History Knight

The silhouette of a Knight made from letters. In bold, years and names of countries. Indeed it is interesting to have a look to what is written.

The Monarchs of Strategy

This is an autopromotion ad that appeared in the Spanish pop-science magazine Muy Interesante in 2006. It is advertising a special edition dedicated to ths Catholic Monarchs; Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. Their marriage was instrumental in merging both kingdoms and creating the biggest empire of their time.

King and Queen are represented as the equivalent chess pieces, on top of a chessboard whose shape is in the form of a map of Spain. It is actually the current map of Spain, as when they got married in 1469 there were 5 Kingdoms in the territory of the Iberian peninsula. Apart from Castile and Aragon, there were Portugal, who has remained independent, Granada the last Muslim kingdom in Western Europe, conquered by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492 and Navarre, annexed by Ferdinand in 1512.

A significant milestone for the history of chess happened in Spain at that time. In this era of transition from the Middle to the Modern Age, chess was living its own transition from old to modern rules. In this context, Lucena published one of the oldest chess books in Salamanca in 1497.

This is Spartaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

I have seen this one in several places and I love it.

It seems to be a reference to the 300 Spartans who fought the Persians of Xerxes in the Battle of Thermopylae.
They are now a very well-known story in terms of pop-cluture, thanks to a comic and a 2007 film.

The battlefield here is a 16x16 chessboard (that is 256 squares, or 4 conventional chessboards) in which our 300 Greeks [White] are represented by quite standart material in terms of Rooks, Knights and Bishop (2 of each class), 10 Pawns, 2 Queens, and 3 Kings (one of them a human head, shouting).

The Persian side [Black] is composed by eight ranks of soldiers. When you add the material that gives you 64 Pawns, 16 Rooks, 16 Bishops, 16 Knights, 8 Quuens and 8 Kings. A total 128 chess pieces.

But you know the beauty in chess resides in victory of the spirit over the material. A very appropiate metaphor.