Chess Day is celebrated in Ukraine on July 20, while the world celebrates International Chess Day, Space Exploration Day, Daytime Sleep Day, International Cake Day, Curb Walking Day, International Moon Day and World Jump Day.
Chess Day in Ukraine
This day is established in honor of the International Chess Day, which has been celebrated around the world since 1966. Chess is associated with logical thinking, strategy and patience. This is an ancient game, the roots of which go back to the earliest times when man acquired the ability to think. Thanks to the creative imagination, chess has the features of art, and due to accurate calculation, it has the properties of science. This is one of the few activities that improves brain function, memory and cognitive abilities. Statistics show that 70% of people in the world have played chess at least once in their lives, and for 650 million people it is a permanent hobby.
The game develops thinking and helps solve complex tasks, facilitating the generation of new ideas. No wonder chess is even recommended to fight Alzheimer’s disease. There are some claims that chess helps to develop intelligence, although this is more difficult to prove.
The positive influence of chess is especially noticeable among young people, which has led to the introduction of chess as one of the development methods in school programs in various countries. It has shown that chess improves children’s academic performance and has many other positive effects.
Chess has a very ancient and glorious history. This game is believed to have been invented in India during the Gupta Empire. In the 9th century, it became popular in the West as well. It is known that chess was played in Kievan Rus as early as the 10th century. They were brought from Persia, and archaeological finds in Vyshgorod, Kyiv, Turov, Black Tomb and near Chernigov confirm this. During the Hetmanship, Metropolitan T. Yanovsky became famous as an outstanding chess player, and Hetman K. Razumovsky was a patron of the rapidly developing art of chess.
Over time, the game of chess has undergone many improvements. The names of chess pieces, such as “queen” and “king”, “officer” and “knight”, originated in the Middle Ages, when society was oriented towards war and confrontation. Originally, the queen was an advisor to the king, but during the Renaissance, when society became more dynamic, quick attack methods were added to the rules. At the same time, the pawns were allowed to move two squares forward on the first move.
Since the middle of the last century, chess tournaments with blindfolds, which require high skill, have been held. This art requires the ability to clearly visualize the board and the course of the game in one’s head. One of the first official records of such a game was set by the Hungarian chess player Janos Flesh in 1960 in Budapest, simultaneously playing with 52 blindfolded opponents and winning against 31 of them.
Annual men’s chess championships have been held in Ukraine since 1991. In 1992, the Chess Federation of Ukraine (FSU) was founded. On November 1, 2011, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution “On Proclamation of Chess Day in Ukraine.” 277 People’s Deputies voted for this decision. Since then, every year on July 20, Chess Day is celebrated in Ukraine.
International Chess Day
The first modern chessboard (with dark and light squares) was made in Europe in 1090. A new rule for the pawn, allowing it to move two squares on the first move instead of one, was first introduced in Spain in 1280. Until 1561, casting was done in two moves. A folding chess board was invented by a priest to circumvent the ban on playing chess. It folded and looked like two books on a shelf. The first game of chess in Earth’s orbit took place on June 9, 1970 aboard Soyuz-9 and ended in a draw.
The longest possible theoretical chess game consists of 5949 moves. According to the Chess Foundation of America, there are approximately 1.70×10^29 ways to play the first 10 moves in a chess game. The number of different 40 moves in the game of chess is much greater than the number of electrons in the universe. The number of electrons is about 10^79, the number of combinations is 10^120. The first computer to play chess with an international grandmaster is called Deep Thought. It happened in November 1988 in Long Beach, California.
Since 1966, July 20 has been celebrated worldwide as International Chess Day by decision of FIDE. The name of the game comes from the Persian “checkmate” – the master is dead. The homeland of chess is India, where the game of chaturanga appeared in the 5th century. Chess appeared in Kievan Rus’ around the 9th-10th century.
Chess is a board game on a 64-cell board with 32 pieces (16 white and black pieces each). Two partners play, and the goal of the game is to checkmate the opponent’s king. Almost every city has chess clubs where fans of this game gather. Tournaments and entertainment events are held in clubs on International Chess Day.
Day of space exploration
Space Exploration Day, also known as National Moon Day in the USA, is dedicated to the anniversary of the first manned mission to the Moon.
