Excelsior (chess Problem)
"Excelsior" is one of Sam Loyd's most famous chess problems, originally published in ''London Era'' in 1861. In 1867, it participated together with five other problems as a set in an international problem tournament. The motto for the full set was "Excelsior" (eng. 'Ever upward'), generally known as the title of the poem "Excelsior" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and as that term is very fitting for this particular problem, it is generally associated with it. It is not to be confused by a popular 1958 study of the same name by Russian chess composer Vladimir Korolkov, which has a similar thematic motif. Backstory Loyd had a friend who was willing to wager that he could always find the piece which delivered the principal mate of a chess problem. Loyd composed this problem as a joke and bet his friend dinner that he could not pick a piece that ''didn't'' give mate in the main line (his friend immediately identified the pawn on b2 as being the least likely to deliver mate), and wh ...
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London Era
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished from the Lord Mayo ...
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