The Mechanical Turk

Wolfgang von Kempelen built the Turk in 1770 for the court of Maria Theresa: a cabinet, a chessboard, and a carved figure that appeared to play — and beat — the people in front of it.

It was not an automaton. A human player sat inside, following the game on a second board and working the figure through a linkage. The illusion survived decades of touring under Kempelen and later Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, and was destroyed by fire in Philadelphia in 1854.

What it proved was not that a machine could play chess. It was that people wanted one to.