triplets
sequence | passage
stringlengths 0
32.9k
| label
stringlengths 4
48
⌀ | label_id
int64 0
1k
⌀ | synonyms
sequence | __index_level_1__
int64 312
64.1k
⌀ | __index_level_0__
int64 0
2.4k
⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"HMS Laurel (1779)",
"significant event",
"ship launching"
] | null | null | null | null | 5 |
|
[
"HMS Laurel (1779)",
"significant event",
"ship commissioning"
] | null | null | null | null | 8 |
|
[
"HMS Phoenix (1759)",
"significant event",
"destruction"
] | Loss
Phoenix, under Captain Hyde Parker, sunk on the night of 4 October 1780. The loss occurred during a major hurricane that disabled Britain's entire fleet in the West Indies. The loss was memorably recorded by Lieutenant Archer in a letter of 6 November 1780: | null | null | null | null | 0 |
[
"HMS Phoenix (1759)",
"significant event",
"ship launching"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"HMS Phoenix (1759)",
"significant event",
"keel laying"
] | null | null | null | null | 5 |
|
[
"Concert des Amateurs",
"founded by",
"François Joseph Gossec"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"HMS Sapphire (1758)",
"significant event",
"ship launching"
] | Service history
She was originally commissioned under the name of Captain Temple West and built as a hull at Carter's Yard in Limehouse before going to Deptford for creation of her superstructure, launching in 1741. At this stage she had 44 guns and a crew of 250.Despite moderate success she did not handle well and she was paid off in 1748 and sent to Deptford to cut her down in size.
She was then rebuilt by Adam Hayes at Deptford Dockyard and was launched on 22 June 1758, under command of the renowned Captain John Strachan with a crew of 210 men.
Sapphire had a brief but active career under Strachan: | null | null | null | null | 2 |
[
"Cossack Hetmanate",
"follows",
"Zaporizhian Sich"
] | null | null | null | null | 38 |
|
[
"Cossack Hetmanate",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Cossack Hetmanate"
] | null | null | null | null | 40 |
|
[
"Cossack Hetmanate",
"different from",
"Ukrainian State"
] | null | null | null | null | 45 |
|
[
"New France",
"topic's main category",
"Category:New France"
] | null | null | null | null | 22 |
|
[
"Serbian Patriarchate of Peć",
"separated from",
"Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople"
] | null | null | null | null | 6 |
|
[
"Serbian Patriarchate of Peć",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Patriarchate of Peć"
] | null | null | null | null | 10 |
|
[
"British occupation of Manila",
"participant",
"British Empire"
] | Occupation
Once Manila was captured, "the soldiers turned to pillage." Rojo wrote that the sack actually lasted thirty hours or more, although he laid the blame on the Spanish, Chinese and Filipino denizens of Manila, as much as upon the marauding soldiers.: 52–53 Writing in his journal, Rojo described the events and said: "The city was given over the pillage, which was cruel and lasted for forty hours, without excepting the churches, the archbishopric, and a part of the palace. Although the captain-general (Simon de Anda y Salazar) objected at the end of the twenty-four hours, the pillage really continued, in spite of the orders of the British general (Draper) for it to cease. Rojo himself killed with his own hands a [Spanish] soldier he found transgressing his orders, and had three hanged.": 52–53 Drake then demanded a ransom from the Spanish authorities in exchange for agreeing to stop his troops from any further acts of pillage. Rojo agreed to the ransom, which amounted to four million Spanish dollars. By the time the British left, only a quarter of the ransom was paid, and the matter quietly dropped.
