned to hire identical twins for the intense shooting schedule, but were so impressed with Fanning that they used only her. Late in 2003, Fanning appeared in "Because of Winn-Dixie" in the small role of Sweetie Pie Thomas. In 2004, she did voice work in the English-dubbed version of Miyazaki's animated film "My Neighbor Totoro", in the role of Mei, opposite Dakota, who voiced Satsuki, the older sister to Elle's character. Later that same year, she filmed "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With".


title: Elle Fanning

text: In early 2005, Fanning filmed scenes in "Charlotte's Web" as the "future granddaughter" of Fern Arable played by Dakota. However, the scenes did not make the final cut. In mid-2005, she played Debbie, the daughter of Richard and Susan Jones (played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) in the film "Babel". In early 2006, Fanning filmed scenes in both "The Nines" and "Déjà Vu". In mid-2006, she filmed "The Lost Room", a science-fiction TV miniseries. Also in 2006, she appeared on the episode "Need to Know" of "House: MD", playing the patient's daughter. She appeared in an episode of "Criminal Minds" in 2006, playing the supporting role of Tracey in "The Boogeyman". By the end of 2006, Fanning began to book lead roles. The first of these was the one of Emma Learner in "Reservation Road"—the grieving daughter of Grace and Ethan Learner. The film deals with the aftermath of a tragic car accident in which Emma's brother is killed.


title: Elle Fanning

text: In early 2007, Fanning reunited with her "Babel" co-stars, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, in a small part in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" as the younger version of Blanchett's character. Mid-year 2007, Fanning filmed the title role Phoebe of "Phoebe in Wonderland", which also starred Felicity Huffman and was released in March 2009. From July through October 2007, Fanning appeared in "The Nutcracker in 3D", playing Mary. The movie was filmed in Budapest, Hungary and was released in late 2010. In March 2008, Fanning and her sister Dakota were scheduled to star in "My Sister's Keeper", but the opportunity fell through when Dakota learned she would have to shave her head. The sisters were replaced by Abigail Breslin and Sofia Vassilieva.


title: Elle Fanning

text: "Variety" reported in April 2009 that Fanning would be starring in screenwriter Sofia Coppola's 2010 film, "Somewhere". The plot centers around a "bad-boy" actor who is forced to re-evaluate his life when his daughter, played by Fanning, arrives unexpectedly. The film was released during the 2010 awards season. At its first film festival, the 67th Venice Film Festival, it took the Golden Lion. In late 2010, Fanning began working on Francis Ford Coppola's 2011 film "Twixt", which Coppola based on a dream. She played the role of a young ghost named "V". In 2011, Fanning starred in J. J. Abrams' science-fiction drama film "Super 8" as Alice Dainard. The film was released on June 10, 2011, and centers around a group of kids who are forced to deal with strange happenings in their small town. "The Telegraph" cited Fanning as one of the film's best aspects and she received a Spotlight Award at the Hollywood Film Festival.


title: Elle Fanning

text: In December 2011, Fanning appeared in Cameron Crowe's "We Bought a Zoo". She played Lily, a 13-year-old who is working at the zoo's restaurant and lives on the property with her only parental figure, Kelly (Scarlett Johansson). In September 2012, Fanning starred as Ginger along with Alice Englert (who played Rosa) in the drama film "Ginger & Rosa" that took place during 1962 in London. The film was directed by Sally Potter and was released on October 19, 2012. Fanning has received widespread acclaim for her performance, with A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" writing that she "shows a nearly Streepian mixture of poise, intensity, and technical precision. It is frightening how good she is and hard to imagine anything she could not do." Ty Burr, film critic for "The Boston Globe", praised her "luminous naturalism that seems the opposite of performance" and felt that "Fanning easily convinces you of Ginger's emotional reality."


title: Elle Fanning

text: Fanning starred alongside Angelina Jolie in the 2014 Walt Disney film, "Maleficent", directed by Robert Stromberg. Jolie played Maleficent, while Fanning played Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty. The same year, she appeared in the independent science-fiction Western "Young Ones" and starred in the biographical "Low Down", about the life of jazz pianist Joe Albany, in which she plays the role of Albany's daughter, Amy-Jo, from whose perspective the story is told. In 2015, Fanning co-starred in Jay Roach's "Trumbo" as Dalton Trumbo's (Bryan Cranston) daughter Nikola, and starred in "3 Generations" (previously known as "About Ray"), alongside Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon, playing the role of a young transgender man.


title: Elle Fanning

text: In 2016, she appeared as Jesse in the psychological thriller "The Neon Demon", directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016. It was released on June 24, 2016, and did poorly at the box office. That same year, she appeared in Mike Mills's "20th Century Women", opposite Greta Gerwig and Annette Bening. The film had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 8, 2016, and began a limited release on December 28, 2016. She then co-starred in Ben Affleck's Prohibition-era drama "Live by Night", which was released on December 25, 2016.


title: Elle Fanning

text: In 2017, Fanning appeared in Shawn Christensen's feature-length drama, "The Vanishing of Sidney Hall", which premiered on January 25 at the Sundance Film Festival. In the same year, Fanning also appeared in John Cameron Mitchell's British-American science-fiction romantic comedy film "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" (based on a short story by Neil Gaiman), reuniting with Sofia Coppola in "The Beguiled", in the Irish-American romance film "Mary Shelley", directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, and in the music video for Grouplove's single "Good Morning".


title: Elle Fanning

text: In 2018, Fanning starred alongside Peter Dinklage in "I Think We're Alone Now", directed by Reed Morano. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018. and was released on September 14, 2018, by Momentum Pictures. She also starred in "Galveston" opposite Ben Foster, directed by Mélanie Laurent, which had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 10, 2018. That same year, Fanning starred in "Teen Spirit", directed by Max Minghella, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2018. It was released on April 5, 2019.


title: Elle Fanning

text: In May 2019, Fanning was appointed as a jury member of the international competition in the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival, becoming the youngest Cannes juror in history. That same year, Fanning starred in Woody Allen's "A Rainy Day in New York". In October 2019, Fanning reprised the role of Aurora in "". In 2020, Fanning starred in "All the Bright Places", opposite Justice Smith, directed by Brett Haley, based upon the novel of the same name by Jennifer Niven, and "The Roads Not Taken", directed by Sally Potter, opposite Javier Bardem and Salma Hayek. That same year, Fanning starred in and executive produced the historical comedy series "The Great", starring as Catherine the Great alongside Nicholas Hoult. The series premiered on Hulu in May 2020. Fanning received critical acclaim for the role and was nominated in the 2021 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. Her performance also earned her, her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.


title: Elle Fanning

text: She then starred in the 2022 Hulu miniseries "The Girl from Plainville", playing Michelle Carter, based on the death of Conrad Roy.


title: Elle Fanning

text: Fanning will next star in "The Nightingale", based upon the novel of the same name alongside her sister Dakota, reuniting her with Laurent. More recently, Elle and Dakota started Lewellen Pictures with a first look deal at MRC.


title: Chess

text: Chess is a board game between two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The current form of the game emerged in Spain and the rest of Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from chaturanga, a similar but much older game of Indian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide.


