How Long Has Chess Been Around.

  I remember trying to learn chess when I was a teenager.  My brother developed an interest in learning chess and needed someone to practice with.  I got volunteered so I learned chess but I was never particularly good at it because I didn't develop the ability to see multiple moves ahead.  That could be my brother didn't tell me I needed to plan moves ahead so I consistently lost. 

Once I headed off to college, I never played it again.  I might get one of those chess apps so I can learn it on my own under my own terms.  My curiosity came to the forefront the other night when I saw an episode of Murdoch which involved a case with chess players.  Crabtree went undercover at a chess tournament with a girl relaying moves in his earphone. 

It is said that chess can be traced back about 1500 years to Northern India where it spread out across Asia and the rest of the world.  As the game spread, the rules changed until the 1880's which is known as the Romantic age of chess.  But its origin is shrouded in time and no one knows exactly who invented it.

One story is that a wise man in a kingdom created the game to show the king why each person was important.  The game had kings, queens, rooks, bishop, knights, and pawns to show everyone had a role to play.  The king loved it so much, he ordered everyone in the kingdom to learn.  The wise man refused  all gold or silver and requested only one grain of wheat on the first square, two grains on the second, four grains on the third etc until the end which is a variation of the penny doubled everyday for a month problem.

Another legend says the game originated in China back around 200 BC.  It is said that Commander, Hán Xin invented the game to represent a certain battle but soon after, the game was forgotten and disappeared but reappeared in the 7th century with new rules.  It really didn't represent the chess of today but the game survived even when it was prohibited or sanctioned by the Catholic church.

Due to the complexity of the game, it is believed that many people helped create the game.  Be that as it may, the first chess champion won the title in 1886.  Until Wilhelm Steinitz became the champion the rules changed, were rewritten, and did not represent the game we play today.  The method of play was more of a romantic play relying on tactics and dynamic play but in the 20th century, technique changed to be more strategic due to huge data basis, chess engines, and online classes and computer partners.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day and wonderful weekend.
 

Were They or Weren't They?

  Yesterday, I shared with you some of the more famous pretenders to the Russian throne but today I'll share another five.  All of the stories are interesting and hard to dispute at the time.

Another woman who claimed to be Princess Anastasia was Eugenia Smith.  She arrived in the United States in 1922.  At the time she was married and settled in Chicago but at some point she let it be known she was Princess Anastasia.  She claimed to survived the killing squad.

Enough people believed her story that she received regular invitations to visit wealthy clients around the country but in 1963, she finally went public with her claims.  At this time, she convinced publishers to publish her memoirs which included all the details of having survived the massacre.  Several of the imposters got into the argument of was she or wasn't she but the son of the doctor killed with the family stated she wasn't because he supported Anna while an Alexi imposter spoke supported her.  When the bodies were discovered in 1991, she refused to provide her DNA.  In fact, when she died, many papers listed her birthday and birth place as Anastasia's.

Then there was Michael Goleniewski who claimed to be Prince Alexi.  He worked as a spy for the Russian government but the big issue with his claim is that he was 18 years younger than the real Prince, in good health, and who claimed to have survived the massacre.  He was born in Poland and worked as a Polish spy before switching his allegiance to the Russians.  He was such a spy that at one point, he was spying for Poland, Russia, and the United States.  As stated earlier, he met Eugenia Smith and claimed she was his long lost sister.  In fact, he claimed the whole family survived but was hiding in Europe.  He got so obnoxious in regard to his claims that the CIA let him go.  He continued making the claims until his death in 1993.

Things calmed down until the beginning of the 21st century when an older woman arrived claiming to be Anastasia. Natalya Petrovna Bilikhodze spent her life in Georgia raising a family but made her claim when she held a press conference in 2002 for the publication of her book.  She claims to have survived the massacre only to escape to Georgia where she married but never shared her identity due to fears of being murdered.  The reason she came forth was because the Russian owed her money.  Specifically, they owed her the Romanov fortune worth about three trillion dollars she wanted to distribute to the Russian people. Around the same time in 2002, she died but they were able to find a sample of her DNA but the results proved she was not a Romanov.

