Garry Kasparov (Гарри Кимович Каспаров) was born Garry Kimovich Weinstein (Гарри Кимович Вайнштейн) on April 13, 1963, in Baku, Azerbaijan, to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father. Kasparov's father died when he was seven, and he adopted a Russified version of his mother's maiden name, Kasparyan, at age 12.

1980: Won the World Junior Chess Championship

1984-1990: Member of the Communist Party and, from 1987, the Central Committee of the Komsomol youth organization

1984: Youngest ever No. 1 ranked chess player

1985: Youngest ever undisputed World Chess Champion. Kasparov held the title until 1993, when he broke from FIDE to form his own organization, the Professional Chess Association, a move he later regretted.

1997: First world chess master to lose to a computer, IBM's Deep Blue

2005: Retired from professional chess with the highest all-time Elo rating (Elo is a rating system used in chess and other two-player games) after being rated world No. 1 almost continuously since 1986

2005: Founded the United Civil Front with the goal of "preserving electoral democracy in Russia." He became a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin.

2007-present: Helped organize Dissenters' Marches and later Strategy 31 demonstrations

2008-present: Founding member of the pro-democracy Solidarity Movement

2008: Withdrew from presidential run

Kasparov was a leader of the defunct Other Russia Coalition (not to be confused the unregistered Other Russia party led by Eduard Limonov) in the late 2000s.

Although Kasparov is one of the faces of the liberal opposition, he is largely unknown or ignored as a political figure in Russia.