title: Chess

text: Chess is an abstract strategy game and involves no hidden information. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. The player controlling the white pieces moves first, followed by the player controlling the black pieces. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way for it to escape. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.


title: Chess

text: Organized chess arose in the 19th century. Chess competition today is governed internationally by FIDE (International Chess Federation). The first universally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Magnus Carlsen is the current World Champion. A huge body of chess theory has developed since the game's inception. Aspects of art are found in chess composition, and chess in its turn influenced Western culture and art, and has connections with other fields such as mathematics, computer science, and psychology.


title: Chess

text: One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine. In 1997, Deep Blue became the first computer to beat the reigning World Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov. Today's chess engines are significantly stronger than the best human players and have deeply influenced the development of chess theory.


title: Chess

text: The rules of chess are published by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs), chess's international governing body, in its "Handbook". Rules published by national governing bodies, or by unaffiliated chess organizations, commercial publishers, etc., may differ in some details. FIDE's rules were most recently revised in 2018.


title: Chess

text: Chess pieces are divided into two different colored sets. While the sets may not be literally white and black (e.g. the light set may be a yellowish or off-white color, the dark set may be brown or red), they are always referred to as "white" and "black". The players of the sets are referred to as and , respectively. Each set consists of 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. Chess sets come in a wide variety of styles; for competition, the Staunton pattern is preferred.


title: Chess

text: The game is played on a square board of eight rows (called ) and eight columns (called ). By convention, the 64 squares alternate in color and are referred to as and squares; common colors for chessboards are white and brown, or white and dark green.


title: Chess

text: The pieces are set out as shown in the diagram and photo. Thus, on White's first rank, from left to right, the pieces are placed in the following order: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. On the second rank is placed a row of eight pawns. Black's position mirrors White's, with an equivalent piece on the same file. The board is placed with a light square at the right-hand corner nearest to each player. The correct positions of the king and queen may be remembered by the phrase "queen on her own color" ─ i.e. the white queen begins on a light square and the black queen on a dark square.


title: Chess

text: In competitive games, the piece colors are allocated to players by the organizers; in informal games, the colors are usually decided randomly, for example by a coin toss, or by one player concealing a white pawn in one hand and a black pawn in the other, and having the opponent choose.


title: Chess

text: White moves first, after which players alternate turns, moving one piece per turn, except for castling, when two pieces are moved. A piece is moved to either an unoccupied square or one occupied by an opponent's piece, which is captured and removed from play. With the sole exception of "en passant", all pieces capture by moving to the square that the opponent's piece occupies. Moving is compulsory; a player may not skip a turn, even when having to move is detrimental.


title: Chess

text: Each piece has its own way of moving. In the diagrams, the dots mark the squares to which the piece can move if there are no intervening piece(s) of either color (except the knight, which leaps over any intervening pieces). All pieces except the pawn can capture an enemy piece if it is located on a square to which they would be able to move if the square was unoccupied. The squares on which pawns can capture enemy pieces are marked in the diagram with black crosses.


title: Chess

text: When a king is under immediate attack, it is said to be . A move in response to a check is legal only if it results in a position where the king is no longer in check. This can involve capturing the checking piece; interposing a piece between the checking piece and the king (which is possible only if the attacking piece is a queen, rook, or bishop and there is a square between it and the king); or moving the king to a square where it is not under attack. Castling is not a permissible response to a check.


title: Chess

text: The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent; this occurs when the opponent's king is in check, and there is no legal way to get it out of check. It is never legal for a player to make a move that puts or leaves the player's own king in check. In casual games, it is common to announce "check" when putting the opponent's king in check, but this is not required by the rules of chess and is not usually done in tournaments.


title: Chess

text: Once per game, each king can make a move known as . Castling consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook of the same color on the same rank, and then placing the rook on the square that the king crossed.


title: Chess

text: When a pawn makes a two-step advance from its starting position and there is an opponent's pawn on a square next to the destination square on an adjacent file, then the opponent's pawn can capture it "en passant" ("in passing"), moving to the square the pawn passed over. This can be done only on the turn immediately following the enemy pawn's two-square advance; otherwise, the right to do so is forfeited. For example, in the animated diagram, the black pawn advances two squares from g7 to g5, and the white pawn on f5 can take it "en passant" on g6 (but only immediately after the black pawn's advance).


title: Chess

text: When a pawn advances to its eighth rank, as part of the move, it is and must be exchanged for the player's choice of queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. Usually, the pawn is chosen to be promoted to a queen, but in some cases, another piece is chosen; this is called underpromotion. In the animated diagram, the pawn on c7 can be advanced to the eighth rank and be promoted. There is no restriction on the piece promoted to, so it is possible to have more pieces of the same type than at the start of the game (e.g., two or more queens). If the required piece is not available (e.g. a second queen) an inverted rook is sometimes used as a substitute, but this is not recognized in FIDE-sanctioned games.


title: Chess

text: In competition, chess games are played with a time control. If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, the game is automatically lost (provided the opponent has to deliver checkmate). The duration of a game ranges from long (or "classical") games, which can take up to seven hours (even longer if adjournments are permitted), to bullet chess (under 3 minutes per player for the entire game). Intermediate between these are rapid chess games, lasting between one and two hours per game, a popular time control in amateur weekend tournaments.


title: Chess

text: Time is controlled using a chess clock that has two displays, one for each player's remaining time. Analog chess clocks have been largely replaced by digital clocks, which allow for time controls with increments.


title: Chess

text: Time controls are also enforced in correspondence chess competitions. A typical time control is 50 days for every 10 moves.


title: Chess

text: Historically, many different notation systems have been used to record chess moves; the standard system today is short-form algebraic notation. In this system, each square is uniquely identified by a set of coordinates, – for the files followed by – for the ranks. The usual format is:


title: Chess

text: The pieces are identified by their initials. In English, these are (king), (queen), (rook), (bishop), and (knight; N is used to avoid confusion with king). For example, Qg5 means "queen moves to the g-file, 5th rank" (that is, to the square g5). Different initials may be used for other languages. In chess literature figurine algebraic notation (FAN) is frequently used to aid understanding independent of language.


title: Chess

text: To resolve ambiguities, an additional letter or number is added to indicate the file or rank from which the piece moved (e.g. Ngf3 means "knight from the g-file moves to the square f3"; R1e2 means "rook on the first rank moves to e2"). For pawns, no letter initial is used; so e4 means "pawn moves to the square e4".


title: Chess

text: If the piece makes a capture, "x" is usually inserted before the destination square. Thus Bxf3 means "bishop captures on f3". When a pawn makes a capture, the file from which the pawn departed is used to identify the pawn making the capture, for example, exd5 (pawn on the e-file captures the piece on d5). Ranks may be omitted if unambiguous, for example, exd (pawn on the e-file captures a piece somewhere on the d-file). A minority of publications use ":" to indicate a capture, and some omit the capture symbol altogether. In its most abbreviated form, exd5 may be rendered simply as ed. An "en passant" capture may optionally be marked with the notation "e.p."


