The game of draughts probably originates from Egypt. A draughts board was found in the grave of the famous Egyptian king Tutankhamun, living in the 14th century B.C., that was discovered in 1922 by the English archeologist Howard Carter. It is assumed that the game was invented by two slaves working on the pyramids under the Pharao dynasty of Memphis. Mention is made of a slave who, at around 1200 B.C., was a famous draughts player. It is however highly unlikely that they played according to the same rules as we do today. The ancient Egyptians also used different boards and pieces. The British Museum in London and the Louvre Museum in Paris still possess boards and pieces from the Egyptian era. From Egypt the Phoenicians probably took the game to Turkey and Greece and later on it was spread by the Romans through their Empire. Still later the Moors took the game to Spain and at around the 15th century the game was spread through the whole of Europe. It was played however on a 8x8 board (chessboard) with 2x12 pieces. This remained the case until 1723 when an anonymous Pole living in Paris increased the size of the board to 10x10 and the number of pieces to 2x20. This became the standard although the 8x8 and even 12x12 variants are still played. The first 'international' tournaments were held at the end of the 19th century, in the beginning only in France and the contenders were mainly French. This lasted untill 1912 when a Dutch player became worldchampion. In the years that followed either a player from Holland or France conquered the world title and this remained the case until 1956 when a Canadian player ended the Dutch-French hegemony. The next championship was won in 1958 by a Soviet player and this started a period in which the French role was more or less taken over by the Soviet Union (later Russia) with the world champions up till now coming from either Holland or Russia (or one of the fomer Soviet republics).