This week in history: “I Have A Dream” orated at the Lincoln Memorial, Bobby Fischer wins “Match of the Century,” and J.R.R. Tolkien dies. Read more below and dive deeper with The Great Courses Plus.
August 28, 1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech
Learn more about this historic speech in The Art of Public Speaking
September 1, 1972 – Bobby Fischer becomes World Chess Champion
American chess player Bobby Fischer would play his historic match against Russian chessmaster Boris Spassky in Reykjavík, Iceland on this day in 1972. Billed as the “Match of the Century” it would receive unprecedented media coverage in both the United States and abroad, and be the first chess match to be broadcasted on American prime-time television. A chess prodigy from an early age, Fischer would quickly obtain the title of grandmaster and is considered by master chess players to be one of the best, if not the best chess player in history. An erratic individual, Fischer would refuse to defend his world title the following year and would lead a tumultuous life until his death in 2008.
Learn more about chess from a master in How to Play Chess: Lessons From an International Master
September 2, 1973 – J.R.R. Tolkien Dies
Hailed as the father of modern high fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, would die on this day in 1973. Trained as a linguist, Tolkien developed a series of dialects and writing conventions for use in his fictional world of Middle-Earth; these, combined with the richly detailed history collected in the Silmarillion, helped to create a sense of realism never before seen in the fantasy genre. Unlike most authors, Tolkien’s works would become increasingly popular in his lifetime, and his close friend C.S. Lewis would even nominate him for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. He would die at the age of 81 and be buried with his wife in Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford.