title: Chess

text: If a pawn moves to its last rank, achieving promotion, the piece chosen is indicated after the move (for example, e1=Q or e1Q). Castling is indicated by the special notations 0-0 (or O-O) for castling and 0-0-0 (or O-O-O) for castling. A move that places the opponent's king in check usually has the notation "+" added. There are no specific notations for discovered check or double check. Checkmate can be indicated by "#". At the end of the game, "1–0" means White won, "0–1" means Black won, and "½–½" indicates a draw.


title: Chess

text: Chess moves can be annotated with punctuation marks and other symbols. For example: "!" indicates a good move; "!!" an excellent move; "?" a mistake; "??" a blunder; "!?" an interesting move that may not be best; or "?!" a dubious move not easily refuted.


title: Chess

text: For example, one variation of a simple trap known as the Scholar's mate (see animated diagram) can be recorded:


title: Chess

text: Variants of algebraic notation include long form algebraic, in which both the departure and destination square are indicated; abbreviated algebraic, in which capture signs, check signs, and ranks of pawn captures may be omitted; and Figurine Algebraic Notation, used in chess publications for universal readability regardless of language.


title: Chess

text: Portable Game Notation (PGN) is a text-based file format for recording chess games, based on short form English algebraic notation with a small amount of markup. PGN files (suffix .pgn) can be processed by most chess software, as well as being easily readable by humans.


title: Chess

text: Until about 1980, the majority of English language chess publications used descriptive notation, in which files are identified by the initial letter of the piece that occupies the first rank at the beginning of the game. In descriptive notation, the common opening move 1.e4 is rendered as "1.P-K4" ("pawn to king four"). Another system is ICCF numeric notation, recognized by the International Correspondence Chess Federation though its use is in decline.


title: Chess

text: In competitive games, players are normally required to keep a score (record of the game). For this purpose, only algebraic notation is recognized in FIDE-sanctioned events; game scores recorded in a different notation system may not be used as evidence in the event of a dispute.


title: Chess

text: Contemporary chess is an organized sport with structured international and national leagues, tournaments, and congresses. Thousands of chess tournaments, matches, and festivals are held around the world every year catering to players of all levels.


title: Chess

text: Tournaments with a small number of players may use the round-robin format, in which every player plays one game against every other player. For a large numbers of players, the Swiss system may be used, in which each player is paired against an opponent who has the same (or as similar as possible) score in each round. In either case, a player's score is usually calculated as 1 point for each game won and one-half point for each game drawn. Variations such as "football scoring" (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw) may be used by tournament organizers, but ratings are always calculated on the basis of standard scoring. There are different ways to denote a player's score in a match or tournament, most commonly: P/G (points scored out of games played, e.g. 5½/8); P–A (points for and points against, e.g. 5½–2½); or +W−L=D (W wins, L losses, D draws, e.g. +4−1=3).


title: Chess

text: The term "" refers not to an individual game, but to either a series of games between two players, or a team competition in which each player of one team plays one game against a player of the other team.


title: Chess

text: Chess's international governing body is usually known by its French acronym FIDE (pronounced FEE-day) (French: Fédération internationale des échecs), or International Chess Federation. FIDE's membership consists of the national chess organizations of over 180 countries; there are also several associate members, including various supra-national organizations, the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA), International Committee of Chess for the Deaf (ICCD), and the International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPCA). FIDE is recognized as a sports governing body by the International Olympic Committee, but chess has never been part of the Olympic Games.


title: Chess

text: FIDE's most visible activity is organizing the World Chess Championship, a role it assumed in 1948. The current World Champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway. The reigning Women's World Champion is Ju Wenjun from China.


title: Chess

text: Other competitions for individuals include the World Junior Chess Championship, the European Individual Chess Championship, the tournaments for the World Championship qualification cycle, and the various national championships. Invitation-only tournaments regularly attract the world's strongest players. Examples include Spain's Linares event, Monte Carlo's Melody Amber tournament, the Dortmund Sparkassen meeting, Sofia's M-tel Masters, and Wijk aan Zee's Tata Steel tournament.


title: Chess

text: The World Chess Solving Championship and World Correspondence Chess Championships include both team and individual events; these are held independently of FIDE.


title: Chess

text: In order to rank players, FIDE, ICCF, and most national chess organizations use the Elo rating system developed by Arpad Elo. An average club player has a rating of about 1500; the highest FIDE rating of all time, 2882, was achieved by Magnus Carlsen on the March 2014 FIDE rating list.


title: Chess

text: The above titles are open to both men and women. There are also separate women-only titles; Woman Grandmaster (WGM), Woman International Master (WIM), Woman FIDE Master (WFM) and Woman Candidate Master (WCM). These require a performance level approximately 200 Elo rating points below the similarly named open titles, and their continued existence has sometimes been controversial. Beginning with Nona Gaprindashvili in 1978, a number of women have earned the open GM title.


title: Chess

text: FIDE also awards titles for arbiters and trainers. International titles are also awarded to composers and solvers of chess problems and to correspondence chess players (by the International Correspondence Chess Federation). National chess organizations may also award titles.


title: Chess

text: Chess has an extensive literature. In 1913, the chess historian H.J.R. Murray estimated the total number of books, magazines, and chess columns in newspapers to be about 5,000. B.H. Wood estimated the number, as of 1949, to be about 20,000. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld write that, "Since then there has been a steady increase year by year of the number of new chess publications. No one knows how many have been printed." Significant public chess libraries include the John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection at Cleveland Public Library, with over 32,000 chess books and over 6,000 bound volumes of chess periodicals; and the Chess & Draughts collection at the National Library of the Netherlands, with about 30,000 books.


title: Chess

text: Chess theory usually divides the game of chess into three phases with different sets of strategies: the opening, typically the first 10 to 20 moves, when players move their pieces to useful positions for the coming battle; the middlegame; and last the endgame, when most of the pieces are gone, kings typically take a more active part in the struggle, and pawn promotion is often decisive.


title: Chess

text: A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a game (the "opening moves"). Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as and have been given names such as the Ruy Lopez or Sicilian Defense. They are catalogued in reference works such as the "Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings". There are dozens of different openings, varying widely in character from quiet (for example, the Réti Opening) to very aggressive (the Latvian Gambit). In some opening lines, the exact sequence considered best for both sides has been worked out to more than 30 moves. Professional players spend years studying openings and continue doing so throughout their careers, as opening theory continues to evolve.


title: Chess

text: Most players and theoreticians consider that White, by virtue of the first move, begins the game with a small advantage. This initially gives White the initiative. Black usually strives to neutralize White's advantage and achieve , or to develop in an unbalanced position.


title: Chess

text: The middlegame is the part of the game which starts after the opening. There is no clear line between the opening and the middlegame, but typically the middlegame will start when most pieces have been developed. (Similarly, there is no clear transition from the middlegame to the endgame; see start of the endgame.) Because the opening theory has ended, players have to form plans based on the features of the position, and at the same time take into account the tactical possibilities of the position. The middlegame is the phase in which most combinations occur. Combinations are a series of tactical moves executed to achieve some gain. Middlegame combinations are often connected with an attack against the opponent's king. Some typical patterns have their own names; for example, the Boden's Mate or the Lasker–Bauer combination.


