The Turk was a famous hoax that purported to be a chess-playing machine. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by the Hungarian baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chess board once and only once. Publicly promoted as an automaton and given its common name based on its appearance, the Turk was a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master to hide inside and operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played. The apparatus was demonstrated around Europe and the United States of America for over 80 years until its destruction in 1854, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1652: Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck established the first permanent European settlement in sub-Saharan Africa on what eventually became known as Cape Town. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town)

1782: Rama I succeeded King Taksin of Thailand, founding the Chakri Dynasty. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha_Yodfa_Chulaloke)

1830: Joseph Smith, Jr., Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and others formally organized the Church of Christ, starting the Latter Day Saint movement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Christ_(Latter_Day_Saints))

1896: The first modern Olympic Games opened in Athens. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Summer_Olympics)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

I am less concerned with expressing the motions of the soul and mind than to render visible, so to speak, the inner flashes of intuition which have something divine in their apparent insignificance and reveal magic, even divine horizons, when they are transposed into the marvellous effects of pure plastic art. -- Gustave Moreau (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gustave_Moreau)