Allan B. Calhamer (born December 7, 1931) invented the board game Diplomacy. December 7 is the 341st day (342nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Diplomacy game board, showing regions and boundaries. ...

A friend of Calhamer's recounted how, when they were boys in La Grange Park, Illinois, he and Calhamer "discovered in the attic a geography book that showed a map of Europe before World War I with the ... old boundaries." [1] Years later, Calhamer put the memory to good use. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1953. In 1954, while enrolled at Harvard Law School, he developed a game of strategy and alliances that put seven players in control of the major powers of the pre-World War I era. Although he did not complete law school, his prototype game, still unpublished, was part of the reason that Sylvania hired him in 1958 to do operations research. La Grange Park is a village located in Cook County, Illinois. ... World map showing Europe Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiogeographic one. ... Combatants Allies: • Serbia, • Russia, • France, • Romania, • Belgium, • British Empire and Dominions, • United States, • Italy, • ...and others Central Powers: • Germany, • Austria-Hungary, • Ottoman Empire, • Bulgaria Casualties 5 million military, 3 million civilian (full list) 3 million military, 3 million civilian (full list) World War I, also known as the First World... A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B., from the Latin Artium Baccalaureus) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Harvard Law School (HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. ... Sylvania literally means forest land. Ít is used to mean several different things: Sylvania is the name of several places in the United States of America and elsewhere: Sylvania, Alabama, USA Sylvania, Georgia, USA Sylvania, Ohio, USA Sylvania, New South Wales and Sylvania Waters, New South Wales, suburbs of Sydney... Operations research, operational research, or simply OR, is the use of mathematical models, statistics and algorithms to aid in decision-making. ...

In 1959, Calhamer published his game as Diplomacy. He printed 500 copies. After selling all of them in six months, he licensed the game to a publisher. Over the years, Diplomacy has been published in North America by Games Research, Avalon Hill, and Hasbro, and has been published in several different languages in other nations by various publishers. Calhamer's original face-to-face board game has also been played by mail since 1963. More recently, there are Diplomacy games on the Internet, through email or in online games with a human game master. Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. ... The Hasbro logo uses a smile to indicate the carefree nature of its products. ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ...

Calhamer wrote a book, Calhamer on Diplomacy: The Boardgame "Diplomacy" and Diplomatic History, but the game has not provided him with a living. As of 2004 he is retired from working as a mail carrier in La Grange Park. 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A mail carrier, post carrier, or postman (sometimes known as a mailman or letter carrier in North America and a postie in Australia and the UK) is an employee of the post office or postal service, who delivers mail and parcels (post) to residences and businesses. ...

Articles written by Calhamer

• Military Intelligence (1960)
• On Strengthening the hand of Austria-Hungary (1960)
• The Tactics of Diplomacy (1961)
• A Dozen Years of Diplomacy (1966)
• On the Play of Postal Diplomacy by Allan Calhamer (1966)
• The Invention of Diplomacy (1974)
• Across the Whole Board (1974)
• Objectives Other Than Winning (1974)
• Introduction to Diplomacy (1975)
• The Coast of Moscow

Further reading

• Calhamer on Diplomacy: The Boardgame "Diplomacy" and Diplomatic History (1999)
• Articles by Allan B. Calhamer at Diplomacy-Archive.com