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.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk
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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)
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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)