Twilight Struggle
"Twilight Struggle" was the highest-ranked game on BoardGameGeek from December 2010 to January 2016. As of August 2018, the board game occupies a fifth spot. Being released in 2005 it is the oldest board game in the overall top 10 ranking.
Backgammon
Touraj Daryaee (2006)—on the subject of the first written mention of early precursors of backgammon—writes:
In the 11th century "Shahnameh", the Persian poet Ferdowsi credits Burzoe with the invention of the tables game "nard" in the 6th century. He describes an encounter between Burzoe and a Raja visiting from India. The Raja introduces the game of chess, and Burzoe demonstrates "nard", played with dice made from ivory and teak. Today, Nard is the name for the Persian version of backgammon, which has different initial positions and objectives. H. J. R. Murray details many versions of backgammon; modern Nard is noted there as being the same as backgammon and maybe dating back to 300–500 AD in the Babylonian Talmud, although others believe the Talmud references the Greek race game Kubeia.