Leslie’s trivia bits - test your knowledge

LESLIE’S TRIVIA BITS: April 24, 2023

Chinese checkers is sort of like checkers, but it’s not Chinese. It’s based on a game called Halma — from the Greek word for “jump” — devised in the 1880s by Massachusetts surgeon George Howard Monks. Originally, Halma was played on a square board. The star-shaped board came from Germany, where the game is sometimes called Sternhalma (Star Halma). Naming it Chinese checkers was an American marketing concept from the 1920s intended to capitalize on people’s fascination with the “exotic East.”