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to set foot on the surface of the moon. The Apollo 11 mission, launched by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, became an important milestone in human history. Three astronauts participated in the mission – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. On July 20, Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, with the famous statement: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. Aldrin joined him on the lunar surface 19 minutes later.
Astronauts spent several hours on the surface of the moon, planting the US flag, taking pictures and even talking to President Richard Nixon. They spent the night in the Lunar Module on the surface of the Moon and began their return journey to Earth on July 22, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.
In 1984, US President Ronald Reagan proclaimed July 20 as Space Exploration Day in honor of this historic event. Space Exploration Day is not only a celebration of past achievements, but also a day of inspiration for future generations. It encourages people to learn more about space exploration and inspires young people to consider space science as a potential career.
This day also reminds us of the incredible achievements of mankind in the exploration of space and encourages us to dream about future travels. It is a day when we look to the sky and remember all the achievements of mankind in understanding the cosmos.
Important events in history:
- 1534 — the world’s first publishing house was registered in Cambridge.
- 1810 — the creation of the independent Latin American state of Colombia was announced.
- 1871 — The province of British Columbia is included in Canada.
- 1877 — the beginning of the story of animation.
- 1917 — the trademark “BMW” is registered.
- 1924 — the International Chess Federation (FIDE) was founded in Paris, this day is celebrated as International Chess Day.
- 1940 — the American music magazine Billboard published the first list of the most popular songs.
- 1944 — failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler.
- 1976 — the first studies were carried out on the surface of Mars.
- 1993 — own currency was introduced in Lithuania — lit.
- 2005 — the law on same-sex marriage came into force in Canada at the national level.
Decree on the assignment of surnames to Jews and the development of rocket engineering
On July 20, 1808, Napoleon issued a decree obliging Jews to have surnames. A similar decree was passed on July 23, 1785 in Austria. The reason for these decrees was passportization, which began in Europe. The surnames given to Jews often resembled German ones, because Yiddish is based on one of the southern German dialects. It is worth noting that some Jews already had surnames – in particular, descendants of influential rabbinical families or wealthy Jews who had dealings with the royal authorities. The rest of the Jews received surnames according to the German model – from family nicknames, father’s names, professions or place of residence. As always, money mattered a lot.
The surnames Schneider, Goldschmidt, Kaufman, Fischer indicated a person’s profession. By the way, ethnic Germans had similar surnames. However, some German surnames could not be Jewish, especially those related to agriculture, because Jews were forbidden to own land. For example, the surnames Bauer (peasant) or Schweinehirte (swineherd) could not be Jewish. On the contrary, the surnames Wuherer (usurer), Eidelstein, Rubin, Diamant were unacceptable to the Germans. Sometimes Jews used animal names for surnames and added them to traditional Jewish names, resulting in surnames such as Hirshman (from ‘deer’) or Wolfman (from ‘wolf’). Surnames with German endings, such as Mendelssohn and Levinsohn, were also formed.
In Russia, Jews began to receive surnames in 1804, on the initiative of Derzhavin, who recommended not only the mandatory assignment of surnames, but also the use of nicknames based on some human trait.
George Langemak and his contribution to rocketry
On July 20, 1898, in Starobilsk, Kharkiv province, Georgy Erichovich Langemak was born, a designer of powder rockets, who made a significant contribution to the creation of rockets for Katyusha. He became the founder of research in the field of projectile construction on smokeless powder and discovered the so-called law of similarity. Also translated the term “astronautics”.
Langemak fought during the First World War, but did not take part in the revolutionary events of 1917. According to some sources, he served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky, and was later mobilized into the Red Army. Later, he engaged in scientific work at the Jet Research Institute and received government awards. While working at the institute, Langemak almost completed the development of the RS-82 mm and RS-132 mm rockets, which became the basis of the Katyusha rocket mortar. In 1933, official tests of samples of rocket projectiles of various calibers on smokeless gunpowder designed by Petropavlovsky, Langemak, and Artemyev were conducted in the Gas Dynamics Laboratory.
In 1936, Langemak carried out calculations to enter the fourth dimension, but in 1937 he was “purged” and sentenced to death on charges of “damage” and participation in an “anti-Soviet terrorist organization.” Langemac was arrested, shot and all his personal property confiscated in 1938. In 1955, he was rehabilitated, and on July 21, 1991, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the development of Katyusha.