title: Chess

text: Specific plans or strategic themes will often arise from particular groups of openings which result in a specific type of pawn structure. An example is the , which is the attack of queenside pawns against an opponent who has more pawns on the queenside. The study of openings is therefore connected to the preparation of plans that are typical of the resulting middlegames.


title: Chess

text: Another important strategic question in the middlegame is whether and how to reduce material and transition into an endgame (i.e. ). Minor material advantages can generally be transformed into victory only in an endgame, and therefore the stronger side must choose an appropriate way to achieve an ending. Not every reduction of material is good for this purpose; for example, if one side keeps a light-squared bishop and the opponent has a dark-squared one, the transformation into a bishops and pawns ending is usually advantageous for the weaker side only, because an endgame with bishops on opposite colors is likely to be a draw, even with an advantage of a pawn, or sometimes even with a two-pawn advantage.


title: Chess

text: In chess, tactics in general concentrate on short-term actions – so short-term that they can be calculated in advance by a human player or a computer. The possible depth of calculation depends on the player's ability. In positions with many possibilities on both sides, a deep calculation is more difficult and may not be practical, while in positions with a limited number of variations, strong players can calculate long sequences of moves.


title: Chess

text: Theoreticians describe many elementary tactical methods and typical maneuvers, for example: pins, forks, skewers, batteries, discovered attacks (especially discovered checks), zwischenzugs, deflections, decoys, sacrifices, underminings, overloadings, and interferences. Simple one-move or two-move tactical actions – threats, exchanges of , and double attacks – can be combined into more complicated sequences of tactical maneuvers that are often forced from the point of view of one or both players. A forced variation that involves a sacrifice and usually results in a tangible gain is called a . Brilliant combinations – such as those in the Immortal Game – are considered beautiful and are admired by chess lovers. A common type of chess exercise, aimed at developing players' skills, is a position where a decisive combination is available and the challenge is to find it.


title: Chess

text: Chess strategy is concerned with the evaluation of chess positions and with setting up goals and long-term plans for future play. During the evaluation, players must take into account numerous factors such as the value of the pieces on the board, control of the center and centralization, the pawn structure, king safety, and the control of key squares or groups of squares (for example, diagonals, open files, and dark or light squares).


title: Chess

text: The most basic step in evaluating a position is to count the total value of pieces of both sides. The point values used for this purpose are based on experience; usually, pawns are considered worth one point, knights and bishops about three points each, rooks about five points (the value difference between a rook and a bishop or knight being known as the exchange), and queens about nine points. The king is more valuable than all of the other pieces combined, since its checkmate loses the game. But in practical terms, in the endgame, the king as a fighting piece is generally more powerful than a bishop or knight but less powerful than a rook. These basic values are then modified by other factors like position of the piece (e.g. advanced pawns are usually more valuable than those on their initial squares), coordination between pieces (e.g. a pair of bishops usually coordinate better than a bishop and a knight), or the type of position (e.g. knights are generally better in with many pawns while bishops are more powerful in ).


title: Chess

text: Another important factor in the evaluation of chess positions is (sometimes known as the ): the configuration of pawns on the chessboard. Since pawns are the least mobile of the pieces, pawn structure is relatively static and largely determines the strategic nature of the position. Weaknesses in pawn structure include isolated, doubled, or backward pawns and ; once created, they are often permanent. Care must therefore be taken to avoid these weaknesses unless they are compensated by another valuable asset (for example, by the possibility of developing an attack).


title: Chess

text: The endgame (also or ) is the stage of the game when there are few pieces left on the board. There are three main strategic differences between earlier stages of the game and the endgame:


title: Chess

text: Endgames can be classified according to the type of pieces remaining on the board. Basic checkmates are positions in which one side has only a king and the other side has one or two pieces and can checkmate the opposing king, with the pieces working together with their king. For example, king and pawn endgames involve only kings and pawns on one or both sides, and the task of the stronger side is to promote one of the pawns. Other more complicated endings are classified according to pieces on the board other than kings, such as "rook and pawn versus rook" endgames.


title: Chess

text: The earliest texts referring to the origins of chess date from the beginning of the 7th century. Three are written in "Pahlavi" (Middle Persian) and one, the "Harshacharita", is in Sanskrit. One of these texts, the "Chatrang-namak", represents one of the earliest written accounts of chess. The narrator Bozorgmehr explains that "Chatrang", the Pahlavi word for chess, was introduced to Persia by 'Dewasarm, a great ruler of India' during the reign of Khosrow I.


title: Chess

text: The oldest known chess manual was in Arabic and dates to about 840, written by al-Adli ar-Rumi (800–870), a renowned Arab chess player, titled "Kitab ash-shatranj" (The Book of Chess). This is a lost manuscript, but is referenced in later works. Here also, al-Adli attributes the origins of Persian chess to India, along with the eighth-century collection of fables Kalīla wa-Dimna. By the twentieth century, a substantial consensus developed regarding chess's origins in northwest India in the early 7th century. More recently, this consensus has been the subject of further scrutiny.


title: Chess

text: The early forms of chess in India were known as (), literally "four divisions" [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry – represented by pieces which would later evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively. Chaturanga was played on an 8×8 uncheckered board, called . Thence it spread eastward and westward along the Silk Road. The earliest evidence of chess is found in the nearby Sasanian Persia around 600 A.D., where the game came to be known by the name (). Chatrang was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia (633–51), where it was then named (; ), with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names. In Spanish, "shatranj" was rendered as "ajedrez" ("al-shatranj"), in Portuguese as "xadrez", and in Greek as ζατρίκιον ("zatrikion", which comes directly from the Persian "chatrang"), but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian "shāh" ("king"), from which the English words "check" and "chess" descend. The word "checkmate" is derived from the Persian "shāh māt" ("the king is dead").


title: Chess

text: Xiangqi is the form of chess best-known in China. The eastern migration of chess, into China and Southeast Asia, has even less documentation than its migration west, making it largely conjectured. The word was used in China to refer to a game from 569 A.D. at the latest, but it has not been proven if this game was or was not directly related to chess.


title: Chess

text: The first reference to Chinese chess appears in a book entitled "Xuán guaì lù" ("Record of the Mysterious and Strange"), dating to about 800. A minority view holds that western chess arose from xiàngqí or one of its predecessors, although this has been contested. Chess historians Jean-Louis Cazaux and Rick Knowlton contend that xiangqi's intrinsic characteristics make it easier to construct an evolutionary path from China to India/Persia than the opposite direction.


title: Chess

text: The oldest archaeological chess artifacts – ivory pieces – were excavated in ancient Afrasiab, today's Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, Central Asia, and date to about 760, with some of them possibly being older. Remarkably, almost all findings of the oldest pieces come from along the Silk Road, from the former regions of the Tarim Basin (today's Xinjiang in China), Transoxiana, Sogdiana, Bactria, Gandhara, to Iran on one end and to India through Kashmir on the other.


title: Chess

text: The game reached Western Europe and Russia via at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000, it had spread throughout both the Muslim Iberia and Latin Europe. A Latin poem called "Versus de scachis" ("Verses on Chess") dated to the late 10th century, has been preserved at Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland.