We can't forget Nadezhda Vasilyeva who began pushing her claims of being Anastasia in 1920 when discovered in Siberia.  She claims to have escaped being killed and she was on her way to China when stopped.  The Bolshevik government arrested her and sent her off to a series of prisons for the next 15 years. At that point, she was sent to a prison hospital where she eventually dropped those claims before claiming she was the daughter of a rich merchant.  When she died in 1970, she'd returned to claiming she was Anastasia. 

The final claim comes from a woman in South Africa by the name of Alina, who in 1954 that she was the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, third daughter of the Tzar.  She had no papers, no documentation but the Duval family took her in but she never made a public claim nor did she discuss her supposed escape and life.  Even her pictures did not really look like Maria's.  The claim comes from a Duval son made the claims after Alina died but no one really believed him and those claims were dismissed.

So you have read the claims of the ten most famous imposters.  It appears they found all the bodies in 1991, tested the DNA and found all the members of the family so none of these could be a Romanov. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

Imposters, Imposters, and More Imposters.

  Anna Anderson was not the only person who posed as a member of the Romanov family but she was the most famous one.  The one who lasted the longest before her identity was disproved after her death.  She was not the only one who made the claim of belonging to the Romanov's because the bodies had been hidden and the world in Russia just after their deaths was one of chaos and unknowns.

This allowed people to easily  impersonate members of the family because no one could prove they were dead. It was only the word of a rapidly changing country who underwent like three revolutions in 8 years.  Each revolution bringing a new government and the Romanov's had died during the first revolution and secrecy was good for the new government.

Anastasia was not the only member who the public chose to impersonate, several tried to impersonate Prince Alexi, the thirteen year old hemophiliac son of the Tzar. At this time, hemophiliacs did not live long due to lack of medical advances.  One imposter, Ernest Veerman who immigrated to Canada from Estonia.  He ran a print shop for most of his life until he reached the age of 68 when he made the claim that he was in reality, Prince Alexi. 

When asked how he'd lived so long, he replied that the doctor had totally misdiagnosed his condition.  He attributed the deafness in one ear to the guns fired near it.  Although he pursued his claims to his death, most people did not believe his claims, especially after being examined by several medical personnel and an order to stop making claims.  His third wife believed him to the point she offered a tooth for evidence after his death but it was never tested. 

Another woman, Olga Boodts, claimed she was Olga Nikolaievna, oldest daughter of the Tzar.  Originally, she informed her husband of her alleged identity in 1926 when she married a German officer but that it needed to be kept a secret or she could be killed.  It wasn't until later she revealed her identity and in that identity she denied Anna Anderson's claims while pursuing her own.  When she died, she was buried with the name Olga Nikolaievna on her grave stone and the headstone was damaged in 1995.

Then there was Larissa Tudor who was said to be Tatiana, the most prime daughters of the Tzar.  She never made a claim and the only thing indicating she might have been was a name on her headstone and a legacy with no explanation.  Larissa was a belly dancer who married an Englishman in 1923.  By the age of 28 she was dead.  Her name on the head stone was Larissa Feodorovna which was strange because the term feodorovna referred to foreign women who married Russian Crown Princes.  In addition, she left a large sum of money to her husband with no explanation of its origin. 

The stories that continued after her death included that she was the Princess Tatiana who escaped the massacre, traveled to Istanbul and worked as a belly dancer until she met and married the Englishman.  This is just a story with no proof.

Of course, there is Suzanna Catharina de Graaff who claimed to be the illegitimate daughter. The Dutch woman stated that upon her birth, she was taken away to help the family avoid the humiliation of raising a fifth daughter.  At that time, Russian law required the heir to be male and the Tzarina worried about having a son to the point her body mimicked pregnancy but within a few years she gave birth to her story so this claim made sense.

The story goes further to say that the "fake" pregnancy was actually when the Tzarina was pregnant with Suzanna and upon her birth, she was entrusted to a Dutch con artist to raise.  He alleges he was paid money to raise the Princess Alexandra.  In the 1950's Suzanna met and made friends with Anna Anderson who acknowledged her as her sister.  It wasn't until the last weeks of her life that Suzanna made her claims of being the long lost family daughter public but she'd played the role through her life even going so far as to claim to be the recipient of a royal dowry made up of rubles, trinkets, and china.  Later on, the rubles were examined and they proved to be pre-revolutionary, new and unused.  Her claim was never proved.

