Amazon Mechanical Turk is named after a chess automaton from 1770.

1770

Just like the original Turk, the 'smart machine' is really people: thousands of workers doing small tasks behind the interface.

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The event

• The Mechanical Turk1770 · Vienna. In 1770 Wolfgang von Kempelen showed Empress Maria Theresa a chess-playing automaton dressed as a Turk. For 84 years it toured Europe and America, beating opponents including Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin. The secret was a strong chess player hidden inside the cabinet.

18th century

More amazing facts

• 1769 · 1820 Antarctica was first sighted only in 1820, by the Bellingshausen–Lazarev expedition — by then Watt's steam engine was already half a century old.
• 1769 · 1815 The victor and the vanquished of Waterloo were the same age: Wellington was born on 1 May 1769, Napoleon on 15 August that same year.
• 1770 The Vatican forbade copying Allegri's Miserere, but 14-year-old Mozart wrote it down from memory.
• 1770 While the Thunder Stone for the Bronze Horseman was being hauled to the Neva, Cook was charting Australia.
• 1770 · 1780 The mass-produced toothbrush was invented in prison.
• 1770 · 1809 Napoleon lost at chess to a 'robot' with a man inside.

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