Birthday profile

Arpad Elo

Arpad Elo, Hungarian-American chess player, created the Elo rating system (died 1992)

Born
August 25, 1903
Died
November 5, 1992
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1903

About Arpad Elo

Arpad Emmerich Elo (né Élő Árpád Imre; August 25, 1903 – November 5, 1992) was a Hungarian-American physics professor who created the Elo rating system for two-player games such as chess. Born in Egyházaskesző, Kingdom of Hungary, he moved to the United States with his parents in 1913. He obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in 1925 and 1928 from the University of Chicago, where he also played chess in the Chicago Chess League. From 1926 until his retirement in 1969, Elo was a physics instructor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. By the 1930s, he was the strongest chess player in Milwaukee, at the time one of the nation's leading chess cities. He won the Wisconsin State Championship eight times, and was the 11th person inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame. He also served as the president of American Chess Federation (predecessor of United States Chess Federation) for terms 1935 and 1936. Elo died of a heart attack at his home in Brookfield, Wisconsin, on November 5, 1992.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Arpad Elo was born

Arpad Elo was born in 1903. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1903

  • Top movieThe Great Train Robbery (first narrative film)
  • Best-selling book"Lady Rose's Daughter" – Mrs. Humphry Ward

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst World Series — Boston vs Pittsburgh
  • Top headlineWright brothers achieve first powered flight
  • Technology milestoneFirst powered airplane flight (12 seconds, 120 feet)
  • World population~1.63B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderTheodore Roosevelt
  • U.S. population80.4M

1903 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Arpad Elo's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19032026
Population80.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Chessgames, 365Chess, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.