title: Chess

text: The game of chess was then played and known in all European countries. A famous 13th-century Spanish manuscript covering chess, backgammon, and dice is known as the "Libro de los juegos", which is the earliest European treatise on chess as well as being the oldest document on European tables games. The rules were fundamentally similar to those of the Arabic shatranj. The differences were mostly in the use of a checkered board instead of a plain monochrome board used by Arabs and the habit of allowing some or all pawns to make an initial double step. In some regions, the Queen, which had replaced the Vizier, and/or the King could also make an initial two-square leap under some conditions.


title: Chess

text: Around 1200, the rules of shatranj started to be modified in Spain and the rest of Southern Europe, culminating, several major changes later, in the emergence of modern chess practically as it is known today. A major change was the modern piece movement rules, which began to appear in intellectual circles in Valencia, Spain, around 1475, which established the foundations and brought it very close to current Chess. These new rules then were quickly adopted in Italy and Southern France before diffusing into the rest of Europe. Pawns gained the ability to advance two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern movement powers. The queen replaced the earlier vizier chess piece toward the end of the 10th century and by the 15th century had become the most powerful piece; in light of that, modern chess was often referred to at the time as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess". Castling, derived from the "king's leap", usually in combination with a pawn or rook move to bring the king to safety, was introduced. These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe.


title: Chess

text: Writings about chess theory began to appear in the 15th century. The "Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez" ("Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess") by Spanish churchman Luis Ramírez de Lucena was published in Salamanca in 1497. Lucena and later masters like Portuguese Pedro Damiano, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco, and Spanish bishop Ruy López de Segura developed elements of opening theory and started to analyze simple endgames.


title: Chess

text: In the 18th century, the center of European chess life moved from Southern Europe to mainland France. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais, who won a famous series of matches against Irish master Alexander McDonnell in 1834. Centers of chess activity in this period were coffee houses in major European cities like "Café de la Régence" in Paris and "Simpson's Divan" in London.


title: Chess

text: At the same time, the intellectual movement of romanticism had had a far-reaching impact on chess, with aesthetics and tactical beauty being held in higher regard than objective soundness and strategic planning. As a result, virtually all games began with the Open Game, and it was considered unsportsmanlike to decline gambits that invited tactical play such as the King's Gambit and the Evans Gambit. This chess philosophy is known as Romantic chess, and a sharp, tactical style consistent with the principles of chess romanticism was predominant until the late 19th century.


title: Chess

text: The rules concerning stalemate were finalized in the early 19th century. Also in the 19th century, the convention that White moves first was established (formerly either White or Black could move first). Finally, the rules around castling and en passant captures were standardized – variations in these rules persisted in Italy until the late 19th century. The resulting standard game is sometimes referred to as or , particularly in Asia where other games of the chess family such as xiangqi are prevalent. Since the 19th century, the only rule changes, such as the establishment of the correct procedure for claiming a draw by repetition, have been technical in nature.


title: Chess

text: As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books, and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example, the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems became a regular part of 19th-century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef Kling, and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa published his and Bilguer's "Handbuch des Schachspiels" ("Handbook of Chess"), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.


title: Chess

text: The first modern chess tournament was organized by Howard Staunton, a leading English chess player, and was held in London in 1851. It was won by the German Adolf Anderssen, who was hailed as the leading chess master. His brilliant, energetic attacking style was typical for the time. Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal Game and Evergreen Game or Morphy's "Opera Game" were regarded as the highest possible summit of the art of chess.


title: Chess

text: Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with the American Paul Morphy, an extraordinary chess prodigy. Morphy won against all important competitors (except Staunton, who refused to play), including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he intuitively knew how to prepare attacks.


title: Chess

text: Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz laid the foundations for a scientific approach to the game, the art of breaking a position down into components and preparing correct plans. In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading German master Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship. This win marked a stylistic transition at the highest levels of chess from an attacking, tactical style predominant in the Romantic era to a more positional, strategic style introduced to the chess world by Steinitz. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger player, the German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of any world champion.


title: Chess

text: After the end of the 19th century, the number of master tournaments and matches held annually quickly grew. The first Olympiad was held in Paris in 1924, and FIDE was founded initially for the purpose of organizing that event. In 1927, the Women's World Chess Championship was established; the first to hold the title was Czech-English master Vera Menchik.


title: Chess

text: A prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl Capablanca, known for his skill in endgames, won the World Championship from Lasker in 1921. Capablanca was undefeated in tournament play for eight years, from 1916 to 1924. His successor (1927) was the Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player who died as the world champion in 1946. Alekhine briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935 and regained it two years later.


title: Chess

text: In the interwar period, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists like Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti. They advocated controlling the of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, thus inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns, which become objects of attack.


title: Chess

text: After the death of Alekhine, a new World Champion was sought. FIDE, which has controlled the title since then, ran a tournament of elite players. The winner of the 1948 tournament was Russian Mikhail Botvinnik.


title: Chess

text: In 1950 FIDE established a system of titles, conferring the titles of Grandmaster and International Master on 27 players. (Some sources state that in 1914 the title of chess Grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim.)


title: Chess

text: Botvinnik started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess world, which mainly through the Soviet government's politically inspired efforts to demonstrate intellectual superiority over the West stood almost uninterrupted for more than a half-century. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer (champion 1972–1975). Botvinnik also revolutionized opening theory. Previously, Black strove for equality, attempting to neutralize White's first-move advantage. As Black, Botvinnik strove for the initiative from the beginning. In the previous informal system of World Championships, the current champion decided which challenger he would play for the title and the challenger was forced to seek sponsors for the match. FIDE set up a new system of qualifying tournaments and matches. The world's strongest players were seeded into Interzonal tournaments, where they were joined by players who had qualified from Zonal tournaments. The leading finishers in these Interzonals would go through the "Candidates" stage, which was initially a tournament, and later a series of knockout matches. The winner of the Candidates would then play the reigning champion for the title. A champion defeated in a match had a right to play a rematch a year later. This system operated on a three-year cycle. Botvinnik participated in championship matches over a period of fifteen years. He won the world championship tournament in 1948 and retained the title in tied matches in 1951 and 1954. In 1957, he lost to Vasily Smyslov, but regained the title in a rematch in 1958. In 1960, he lost the title to the 23-year-old Latvian prodigy Mikhail Tal, an accomplished tactician and attacking player who is widely regarded as one of the most creative players ever, hence his nickname "the magician from Riga". Botvinnik again regained the title in a rematch in 1961.


title: Chess

text: Following the 1961 event, FIDE abolished the automatic right of a deposed champion to a rematch, and the next champion, Armenian Tigran Petrosian, a player renowned for his defensive and positional skills, held the title for two cycles, 1963–1969. His successor, Boris Spassky from Russia (champion 1969–1972), won games in both positional and sharp tactical style. The next championship, the so-called Match of the Century, saw the first non-Soviet challenger since World War II, American Bobby Fischer. Fischer defeated his opponents in the Candidates matches by unheard-of margins, and convincingly defeated Spassky for the world championship. The match was followed closely by news media of the day, leading to a surge in popularity for chess; it also held significant political importance at the height of the Cold War, with the match being seen by both sides as a microcosm of the conflict between East and West. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov when he was unable to reach agreement on conditions with FIDE, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Fischer modernized many aspects of chess, especially by extensively preparing openings.