On 2 November 1762, Dawsonne Drake, an official of the East India Company, assumed office as the Governor of Manila. He was assisted by a council of four, consisting of John L. Smith, Claud Russel, Henry Brooke and Samuel Johnson. When after several attempts, Drake realised that he was not obtaining as many financial assets as he expected, he formed a war council which he termed the "Chottry Court". Drake imprisoned several Manilans on charges known "only known to himself", according to Captain Thomas Backhouse, who denounced Drake's court as a sham. The British expedition was further rewarded after the capture of the Spanish treasure ship Filipina, carrying American silver from Acapulco, and in a battle off Cavite the Santísima Trinidad which carried a cargo of Chinese porcelain. The cargo of the Trinidad alone was valued at $1.5 million and the ship at $3 million.: 75–76 | null | null | null | null | 1 |
[
"British occupation of Manila",
"topic's main category",
"Category:British invasion of Manila"
] | null | null | null | null | 2 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"different from",
"Montagnard"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"different from",
"Hora"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"different from",
"La Montagne"
] | null | null | null | null | 5 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"different from",
"The Mountain"
] | null | null | null | null | 8 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"different from",
"Montaña"
] | null | null | null | null | 10 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"followed by",
"Thermidorians"
] | null | null | null | null | 14 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"different from",
"Berget"
] | null | null | null | null | 15 |
|
[
"The Mountain",
"different from",
"Montanha"
] | null | null | null | null | 20 |
|
[
"Whipping post",
"has use",
"flagellation"
] | Description
Rather like the lesser punishment called the stocks, the pillory consisted of hinged wooden boards forming holes through which the head and/or various limbs were inserted; then the boards were locked together to secure the captive. Pillories were set up to hold people in marketplaces, crossroads, and other public places. They were often placed on platforms to increase public visibility of the person. Often a placard detailing the crime was placed nearby; these punishments generally lasted only a few hours.In being forced to bend forward and stick their head and hands out in front of them, offenders in the pillory would have been extremely uncomfortable during their punishment. However, the main purpose in putting criminals in the pillory was to humiliate them publicly. On discovering that the pillory was occupied, people would excitedly gather in the marketplace to taunt, tease and laugh at the offender on display.Those who gathered to watch the punishment typically wanted to make the offender's experience as unpleasant as possible. In addition to being jeered and mocked, those in the pillory might be pelted with rotten food, mud, offal, dead animals, and animal excrement. Sometimes people were killed or maimed in the pillory because crowds could get too violent and pelt the offender with stones, bricks and other dangerous objects. However, when Daniel Defoe was sentenced to the pillory in 1703 for seditious libel, he was regarded as a hero by the crowd and was pelted with flowers.The criminal could also be sentenced to further punishments while in the pillory: humiliation by shaving off some or all hair or regular corporal punishment(s), notably flagellation (the pillory serving as the "whipping post") or even permanent mutilation such as branding or having an ear cut off (cropping), as in the case of John Bastwick.
In Protestant cultures (such as in the Scandinavian countries), the pillory would be the worldly part of a church punishment. The delinquent would therefore first serve the ecclesiastical part of his punishment on the pillory bench in the church itself, and then be handed to the worldly authorities to be bound to the Skampåle (literally: "Shame Pole") for public humiliation. | null | null | null | null | 3 |
[
"Whipping post",
"has use",
"humiliation"
] | null | null | null | null | 6 |
|
[
"Whipping post",
"different from",
"stocks"
] | null | null | null | null | 7 |
|
[
"Whipping post",
"different from",
"pillory"
] | null | null | null | null | 12 |
|
[
"HMS Northumberland (1705)",
"significant event",
"ship launching"
] | null | null | null | null | 2 |
|
[
"First Rockingham ministry",
"replaces",
"Grenville ministry"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"Clairvaux Abbey",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Abbaye de Clairvaux"
] | null | null | null | null | 9 |
|
[
"Artois",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Artois"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"Languedoc",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Languedoc"
] | null | null | null | null | 6 |
|
[
"Old University of Leuven",
"different from",
"Université catholique de Louvain"
] | The Old University of Leuven (or of Louvain) is the name historians give to the university, or studium generale, founded in Leuven, Brabant (then part of the Burgundian Netherlands, now part of Belgium), in 1425. The university was closed in 1797, a week after the cession to the French Republic of the Austrian Netherlands and the principality of Liège (jointly the future Belgium) by the Treaty of Campo Formio.Subsequent institutions
