Mechanical Turk: Chess-Playing Deception

The Mechanical Turk, presented as an 18th-century chess-playing marvel, was a deception by Hungarian inventor Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. Unveiled in 1770, it claimed to defeat strong chess players, including encounters with Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin. In reality, it housed a concealed human chess player within a secret compartment, creating the illusion of an automated machine. The Turk won games mainly because opponents were unnerved and unaware of the hidden player. The hoax persisted for almost 100 years before its eventual destruction in a fire.