QUOTE OF THE DAY

BIRTHS

Gustaaf Nietvelt (1897-15.11.1961), a Belgian who composed 300 chess problems.
Octavio Trompowsky (1897-24.03.1984), a Brazilian player known to play with White 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5, a  chess opening named after him.
Yuri Yakovich (1962), Russian Grandmaster and coach who was a member of the silver medal-winning Russian team at the 1997 European Team Chess Championship.
Einar Gausel (1963), Norwegian Grandmaster, columnist, and author who was three times Norwegian Champion.
Jacek Gdanski (1970), a Polish Grandmaster who was Polish Champion in 1992.
Simon Williams (1979), English Grandmaster. In 2003, he finished second at the British Chess Championship, and equal second in 2009.
Laurent Fressinet (1981), French Grandmaster and French Champion in 2010 and 2014. He is a second of Magnus Carlsen since 2013.
Irina Zakurdjaeva (1982), Russian Woman Grandmaster.
Magnus Carlsen (1990), Norwegian Grandmaster and World Champion since 2013. Outstanding player, he is holding the record of the highest elo rating ever reach by a chess player.

DEATHS

Samuel Lipschutz (04.07.1863-1905), an American player who won was the champion of the United States from 1889 to 1890 and again from 1891 to 1894.
Frantisek Jelinek 1902-02.06.1958), a Czech composer.  Gustavus Reichhelm (06.11.1839-1905), an American player, chess editor, analyst, problem composer, and solver.
Ossip Bernstein (20.09.1882-1962), French Grandmaster born in Ukraine who had good scores against top players like Rubinstein, Lasker, and Flohr.
Antonio Piatesi (26.09.1903-1985), an Italian chess composer.
Valentin Arbakov (28.01.1952-2003), Russian Grandmaster who was an amazing blitz and well known for his for his proclivity for alcohol.

CHESS EVENTS

1927 Alexander Alekhine became the 4th World Champion after beating José Raul Capablanca (+6 -3 =25).
1988 The USSR team won 28^th Olympiad, and Hungary won the Women’s Olympiad for the first time with a team including the three Polgar sisters and Madl.
1990 FIDE GA admitted the Chess Federation of The Islamic Republic of Iran as a provisional member. The GA confirmed the admission of Chess Federations of Myanmar, Belize, and Ghana.
1992 Russia led by G. Kasparov won the 10^th European Team Championship in Debrecen, Hungary with 25 points. 39 teams took part. Ukraine with 13½  won the 1^st European Women’s Team Championship.
1996 A. Suetin (RUS) became the 6th World Senior Champion in Bad Liebenzell.
2003 The chess program Schredder won the world computer championship in Graz.
2004 In India, GM Pentala Harikrishna of India and WGM Ekaterina Korbut of Russia won the 43rd World Junior and 21st World Junior/Girls Championships held in Cochin, India.
2011 After drawing the 8th game of the match Hou Yifan (China) vs Humpy Koneru (India), Hou Yifan won  the Women’s World championship match 5.5 – 2½.
2016 In New York, after scoring 6-6 in the classical games and winning 3-1 in a dramatic tie-break Magnus Carlsen defended his title against Sergey Karjakin. After an unspectacular draw in game 1, Carlsen had a winning position in game 2 but was again frustrated by Karjakin’s defensive skills. But Carlsen recovered and convincingly won game 3. Carlsen finished the tie-break and the match by mating Karjakin with a fine queen sacrifice in game 4.

WORLD EVENTS

1718 King Charles XII of Sweden dies during a siege of the fortress of Fredriksten in Norway.
1786 The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under Pietro Leopoldo I, becomes the first modern state to abolish the death penalty (later commemorated as Cities for Life Day).
1872 The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England.
1886 The Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
1934 The LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first steam locomotive to be authenticated as reaching 100 mph.
1939 Winter War: Soviet forces cross the Finnish border in several places and bomb Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the war.
1966 Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1967 The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1967 The Pakistan Peoples Party is founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who becomes its first chairman.
1982 Michael Jackson’s sixth solo studio album, Thriller is released worldwide. It will become the best-selling record album in history.
1995 Official end of Operation Desert Storm.

(Source: Wikipedia)

GAME OF THE DAY