The first attempt to found a successor university in the nineteenth-century was the secular State University of Leuven, 1817–1835, where a dozen professors of the old University taught. This was followed by a private Catholic university, the Catholic University of Leuven, established in Leuven in 1835 (initially the Catholic University of Mechlin, 1834–1835). This institution was founded with the intention of restoring the confessionally Catholic pre-Revolutionary traditions of learning in Leuven. In 1968 this split to form the two current institutions: the Dutch language Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the French language Université catholique de Louvain. | null | null | null | null | 4 |
[
"Old University of Leuven",
"different from",
"Catholic University of Leuven"
] | The Old University of Leuven (or of Louvain) is the name historians give to the university, or studium generale, founded in Leuven, Brabant (then part of the Burgundian Netherlands, now part of Belgium), in 1425. The university was closed in 1797, a week after the cession to the French Republic of the Austrian Netherlands and the principality of Liège (jointly the future Belgium) by the Treaty of Campo Formio.The name was in medieval Latin Studium generale Lovaniense or Universitas Studii Lovaniensis, in humanistical Latin Academia Lovaniensis, and most usually, Universitas Lovaniensis, in Dutch Universiteyt Loven and also Hooge School van Loven.It is commonly referred to as the University of Leuven or University of Louvain, sometimes with the qualification "old" to distinguish it from the Catholic University of Leuven (established 1835 in Leuven). This might also refer to a short-lived but historically important State University of Leuven, 1817–1835. The immediate official and legal successor and inheritor of the old University, under the laws in force in 1797, was the École centrale de Bruxelles, which itself closed down in 1802.Subsequent institutions
The first attempt to found a successor university in the nineteenth-century was the secular State University of Leuven, 1817–1835, where a dozen professors of the old University taught. This was followed by a private Catholic university, the Catholic University of Leuven, established in Leuven in 1835 (initially the Catholic University of Mechlin, 1834–1835). This institution was founded with the intention of restoring the confessionally Catholic pre-Revolutionary traditions of learning in Leuven. In 1968 this split to form the two current institutions: the Dutch language Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the French language Université catholique de Louvain. | null | null | null | null | 6 |
[
"Old University of Leuven",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Old University of Leuven"
] | null | null | null | null | 8 |
|
[
"Old University of Leuven",
"different from",
"Katholieke Universiteit Leuven"
] | null | null | null | null | 12 |
|
[
"Old University of Leuven",
"founded by",
"John IV"
] | null | null | null | null | 14 |
|
[
"Old University of Leuven",
"different from",
"State University of Leuven"
] | Subsequent institutions
The first attempt to found a successor university in the nineteenth-century was the secular State University of Leuven, 1817–1835, where a dozen professors of the old University taught. This was followed by a private Catholic university, the Catholic University of Leuven, established in Leuven in 1835 (initially the Catholic University of Mechlin, 1834–1835). This institution was founded with the intention of restoring the confessionally Catholic pre-Revolutionary traditions of learning in Leuven. In 1968 this split to form the two current institutions: the Dutch language Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the French language Université catholique de Louvain. | null | null | null | null | 15 |
[
"Hasegawa school",
"influenced by",
"Kanō school"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"Hasegawa school",
"founded by",
"Hasegawa Tōhaku"
] | null | null | null | null | 2 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"owner of",
"Krak des Chevaliers"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"owner of",
"palace of Zuda, Zaragoza"
] | null | null | null | null | 10 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"owner of",
"Bodrum Castle"
] | null | null | null | null | 11 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"owner of",
"Kolossi Castle"
] | null | null | null | null | 12 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"replaces",
"Hospitallers"
] | null | null | null | null | 17 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"owner of",
"Castillo del Compromiso"
] | null | null | null | null | 21 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Order of Saint John of Jerusalem"
] | null | null | null | null | 23 |
|
[
"Knights Hospitaller",
"founded by",
"Blessed Gerard"
] | null | null | null | null | 24 |
|
[
"History of Île-de-France",
"topic's main category",
"Category:History of Île-de-France"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Parliament of Aix-en-Provence",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Parliament of Provence"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Saint Emmeram's Abbey",
"topic's main category",
"Category:St. Emmeram's Abbey"
] | null | null | null | null | 16 |
|
[
"Saint Emmeram's Abbey",
"owned by",
"Princely House of Thurn and Taxis"
] | Saint Emmeram's Abbey (German: Kloster Sankt Emmeram or Reichsabtei Sankt Emmeram), now known as Schloss Thurn und Taxis, Schloss St. Emmeram or St. Emmeram's Basilica, was a Benedictine monastery founded in about 739 at Regensburg in Bavaria (modern-day southeastern Germany) at the grave of the itinerant Frankish bishop Saint Emmeram. | null | null | null | null | 28 |