title: Chess

text: Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with a string of tournament successes. In the 1984 World Chess Championship, Karpov faced his toughest challenge to date, the young Garry Kasparov from Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan. The match was aborted in controversial circumstances after 5 months and 48 games with Karpov leading by 5 wins to 3, but evidently exhausted; many commentators believed Kasparov, who had won the last two games, would have won the match had it continued. Kasparov won the 1985 rematch. Kasparov and Karpov contested three further closely fought matches in 1986, 1987 and 1990, Kasparov winning them all. Kasparov became the dominant figure of world chess from the mid 1980s until his retirement from competition in 2005.


title: Chess

text: Chess-playing computer programs (later known as chess engines) began to appear in the 1960s. In 1970, the first major computer chess tournament, the North American Computer Chess Championship, was held, followed in 1974 by the first World Computer Chess Championship. In the late 1970s, dedicated home chess computers such as Fidelity Electronics' "Chess Challenger" became commercially available, as well as software to run on home computers. However, the overall standard of computer chess was low until the 1990s.


title: Chess

text: The first endgame tablebases, which provided perfect play for relatively simple endgames such as king and rook versus king and bishop, appeared in the late 1970s. This set a precedent to the complete six- and seven-piece tablebases that became available in the 2000s and 2010s respectively.


title: Chess

text: The first commercial chess database, a collection of chess games searchable by move and position, was introduced by the German company ChessBase in 1987. Databases containing millions of chess games have since had a profound effect on opening theory and other areas of chess research.


title: Chess

text: Digital chess clocks were invented in 1973, though they did not become commonplace until the 1990s. Digital clocks allow for time controls involving increments and delays.


title: Chess

text: The Internet enabled online chess as a new medium of playing, with chess servers allowing users to play other people from different parts of the world in real time. The first such server, known as Internet Chess Server or ICS, was developed at the University of Utah in 1992. ICS formed the basis for the first commercial chess server, the Internet Chess Club, which was launched in 1995, and for other early chess servers such as FICS (Free Internet Chess Server). Since then, many other platforms have appeared, and online chess began to rival over-the-board chess in popularity. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the isolation ensuing from quarantines imposed in many places around the world, combined with the success of the popular Netflix show "The Queen's Gambit" and other factors such as the popularity of online tournaments (notably PogChamps) and chess Twitch streamers, resulted in a surge of popularity not only for online chess, but for the game of chess in general; this phenomenon has been referred to in the media as the 2020 online chess boom.


title: Chess

text: Computer chess has also seen major advances. By the 1990s, chess engines could consistently defeat most amateurs, and in 1997 Deep Blue defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match, starting an era of computer dominance at the highest level of chess. In the 2010s, engines of superhuman strength became accessible for free on a number of PC and mobile platforms, and free engine analysis became a commonplace feature on internet chess servers. An adverse effect of the easy availability of engine analysis on hand-held devices and personal computers has been the rise of computer cheating, which has grown to be a major concern in both over-the-board and online chess. In 2017, AlphaZero – a neural network also capable of playing shogi and Go – was introduced. Since then, many chess engines based on neural network evaluation have been written, the best of which have surpassed the traditional "brute-force" engines. AlphaZero also introduced many novel ideas and ways of playing the game, which affected the style of play at the top level.


title: Chess

text: As endgame tablebases developed, they began to provide perfect play in endgame positions in which the game-theoretical outcome was previously unknown, such as positions with king, queen and pawn against king and queen. In 1991, Lewis Stiller published a tablebase for select six-piece endgames, and by 2005, following the publication of Nalimov tablebases, all six-piece endgame positions were solved. In 2012, Lomonosov tablebases were published which solved all seven-piece endgame positions. Use of tablebases enhances the performance of chess engines by providing definitive results in some branches of analysis.


title: Chess

text: Technological progress made in the 1990s and the 21st century has influenced the way that chess is studied at all levels, as well as the state of chess as a spectator sport.


title: Chess

text: Previously, preparation at the professional level required an extensive chess library and several subscriptions to publications such as "Chess Informant" to keep up with opening developments and study opponents' games. Today, preparation at the professional level involves the use of databases containing millions of games, and engines to analyze different opening variations and prepare novelties. A number of online learning resources are also available for players of all levels, such as online courses, tactics trainers, and video lessons.


title: Chess

text: Since the late 1990s, it has been possible to follow major international chess events online, the players' moves being relayed in real time. Sensory boards have been developed to enable automatic transmission of moves. Chess players will frequently run engines while watching these games, allowing them to quickly identify mistakes by the players and spot tactical opportunities. While in the past the moves have been relayed live, today chess organizers will often impose a half-hour delay as an anti-cheating measure. In the mid-to-late 2010s – and especially following the 2020 online boom – it became commonplace for supergrandmasters, such as Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen, to livestream chess content on platforms such as Twitch. Also following the boom, online chess started being viewed as an e-sport, with e-sport teams signing chess players for the first time in 2020.


title: Chess

text: Organized chess even for young children has become common. FIDE holds world championships for age levels down to 8 years old. The largest tournaments, in number of players, are those held for children.


title: Chess

text: The number of grandmasters and other chess professionals has also grown in the modern era. Kenneth Regan and Guy Haworth conducted research involving comparison of move choices by players of different levels and from different periods with the analysis of strong chess engines; they concluded that the increase in the number of grandmasters and higher Elo ratings of the top players reflect an actual increase in the average standard of play, rather than "rating inflation" or "title inflation".


title: Chess

text: In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke ties with FIDE to organize their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association (PCA). From then until 2006, there were two simultaneous World Championships and respective World Champions: the PCA or "classical" champions extending the Steinitzian tradition in which the current champion plays a challenger in a series of games, and the other following FIDE's new format of many players competing in a large knockout tournament to determine the champion. Kasparov lost his PCA title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. Due to the complicated state of world chess politics and difficulties obtaining commercial sponsorships, Kasparov was never able to challenge for the title again. Despite this, he continued to dominate in top level tournaments and remained the world's highest rated player until his retirement from competitive chess in 2005.


title: Chess

text: The World Chess Championship 2006, in which Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov, reunified the titles and made Kramnik the undisputed World Chess Champion. In September 2007, he lost the title to Viswanathan Anand of India, who won the championship tournament in Mexico City. Anand defended his title in the revenge match of 2008, 2010 and 2012. In 2013, Magnus Carlsen of Norway beat Anand in the 2013 World Chess Championship. He defended his title 4 times since then and is the reigning world champion.


title: Chess

text: In the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, chess was a part of noble culture; it was used to teach war strategy and was dubbed the "King's Game". Gentlemen are "to be meanly seene in the play at Chestes", says the overview at the beginning of Baldassare Castiglione's "The Book of the Courtier" (1528, English 1561 by Sir Thomas Hoby), but chess should not be a gentleman's main passion. Castiglione explains it further:


title: Chess

text: And what say you to the game at chestes? It is truely an honest kynde of enterteynmente and wittie, quoth Syr Friderick. But me think it hath a fault, whiche is, that a man may be to couning at it, for who ever will be excellent in the playe of chestes, I beleave he must beestowe much tyme about it, and applie it with so much study, that a man may assoone learne some noble scyence, or compase any other matter of importaunce, and yet in the ende in beestowing all that laboure, he knoweth no more but a game. Therfore in this I beleave there happeneth a very rare thing, namely, that the meane is more commendable, then the excellency.


