Editing Checkers (section)

== History ==

=== Ancient games ===
[[File:1145-Playing-at-Draughts-q75-1517x1525.jpg|right|thumb|Men in medieval clothing playing checkers]]
Similar games have been played for  millennia.<ref name="strutt2"/> A board resembling a checkers board was found in [[Ur]] dating from 3000 BC.<ref name="gameplay2">{{cite book|last=Oxland|first=Kevin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l05TkZFbS24C|title=Gameplay and design|publisher=Pearson Education|year=2004|isbn=978-0-321-20467-7|edition=Illustrated|pages=333}}</ref> In the [[British Museum]] are specimens of [[ancient Egyptian]] checkerboards, found with their pieces in burial chambers, and the game was played by the pharaoh [[Hatshepsut]].<ref name="strutt2" /><ref name="Ellensburgh2">{{cite news|date=17 February 1916|title=Lure of checkers|pages=1|work=The Ellensburgh Capital|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yo0KAAAAIBAJ&pg=1525%2C2429787|access-date=2009-04-16}}</ref> [[Plato]] mentioned a game, πεττεία or ''petteia'', as being of Egyptian origin,<ref name="Ellensburgh2" /> and [[Homer]] also mentions it.<ref name="Ellensburgh2" /> The method of capture was placing two pieces on either side of the opponent's piece. It was said to have been played during the [[Trojan War#Ajax and a game of petteia|Trojan War]].<ref>{{cite web|date=9 December 2006|title=Petteia|url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxk116/roma/petteia.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061209122834/http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxk116/roma/petteia.html|archive-date=9 December 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Austin|first=Roland G.|date=September 1940|title=Greek Board Games|url=http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Austin/index.html|url-status=dead|journal=Antiquity|location=University of Liverpool, England|volume=14|issue=55|pages=257–271|doi=10.1017/S0003598X00015258|s2cid=163535077 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408090534/http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Austin/index.html|archive-date=8 April 2009|access-date=16 April 2009}}</ref> The [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] played a derivation of petteia called ''[[Ludus latrunculorum|latrunculi]]'', or the game of the Little Soldiers. The pieces, and sporadically the game itself, were called ''calculi'' (''pebbles'').<ref name="Ellensburgh2" /><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Peck|first=Harry Thurston|encyclopedia=Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities|title=Latruncŭli|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlatrunculi&highlight=latrunculi|year=1898|publisher=Harper and Brothers|location=New York|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081008114931/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlatrunculi&highlight=latrunculi|archive-date=8 October 2008|access-date=7 August 2021}}</ref> Like the pawn in [[chess]], alquerque was probably derived from πεττεία and latrunculi by removing the necessity for two pieces to cooperate to capture one, although, like Ghanaian draughts, the game could still be declared lost by a player with only one piece left.

=== Alquerque ===
[[File:Alquerque_board_at_starting_position_2.svg|right|thumb|Alquerque board and setup]]
An Arabic game called ''Quirkat'' or ''al-qirq'', with similar play to modern checkers, was played on a 5×5 board. It is mentioned in the tenth-century work [[Kitab al-Aghani]].<ref name="gameplay2" /> Al qirq was also the name for the game that is now called [[nine men's morris]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Berger|first=F|year=2004|title=From circle and square to the image of the world: a possible interpretation or some petroglyphs of merels boards|url=http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/aura/shared_files/Berger1.pdf|url-status=dead|journal=Rock Art Research|volume=21|issue=1|pages=11–25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041121040028/http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/aura/shared_files/Berger1.pdf|archive-date=21 November 2004}}</ref> Al qirq was brought to Spain by the [[Moors]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Bell|first=R. C.|title=Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations|publisher=[[Dover Publications]]|year=1979|isbn=0-486-23855-5|volume=I|location=[[New York City]]|pages=47–48|author-link=Robert Charles Bell}}</ref> where it became known as ''[[Alquerque]]'', the Spanish derivation of the Arabic name. It was maybe adapted into a derivation of ''latrunculi'', or the game of the Little Soldiers, with a leaping capture, which, like modern Argentine, German, Greek, Kenyan and Thai draughts, had flying kings which had to stop on the next square after the captured piece, but pieces could only make up to three captures at once, or seven if all directions were legal. That said, even if playing al qirq inside the cells of a square grid was not already known to the Moors who brought it, which it probably was, either via playing on a [[chessboard]] (in about 1100, probably in the south of France, this was done once again using [[backgammon]] pieces,<ref name="antique3">{{cite book |last1=Bell |first1=Robert Charles |title=Board and Table Game Antiques |date=1981 |publisher=Shire Books |isbn=0-85263-538-9 |page=13 |edition=2000 |url=https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/0852635389}}</ref> thereby each piece was called a "fers", the same name as the [[Queen (chess)|chess queen]], as the move of the two pieces was the same at the time)<ref name="Murray2">{{cite book |author=Murray, H. J. R. |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofchess00murr |title=A History of Chess |publisher=Benjamin Press |year=1985 |isbn=0-936317-01-9 |oclc=13472872 |author-link=H. J. R. Murray |origyear=First pub. 1913 by [[Oxford University Press]] }}</ref> or adapting [[Seega (game)|Seega]] using jumping capture. The rules are given in the 13th-century book ''[[Libro de los juegos]]''.<ref name="gameplay2" />

=== Crowning ===
The rule of crowning was used by the 13th century, as it is mentioned in the [[Philippe Mouskés]]'s ''Chronique'' in 1243<ref name="gameplay2" /> when the game was known as ''Fierges'', the name used for the [[Queen (chess)|chess queen]] (derived from the Persian ''ferz'', meaning royal counsellor or vizier). The pieces became known as "dames" when that name was also adopted for the chess queen.<ref name="Murray2" /> The rule forcing players to take whenever possible was introduced in France in around 1535, at which point the game became known as ''Jeu forcé'', identical to modern American checkers.<ref name="gameplay2" /><ref name="antiques2">{{cite book |last=Bell |first=Robert Charles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yUQXzmslEkwC |title=Board and Table Game Antiques |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=1981 |isbn=0-85263-538-9 |edition=Illustrated |pages=33}}</ref> The game without forced capture became known as ''Le jeu plaisant de dames'', the precursor of international checkers.

The 18th-century English author [[Samuel Johnson]] wrote a foreword to a 1756 book about checkers by [[William Payne (mathematician)|William Payne]], the earliest book in English about the game.<ref name="Ellensburgh2" />