[
"Reichenau Abbey",
"topic's main category",
"Bridge of the Old Royal Palace, Prague"
] | null | null | null | null | 17 |
|
[
"Berchtesgaden Provostry",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Berchtesgaden Provostry"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"Ceres (1802 ship)",
"significant event",
"shipwrecking"
] | Loss
Lloyd's List reported on 20 March 1807 that Ceres, of Liverpool, Williams, master, had capsized off Cape Mesurado. She was bound for the West Indies with a full cargo of captives. Thirteen of her crew were saved. Captain John Williams was reported to have been among the people drowned. This was his first voyage as master of an enslaving ship.In 1807, 12 British enslaving vessels were lost. Six were lost in the middle passage between Africa and the West Indies.During the period 1793 to 1807, war, rather than maritime hazards or resistance by the captives, was the greatest cause of vessel losses among British enslaving vessels. | null | null | null | null | 6 |
[
"Białystok Department",
"replaces",
"Podlaskie Voivodeship"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"National Assembly of the Batavian Republic",
"followed by",
"Vertegenwoordigend Lichaam"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"National Assembly of the Batavian Republic",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Deputies of the National Assembly of the Batavian Republic"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"Irish House of Lords",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Irish House of Lords"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Parliament of Ireland",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Parliament of Ireland"
] | null | null | null | null | 2 |
|
[
"Parliament of Ireland",
"different from",
"Oireachtas"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Chamber of Representatives (France)",
"replaces",
"Chamber of Deputies"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"Chamber of Representatives (France)",
"follows",
"Chamber of Deputies"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"Chamber of Representatives (France)",
"followed by",
"Chambre introuvable"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Viceroyalty of Brazil",
"said to be the same as",
"State of Brazil"
] | null | null | null | null | 0 |
|
[
"Viceroyalty of Brazil",
"replaces",
"State of Brazil"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"Frankfurter Judengasse",
"significant event",
"Fettmilch Rising"
] | The Fettmilch uprising
Tensions between the patricians and the guilds between 1612 and 1614 led to the Fettmilch uprising in 1614, named after its ringleader, Vincenz Fettmilch. During the riot, the Judengasse was attacked and looted, and the Jews were expelled from the city. Two Jews and one assailant were killed in the pogrom.The tension was caused by the guilds' demand for greater participation in urban and fiscal policies. The guilds wanted a reduction in grain prices, as well as some anti-Jewish regulations, such as a limitation in the number of Jews and a 50% reduction in the interest rate that Jewish moneylenders could charge. Aside from the guilds, merchants and independent craftsmen also supported Fettmilch in hopes of annulling their debts by restricting the number of moneylenders. | null | null | null | null | 5 |
[
"Golden Horns of Gallehus",
"different from",
"Avanton Gold Cone"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"Lindau Abbey",
"located on terrain feature",
"Lindau"
] | Lindau Abbey (German: Reichsstift Lindau) was a house of secular canonesses in Lindau on the Bodensee in Bavaria, Germany, which stands on an island in the lake.History
The community, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, is traditionally held to have been founded by Count Adelbert of Raetia in about 822. The town of Lindau grew round the foundation.
The abbey was granted Imperial immediacy (German: Reichsfreiheit) in 1466.
During the Protestant Reformation on the mainland were the only places in this region to remain Catholic.
The community was dissolved in 1802 in the course of the secularisation of German Imperial Abbeys, and its assets taken over by the Prince of Bretzenheim (son of Elector of Bavaria Charles Theodore), who in 1804 exchanged Lindau for estates in Bohemia and Hungary. In 1806 the territory became part of the new Kingdom of Bavaria.
The residential and service buildings were used for local government offices.
The canonesses' church became the present Roman Catholic minster-church of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the market place in the Old Town of Lindau. The church building originated at the same time as the religious community, that is, in the early 9th century. After the fire of 1728 that destroyed most of the town the church was rebuilt in Baroque style by the master builder Giovanni Gaspare Bagnato, who also built Schloss Mainau and the "New Castle" at Meersburg. The interior has Baroque ceiling paintings and Rococo decorations. | null | null | null | null | 4 |
[
"Habsburg monarchy",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Habsburg monarchy"
] | null | null | null | null | 9 |
|
[
"An der Etsch",
"followed by",
"County of Tyrol"
] | An der Etsch und im Gebirge (German for 'On the Etsch and in the Mountains') was a bailiwick (Ballei) of the Teutonic Order, created about 1260 and headquartered in Bolzano (Bozen), now in the Italian province of South Tyrol, comprising several commandries in the former County of Tyrol and the adjacent Bishopric of Trent.