title: Chess

text: Some of the elaborate chess sets used by the aristocracy at least partially survive, such as the Lewis chessmen.


title: Chess

text: Chess was often used as a basis of sermons on morality. An example is "Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium sive super ludo scacchorum" ('Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess'), written by an Italian Dominican monk Jacobus de Cessolis . This book was one of the most popular of the Middle Ages. The work was translated into many other languages (the first printed edition was published at Utrecht in 1473) and was the basis for William Caxton's "The Game and Playe of the Chesse" (1474), one of the first books printed in English. Different chess pieces were used as metaphors for different classes of people, and human duties were derived from the rules of the game or from visual properties of the chess pieces:


title: Chess

text: The knyght ought to be made alle armed upon an hors in suche wyse that he haue an helme on his heed and a spere in his ryght hande/ and coueryd wyth his sheld/ a swerde and a mace on his lyft syde/ Cladd wyth an hawberk and plates to fore his breste/ legge harnoys on his legges/ Spores on his heelis on his handes his gauntelettes/ his hors well broken and taught and apte to bataylle and couerid with his armes/ whan the knyghtes ben maad they ben bayned or bathed/ that is the signe that they shold lede a newe lyf and newe maners/ also they wake alle the nyght in prayers and orysons vnto god that he wylle gyue hem grace that they may gete that thynge that they may not gete by nature/ The kynge or prynce gyrdeth a boute them a swerde in signe/ that they shold abyde and kepe hym of whom they take theyr dispenses and dignyte.


title: Chess

text: Known in the circles of clerics, students, and merchants, chess entered into the popular culture of the Middle Ages. An example is the 209th song of Carmina Burana from the 13th century, which starts with the names of chess pieces, "Roch, pedites, regina..." The game of chess, at times, has been discouraged by various religious authorities in Middle Ages: Jewish, Catholic and Orthodox. Some Muslim authorities prohibited it even recently, for example Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 and Abdul-Aziz ash-Sheikh even later.


title: Chess

text: During the Age of Enlightenment, chess was viewed as a means of self-improvement. Benjamin Franklin, in his article "The Morals of Chess" (1750), wrote:


title: Chess

text: The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it. By playing at Chess then, we may learn:


title: Chess

text: I. Foresight, which looks a little into futurity, and considers the consequences that may attend an action ...


title: Chess

text: II. Circumspection, which surveys the whole Chess-board, or scene of action: – the relation of the several Pieces, and their situations ...


title: Chess

text: Chess is taught to children in schools around the world today. Many schools host chess clubs, and there are many scholastic tournaments specifically for children. Tournaments are held regularly in many countries, hosted by organizations such as the United States Chess Federation and the National Scholastic Chess Foundation.


title: Chess

text: Chess is many times depicted in the arts; significant works where chess plays a key role range from Thomas Middleton's "A Game at Chess" to "Through the Looking-Glass" by Lewis Carroll, to Vladimir Nabokov's "The Defense", to "The Royal Game" by Stefan Zweig. Chess has also featured in film classics such as Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal", Satyajit Ray's "The Chess Players", and Powell and Pressburger's "A Matter of Life and Death".


title: Chess

text: Chess is also present in contemporary popular culture. For example, the characters in "Star Trek" play a futuristic version of the game called "Federation Tri-Dimensional Chess" and "Wizard's Chess" is played in J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter".


title: Chess

text: The game structure and nature of chess are related to several branches of mathematics. Many combinatorical and topological problems connected to chess, such as the knight's tour and the eight queens puzzle, have been known for hundreds of years.


title: Chess

text: The number of legal positions in chess is estimated to be 4.59 (+/- 0.38) x10 with a 95% confidence level, with a game-tree complexity of approximately 10. The game-tree complexity of chess was first calculated by Claude Shannon as 10, a number known as the Shannon number. An average position typically has thirty to forty possible moves, but there may be as few as zero (in the case of checkmate or stalemate) or (in a constructed position) as many as 218.


title: Chess

text: In 1913, Ernst Zermelo used chess as a basis for his theory of game strategies, which is considered one of the predecessors of game theory. Zermelo's theorem states that it is possible to solve chess, i.e. to determine with certainty the outcome of a perfectly played game (either White can force a win, or Black can force a win, or both sides can force at least a draw). However, with 10 legal positions in chess, it will take an impossibly long time to compute a perfect strategy with any feasible technology.


title: Chess

text: There is an extensive scientific literature on chess psychology. Alfred Binet and others showed that knowledge and verbal, rather than visuospatial, ability lies at the core of expertise. In his doctoral thesis, Adriaan de Groot showed that chess masters can rapidly perceive the key features of a position. According to de Groot, this perception, made possible by years of practice and study, is more important than the sheer ability to anticipate moves. De Groot showed that chess masters can memorize positions shown for a few seconds almost perfectly. The ability to memorize does not alone account for chess-playing skill, since masters and novices, when faced with random arrangements of chess pieces, had equivalent recall (about six positions in each case). Rather, it is the ability to recognize patterns, which are then memorized, which distinguished the skilled players from the novices. When the positions of the pieces were taken from an actual game, the masters had almost total positional recall.


title: Chess

text: More recent research has focused on chess as mental training; the respective roles of knowledge and look-ahead search; brain imaging studies of chess masters and novices; blindfold chess; the role of personality and intelligence in chess skill; gender differences; and computational models of chess expertise. The role of practice and talent in the development of chess and other domains of expertise has led to much empirical investigation. Ericsson and colleagues have argued that deliberate practice is sufficient for reaching high levels of expertise in chess. Recent research, however, fails to replicate their results and indicates that factors other than practice are also important.


title: Chess

text: For example, Fernand Gobet and colleagues have shown that stronger players started playing chess at a young age and that experts born in the Northern Hemisphere are more likely to have been born in late winter and early spring. Compared to the general population, chess players are more likely to be non-right-handed, though they found no correlation between handedness and skill.


title: Chess

text: A relationship between chess skill and intelligence has long been discussed in scientific literature as well as in popular culture. Academic studies that investigate the relationship date back at least to 1927. Although one meta-analysis and most children studies find a positive correlation between general cognitive ability and chess skill, adult studies show mixed results.


title: Chess

text: Chess composition is the art of creating chess problems (also called chess compositions). The creator is known as a chess composer. There are many types of chess problems; the two most important are:


title: Chess

text: Fairy chess is a branch of chess problem composition involving altered rules, such as the use of unconventional pieces or boards, or unusual stipulations such as reflexmates.


title: Chess

text: Tournaments for composition and solving of chess problems are organized by the World Federation for Chess Composition, which works cooperatively with but independent of FIDE. The WFCC awards titles for composing and solving chess problems.


