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What was happening 10 years ago to the day? "Numerology."
The first line by Sol refers to these "twelve Falcon forms: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=3&docid=05690334&IDKey=E156FABBFC75%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D5690334.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F5690334%2526RS%3DPN%2F5690334 AND http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=4&docid=05690334&IDKey=E156FEBFFC75%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D5690334.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F5690334%2526RS%3DPN%2F5690334. As H.G. Muller trenchantly observes, since the 12 are pretty intuitively obvious, there need be no excess verbiage, and diagrams tell the story. Falcon, Rook, Bishop, and Knight are the 4 fundamentals, and there can be neither five nor three.  As first among equals, Falcon generates mathematically (R+N+B), and not vice versa.  Cause and effect, Basis and elements.    

(Bison won't do it: though the alternative of jumper Bison does make it into USP5690334, Bison is as brazenly fairy, or heterodox, as Ramayana's all-jumping Rook named Buddha, http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/contest84/ramayanachess.html, and its all-jumping Bishop named Rakshasa. Thus all Bison, Buddha, and Rakshasa are totally irrelevant to Orthodox Chess.)

And so 64-square OrthoChess has always been played without a full deck. Charitably, Dr. Friedlander calls the f.i.d.e. standard form Easy Chess,  http://play.chessvariants.org/erf/EasyChss.html, which is to say Simpleminded Chess.  Technically of course it's far from completely solved like cousins Tic-Tac-Toe and 8x8 Draughts (Checkers).

Around 1500 reform in Chess, mediaeval ingenuity saw at once the correctness of Bishop and Queen traversing the board. Don't expect classical intelligence to obtain in unenlightened times. [Beyond Chess, what is early 21st century zeitgeist anyway? Glib about its technological self; mundane not to say pedestrian; materially-conformist; dangerous?]

Simpleminded Chess is limited to 3 basic pieces, Castle, Cheval, Cleric, though Dr. Friedlander kindly euphemizes "Easy Chess," http://play.chessvariants.org/erf/EasyChss.html.  Like training wheels on a bicycle or multiplication table, Easy Chess must endure for schoolchildren to learn the 8 Queen lines.

What was happening one last day of December? "End of the World: How Rome Fell -- and Why"/: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Rome-FellMar95.htm.  Roman-ruination 5th century also is enlightened for two geographic-endpoints inaugurations: Ireland saving and copying all classical books and Indian civilization inventing Chess away from Eurasian barbarians.  In the above linked chapter's ninth from last full paragraph, it says "If anyone skipped a grade, he was -- like a piece on a board  game -- to be returned to his starting point."

The XIII Morality "Numerology," ten years old this week, has "Luna: seven hills betoken by twelve vultures" of Rome's founding 1200 hundred years earlier.  http://books.google.com/books?id=RbEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA623&lpg=PA623&dq=rome+seven+hills+twelve+vultures&source=bl&ots=XAOLKGKFHm&sig=ex1y-1yE1SpToZKhJothUq9tJdo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SI3AUrewMaa6yQHi0oDACw&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBA.  

Mathematical complement to (R + N + B) in sum, each 6 of 12 Falcon forms are mirrors of the other 6, so either six alone defines: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=4&docid=05690334&IDKey=E1568DC8FC71&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D5690334.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F5690334%2526RS%3DPN%2F5690334  / chapter from Thomas Cahill, HtISC (1995)