
Boris Spassky
1937 – 2025 · aged 88
Russian chess player (1937–2025)
- Born
- 30 Jan 1937 · Saint Petersburg
- Died
- 27 Feb 2025 · Moscow
Life timeline
Their life from birth to death. On the timeline, world events of the time are shown faintly.
- 30 Jan 1937BornBorn in Saint Petersburg
- 1968AwardChess Oscar
- 1969AwardChess Oscar
- 1969 – 1972AwardWorld chess champion
- 27 Feb 2025DiedDied in Moscow
Loading from Wikipedia and Wikidata…
Meanwhile in the world
Major world events during their lifetime (1937 – 2025).
- 1937 – 1945Second Sino-Japanese War
- 19381938 FIFA World Cup
- 1938Munich Agreement
- 1939 – 1940Winter War
- 1939 – 1945World War II
- 1940 – 1945Auschwitz concentration camp
- 1941Attack on Pearl Harbor
- 1941 – 1945Eastern Front
- 1941Operation Barbarossa
- 1942 – 1943Battle of Stalingrad
- 1945Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- 1945 – 1946Nuremberg trials
- 19501950 FIFA World Cup
- 1950 – 1953Korean War
- 1953 – 1959Cuban Revolution
- 19541954 FIFA World Cup
- 1955 – 1975Vietnam War
- 1956Hungarian Revolution of 1956
- 1956Suez Crisis
- 19581958 FIFA World Cup
- 1959Antarctic Treaty System
- 19621962 FIFA World Cup
- 1962Cuban Missile Crisis
- 19661966 FIFA World Cup
- 1966 – 1976Cultural Revolution
- 1968Prague Spring
- 1969Apollo 11 Moon landing
- 19721972 Summer Olympics
- 19741974 FIFA World Cup
- 19781978 FIFA World Cup
- 1978 – 1979Iranian Revolution
- 1979 – 1989Soviet–Afghan War
- 1980 – 1988Iran–Iraq War
- 19841984 Summer Olympics
- 1985Schengen Agreement
- 19891989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
- 1989Fall of the Berlin Wall
- 19901990 FIFA World Cup
- 1991Dissolution of the Soviet Union
- 19941994 FIFA World Cup
Biography
Boris Vasilyevich Spassky (Russian: Борис Васильевич Спасский; January 30, 1937 – February 27, 2025) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigran Petrosian in 1966; defeated Petrosian in 1969 to become world champion; then lost to Bobby Fischer in a famous match in 1972.
Spassky won the Soviet Chess Championship twice outright (1961, 1973), and twice lost in playoffs (1956, 1963), after tying for first place during the event proper. He was a World Chess Championship candidate on seven occasions (1956, 1965, 1968, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1985). In addition to his Candidates wins in 1965 and 1968, Spassky reached the semi-final stage in 1974 and the final stage in 1977.
Spassky immigrated to France in 1976 and became a French citizen in 1978. He continued to compete in tournaments, but was no longer a major contender for the world title. Spassky lost an unofficial rematch against Fischer in 1992. In 2012, he left France and returned to Russia.
Text from the Wikipedia article Boris Spassky, CC BY-SA 4.0
About this information
Dates and life events come from this person’s Wikidata entry.
We only show events that the sources give a date for. Anything without a date is left out rather than guessed.