This is the first half of the list of the more famous imposters.  Tomorrow, I'll give you the last five people.  I'd love to hear what you think.  Have a good day.

Anna Anderson.

  Most of us, who are a bit older, know the story of the Russian Tzar, complete with the hemophiliac son, Rasputin, the overthrow, and the disappearance of the children. 

Many of us are familiar with a woman who mysteriously appeared not long after the family disappeared.  She claimed to be the sole remaining member of the royal Russian family but at the time, no one could disprove her claim.

I remember one of my relatives talking about a news program years ago where they interviewed her on television.  She stood there claiming she was the last surviving member of that family.  They'd found Anna Anderson living a quiet life in the United States where she spoke with newsmen.  Apparently, she showed up in 1920 and 1922 making claims of being the surviving daughter of the family.

The story goes that she survived the bullets because of the jewels sewn into her corset so soldiers stabbed her with a bayonet but the blade was dull so she survived.  When the soldiers came to dispose of the bodies, she convinced a soldier to help her escape.  Eventually she ended up in Berlin but her relatives did not believe her so she tried to take her own life by jumping off a bridge.

Anna's alleged scars from the Russian secret police were said to have been caused when there was an accident at the weapons factory she worked in during World War I.  A couple of people identified her as Anastasia including the daughter of Rasputin, a German doctor who compared photographs in 1964, and a handwriting expert who identified the handwriting as identical. 

Fast forward to 1994 when two different groups did some DNA testing on a blood sample and a piece of the intestine, both fairly old but usable. The reason for this is simply that by this time Anna had died and insisted on being cremated so there was not usable DNA available for testing. The results of both tests indicated that Anna Anderson was in reality Polish.  She came from a farming family and was four years older than Anastasia.

The DNA identified Anna as a person from a Polish farming family. A surviving niece said that Anna wanted more out of life than what she had. She wanted to be famous. The last her family heard from here was a postcard a bit before Anastasia made her first appearance in 1920.  To the end of her life, she maintained she was Anastasia.

Her supporters claim the DNA samples given to the researchers was switched with another and the results were wrong.  They claim the Russians didn't want it known that Anastasia had been found but I don't think that is true especially after so many years.  In addition, the missing bodies were found in 1991, 7 years after Anna Anderson passed away.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day and tomorrow, I'll speak more on the other imposters.

Extra Extra Read All About It.

  If I said the word "Extra", most likely you would think something or someone that is not essential to the original such as supersizing your fast food order.  Or you might buy something because of all the other things included to make the deal seem sweeter.

 If your mind works a different way, you might have thought of the people you see in television shows and movies.  The people who walk by in the background, the ones who sit in all the other tables in the restaurant, or the people who fill out the movie theater.  They make the scene seem natural yet they do not say a single word because they job is to make it all a reality.

You might even think of the dancers who dance behind the stars on a video, movie, or show. The ones who mirror the vocalist's movements turning it into something more.  Even in movies, dancers are hired to complete a ballroom, or perhaps are the other students in a show like Glee or Fame.  They turn a few people into a fully populated ball complete with those who sit watching and those who dance.

If a music video or movie wants better than average looking people, they might hire models who specialize in music videos or short films from an appropriate agency.  Even people on those exercise videos often hire extras to exercise with them.  The ones who are behind the leader, who exercise with them and provide the modifications if you need something a bit easier or the higher level than the leader.

Of course, we mustn't forget the political arena because politicians are known for hiring people to fill out crowds and make it look as if people support  this particular candidate.  Even Trump admitted to paying a company to hire people for one of his rallies.  Apparently, politicians do this often enough to warrant the existence of several companies who provide the extras.

Are you throwing a Murder Mystery Party at your house, or for an event, you can hire everyone you need for the party and each person who is hired, is considered and extra because you hired them for a short period of time. In addition, there is a whole class of workers classified as extras because they fill out personnel for an event or job.

If you hire a caterer who provides the food and staff for an event, the waiters and waitresses, the cooks, the cleaning staff, everyone.  They are all extras, people who are hired to be there, to provide services in the background, much like extra's in movies and political rallies.

There are extras everywhere you look in this world.  I'm sure there are other types of extras in places I've not thought of.  I hope you enjoyed this.  Please let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

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