--- description: In 1950 Rudenko was the second woman to ever hold the Woman's World Chess Championship, a title she held until 1953. title: Google Doodle Celebrates Chess Grandmaster Lyudmila Rudenko's on What Would Have Been Her 114th Birthday image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4aae83d3849b441/69893681e76ad2166c6329d1/rodenkodoodle.png?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Google Doodle](/tag/google-doodle/) ## Google Doodle Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Google Doodle Celebrates Chess Grandmaster Lyudmila Rudenko's on What Would Have Been Her 114th Birthday by [Gina Martinez](/author/gina-martinez/) ## Gina Martinez Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 27, 2018 2:59 PM CUT  Google honored Woman's World Chess Champion Lyudmila Rudenko on her 114th birthday. Google honored Woman's World Chess Champion Lyudmila Rudenko on her 114th birthday.Photo Courtesy of Google by [Gina Martinez](/author/gina-martinez/) ## Gina Martinez Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 27, 2018 2:59 PM CUT Google honored Women’s World Chess Champion Lyudmila Rudenko with a 1960’s graphic art-inspired Google Doodle. Rudenko—born July 27, 1904 in Lubny, Ukraine—became a chess champion at just 24 years old during the 1928 Moscow Women’s Chess Championship. Rudenko was first introduced to chess by her father at just 10-years-old, according to [Rudenko’s Google Doodle page](https://www.google.com/doodles/lyudmila-rudenkos-114th-birthday "undefined"). However, chess wasn’t Rudenko’s initial interest. As a swimmer, Rudenko won a local competition for the 400-yard breast stroke in Ukraine before moving to Moscow in 1925, where she began to focus on her chess skills. In 1950, Rudenko became the second woman to ever hold the Women’s World Chess Championship (while the championship started in 1927, Vera Menchik dominated the chess competition until her death). Rudenko held the Women’s World Chess Championship title until 1953 and was named Women’s Grandmaster in 1976\. She passed away 10 years later at age the age of 81 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Rudenko was inducted to the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2015\. Google said despite her groundbreaking accomplishments in chess, she considered organizing the evacuation of children during the Siege of Leningrad in World War II as her greatest feat. Gooogle said their doodle is in celebration of Rudenko is inspired by 1960 graphic art posters and “reimagines a focused Rudenko’s determination during the world championship game.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5351117/lyudmila-rudenko-google-doodle/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5351117/lyudmila-rudenko-google-doodle/"},"headline":"Google Doodle Celebrates Chess Grandmaster Lyudmila Rudenko's on What Would Have Been Her 114th Birthday","datePublished":"2018-07-27T14:59:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:59:00.402Z","description":"Born July 27, 1904 in Lubny, Ukraine Rudenko became a world champ 24-years later at the 1928 Moscow Women’s Championship.","url":"https://time.com/5351117/lyudmila-rudenko-google-doodle/","keywords":["Google Doodle","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4aae83d3849b441/69893681e76ad2166c6329d1/rodenkodoodle.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Gina Martinez","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/gina-martinez/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb4aae83d3849b441/69893681e76ad2166c6329d1/rodenkodoodle.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"rudenkodoodle","caption":"Google honored Woman's World Chess Champion Lyudmila Rudenko on her 114th birthday.","creditText":"Photo Courtesy of Google","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/google-doodle/","name":"Google Doodle"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5351117/lyudmila-rudenko-google-doodle/","name":"Google Doodle Celebrates Chess Grandmaster Lyudmila Rudenko's on What Would Have Been Her 114th Birthday"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Google Makes its Doodles","description":"Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/upF0qp1E/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-07-07T16:09:57.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5351117/lyudmila-rudenko-google-doodle/","duration":"PT3M23S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5351117/lyudmila-rudenko-google-doodle/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```