Mikhail Tal
1936 – 1992 · aged 56
Soviet-Latvian chess player (1936-1992)
- Born
- 9 Nov 1936 · Riga
- Died
- 27 Jun 1992 · Moscow
Life timeline
Their life from birth to death. On the timeline, world events of the time are shown faintly.
- 9 Nov 1936BornBorn in Riga
- 1960AwardHonoured Master of Sports of the USSR
- 1960AwardOrder of the Badge of Honour
- 1960 – 1961AwardWorld chess champion
- 1981AwardOrder of Friendship of Peoples
- 27 Jun 1992DiedDied in Moscow
Loading from Wikipedia and Wikidata…
Meanwhile in the world
Major world events during their lifetime (1936 – 1992).
- 19361936 Summer Olympics
- 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
Biography
Mikhail Tal (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992) was a Soviet Latvian chess grandmaster and the eighth World Chess Champion. He is considered a creative genius and is widely regarded as one of the most influential players in chess history. Tal played in an attacking and combinatorial style. His play was known for improvisation and unpredictability. Vladislav Zubok said of him, "Every game for him was as inimitable and invaluable as a poem".
His nickname was "Misha", a diminutive for Mikhail, and he earned the nickname "The Magician from Riga". Both The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games and Modern Chess Brilliancies include more games by Tal than any other player. He also held the record for the longest unbeaten streak in competitive chess history with 95 games (46 wins, 49 draws) between 23 October 1973 and 16 October 1974, until Ding Liren's streak of 100 games (29 wins, 71 draws) between 9 August 2017 and 11 November 2018.
Tal died on 28 June 1992 in Moscow, Russia. The Mikhail Tal Memorial chess tournament was held in Moscow annually between 2006 and 2014, with two more tournaments in 2016 and 2018.
Text from the Wikipedia article Mikhail Tal, 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.