title: Chess

text: Online chess is chess that is played over the internet, allowing players to play against each other in real time. This is done through the use of Internet chess servers, which pair up individual players based on their rating using an Elo or similar rating system. Online chess saw a spike in growth during the quarantines of the COVID-19 pandemic. This can be attributed to both isolation and the popularity of Netflix miniseries "The Queen's Gambit", which was released in October 2020. Chess app downloads on the App Store and Google Play Store rose by 63% after the show debuted. Chess.com saw more than twice as many account registrations in November as it had in previous months, and the number of games played monthly on Lichess doubled as well. There was also a demographic shift in players, with female registration on Chess.com shifting from 22% to 27% of new players. Grandmaster Maurice Ashley said "A boom is taking place in chess like we have never seen maybe since the Bobby Fischer days," attributing the growth to an increased desire to do something constructive during the pandemic. USCF Women's Program Director Jennifer Shahade stated that chess works well on the internet, since pieces do not need to be reset and matchmaking is virtually instant.


title: Chess

text: The idea of creating a chess-playing machine dates to the 18th century; around 1769, the chess-playing automaton called The Turk became famous before being exposed as a hoax. Serious trials based on automata, such as El Ajedrecista, were too complex and limited to be useful.


title: Chess

text: Since the advent of the digital computer in the 1950s, chess enthusiasts, computer engineers, and computer scientists have built, with increasing degrees of seriousness and success, chess-playing machines and computer programs. The groundbreaking paper on computer chess, "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess", was published in 1950 by Claude Shannon. He wrote:


title: Chess

text: The chess machine is an ideal one to start with, since: (1) the problem is sharply defined both in allowed operations (the moves) and in the ultimate goal (checkmate); (2) it is neither so simple as to be trivial nor too difficult for satisfactory solution; (3) chess is generally considered to require "thinking" for skillful play; a solution of this problem will force us either to admit the possibility of a mechanized thinking or to further restrict our concept of "thinking"; (4) the discrete structure of chess fits well into the digital nature of


title: Chess

text: The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) held the first major chess tournament for computers, the North American Computer Chess Championship, in September 1970. CHESS 3.0, a chess program from Northwestern University, won the championship. The first World Computer Chess Championship, held in 1974, was won by the Soviet program Kaissa. At first considered only a curiosity, the best chess playing programs have become extremely strong. In 1997, a computer won a chess match using classical time controls against a reigning World Champion for the first time: IBM's Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov 3½–2½ (it scored two wins, one loss, and three draws). There was some controversy over the match, and human-computer matches were relatively close over the next few years, until convincing computer victories in 2005 and in 2006.


title: Chess

text: In 2009, a mobile phone won a category 6 tournament with a performance rating of 2898: chess engine Hiarcs 13 running on the mobile phone HTC Touch HD won the Copa Mercosur tournament with nine wins and one draw. The best chess programs are now able to consistently beat the strongest human players, to the extent that human–computer matches no longer attract interest from chess players or the media. While the World Computer Chess Championship still exists, the Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC) is widely regarded as the unofficial world championship for chess engines. The current champion is Stockfish.


title: Chess

text: With huge databases of past games and high analytical ability, computers can help players to learn chess and prepare for matches. Internet Chess Servers allow people to find and play opponents worldwide. The presence of computers and modern communication tools have raised concerns regarding cheating during games.


title: Chess

text: There are more than two thousand published chess variants, games with similar but different rules. Most of them are of relatively recent origin. They include:


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (; born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation.


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Thunberg's activism began when she persuaded her parents to adopt lifestyle choices that reduced their own carbon footprint. In August 2018, at age 15, she started spending her Fridays outside the Swedish Parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading "" (School strike for climate). Thunberg initially gained notice for her youth and her straightforward and blunt speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticizes world leaders for their failure to take what she considers sufficient action to address the climate crisis.


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Soon other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together they organized a school climate strike movement under the name "Fridays for Future". After Thunberg addressed the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were multiple coordinated multi-city protests involving over a million students each. To avoid carbon-intensive flying, Thunberg sailed in a yacht to North America, where she attended the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Her speech there, in which she exclaimed "How dare you?", was widely taken up by the press and incorporated into music. She speaks fluent English, and most of her public interactions are in English.


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Her sudden rise to world fame made her both a leader in the activist community and a target for critics, especially due to her youth. Her influence on the world stage has been described by "The Guardian" and other newspapers as the "Greta effect". She received numerous honours and awards, including an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, inclusion in "Time" 100 most influential people, being the youngest "Time" Person of the Year, inclusion in the "Forbes" list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women (2019), and nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg was born on 3 January 2003, in Stockholm, Sweden, the daughter of opera singer Malena Ernman and actor Svante Thunberg. Her paternal grandfather was actor and director Olof Thunberg. She has a younger sister, Beata.


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Thunberg says she first heard about climate change in 2011, when she was eight years old, and could not understand why so little was being done about it. The situation made her depressed and as a result, at the age of 11, she stopped talking and eating much and lost in two months. Eventually, she was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism. In one of her first speeches demanding climate action, Thunberg described the selective mutism aspect of her condition as meaning she "only speaks when necessary".


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Thunberg struggled with depression for almost four years before she began her school strike campaign. When she started protesting, her parents did not support her activism. Her father said he does not like her missing school but said: "[We] respect that she wants to make a stand. She can either sit at home and be really unhappy, or protest, and be happy." Her diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome was made public nationwide in Sweden by her mother in May 2015, in order to help other families in a similar situation. While acknowledging that her diagnosis "has limited me before", Thunberg does not view her Asperger's as an illness, and has instead called it her "superpower". She was later described as being not only the best-known climate change activist, but also the best-known autism activist. Thunberg commented in 2021 that many people in the "Fridays for Future" movement had autism, and were very inclusive and welcoming. She thinks that the reason for so many people with autism becoming climate activists is that they cannot look away, and have to tell the truth as they see it: "I know lots of people who have been depressed, and then they have joined the climate movement or "Fridays for Future" and have found a purpose in life and found friendship and a community that they are welcome in." She considers that the best thing that has come out of her activism has been friendship and happiness.


title: Greta Thunberg

text: For about two years, Thunberg challenged her parents to lower the family's carbon footprint and overall impact on the environment by becoming vegan, upcycling, and giving up flying. She has said she tried showing them graphs and data, but when that did not work, she warned her family that they were stealing her future. Giving up flying in part meant her mother had to give up her international career as an opera singer. When interviewed in December 2019 by the BBC, her father said: "To be honest, (her mother) didn't do it to save the climate. She did it to save her child because she saw how much it meant to her, and then, when she did that, she saw how much (Greta) grew from that, how much energy she got from it." Thunberg credits her parents' eventual response and lifestyle changes with giving her hope and belief that she could make a difference. When asked in September 2021 whether she felt guilty about ending her mother's career she was surprised by the question: "It was her choice. I didn't make her do anything. I just provided her with the information to base her decision on." The family story is recounted in the 2018 book "Scenes from the Heart", updated in 2020 as "Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis", with contributions from the girls, and the whole family credited as authors.


title: Greta Thunberg

text: Thunberg was a pupil at Franska Skolan, a French private school in central Stockholm, from 2010 to 2018, The school follows the Swedish system of education, but all the students, mainly Swedes, study French. Then, she transferred to Kringlaskolan, a school in Södertälje.