Chess

Chess is more familiar than you think.

• There is a king who doesn't do much himself because everybody "got his back."
• There's a queen who does whatever she likes.
• The bishops, knights, and rooks get stuff done.
• Then the pawns are like the foot soldiers and tend to get caught quickly. Unlike the other pieces, they have prospects. If a pawn stays alive long enough and gets to the other side of the board, it gets to be queen. 

• Chess emerged in fifth-century India. In ancient India, there were no bishops, castles, or queens, but elephants, chariots, and ministers of war.
• In early Islam, the game was played with elegant cylinders and conicals in ivory or stone.
• In the 12th -century Norway the kings were bearded brutes with lustrous hair, flanked by shield-biting berserkers.
• Chess standardized in the 19th century and became the Staunton version we play with today.