One of the Teutonic provinces within the Holy Roman Empire, An der Etsch held the feudal status of Imperial immediacy as a registered Imperial State. Its commandries were subordinate to a Landkomtur (commendator provincialis), who himself was answerable to the Deutschmeister commander of all bailiwicks in Germany and Italy, at times directly to the Grand Master. | null | null | null | null | 2 |
[
"Tabriz Khanate",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Tabriz Khanate"
] | null | null | null | null | 2 |
|
[
"Stühlingen",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Stühlingen"
] | null | null | null | null | 6 |
|
[
"Kabardia",
"replaces",
"Circassia"
] | null | null | null | null | 12 |
|
[
"Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld"
] | null | null | null | null | 0 |
|
[
"Order of Saint Louis",
"founded by",
"Louis XIV of France"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Order of Saint Louis",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Order of Saint Louis"
] | null | null | null | null | 10 |
|
[
"Old Common Council of Castropol",
"different from",
"Entrambasaguas"
] | null | null | null | null | 2 |
|
[
"40-foot telescope",
"different from",
"40-foot telescope"
] | null | null | null | null | 5 |
|
[
"40-foot telescope",
"significant event",
"construction"
] | null | null | null | null | 7 |
|
[
"Savolax and Karelia County",
"replaces",
"Savolax and Kymmenegård County"
] | Savolax and Karelia County (Swedish: Savolax och Karelens län, Finnish: Savonlinnan ja Karjalan lääni) was a county of Sweden 1775–1809 and province of Grand Duchy of Finland 1809–1831. It was formed in 1775 when Savolax and Kymmenegård County was divided into Savolax and Karelia County and Kymmenegård County. Residence city was Kuopio.
By the Treaty of Fredrikshamn in 1809 Sweden ceded all its territories in Finland, east of the Torne River, to Russia. Savolax and Karelia Province was succeeded in 1831 by the Kuopio Province in the autonomic Grand Duchy of Finland. Minor parts of province were merged to Mikkeli Province. | null | null | null | null | 1 |
[
"Armada Tapestries",
"significant event",
"conflagration"
] | null | null | null | null | 1 |
|
[
"Armada Tapestries",
"main subject",
"Spanish Armada"
] | The Armada Tapestries were a series of ten tapestries that commemorated the defeat of the Spanish Armada. They were commissioned in 1591 by the Lord High Admiral, Howard of Effingham, who had commanded the Royal Navy against the Armada. In 1651 they were hung in the old House of Lords chambers, which at the time was used for the meetings of the committee of Parliament. They remained there until destroyed in the Burning of Parliament of 1834. | null | null | null | null | 2 |
[
"First Hellenic Republic",
"replaces",
"Morea Eyalet"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"Monastery of Santa María de Toloño",
"located on terrain feature",
"Toloño Range"
] | Santa María de Toloño, also known as Our Lady of los Ángeles, is a ruined Spanish monastery located in the Sierra de Toloño near Labastida, Álava. Constructed by the Hieronymites, the monastery was destroyed in the First Carlist War and only a few walls remain. | null | null | null | null | 3 |
[
"Lusatian League",
"located on terrain feature",
"Upper Lusatia"
] | The Lusatian League (German: Oberlausitzer Sechsstädtebund; Czech: Šestiměstí; Polish: Związek Sześciu Miast) was a historical alliance of six towns in the Bohemian (1346–1635), later Saxon (1635–1815) region of Upper Lusatia, that existed from 1346 until 1815. The member towns were Bautzen (Upper Sorbian: Budyšin), Görlitz (Zhorjelc), Kamenz (Kamjenc), Lauban (Lubań), Löbau (Lubij) and Zittau (Žitawa). Five of the towns are located in present-day Germany, while Lubań and Zgorzelec (split from Görlitz after World War II) are within Poland. | null | null | null | null | 1 |
[
"Miss Catherine Fiske's Young Ladies Seminary",
"founded by",
"Catherine Fiske"
] | null | null | null | null | 2 |
|
[
"HMS Cressy (1810)",
"significant event",
"ship launching"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"French frigate Surveillante (1802)",
"significant event",
"ship launching"
] | null | null | null | null | 3 |
|
[
"Junior jüz",
"topic's main category",
"Category:Little jüz"
] | null | null | null | null | 6 |
|
[
"French ship Astrolabe (1811)",
"different from",
"Astrolabe"
] | null | null | null | null | 12 |
|
[
"Dutch Mission",
"different from",
"Old Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht"
] | null | null | null | null | 5 |
|
[
"Dejima",
"has use",
"Dutch factory"
] | null | null | null | null | 7 |
|
[
"Mechanical Turk",
"owned by",
"Johann Nepomuk Maelzel"
] | The Mechanical Turk, also known as the Automaton Chess Player (German: Schachtürke, lit. 'chess Turk'; Hungarian: A Török), or simply The Turk, was a fraudulent chess-playing machine constructed in 1770, which appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent. For 84 years, it was exhibited on tours by various owners as an automaton. The machine survived and continued giving occasional exhibitions until 1854, when a fire swept through the museum where it was kept, destroying the machine. Afterwards, articles were published by a son of the machine's owner revealing its secrets to the public: that it was an elaborate hoax, suspected by some, but never proven in public while it still existed.Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) to impress Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, 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 chessboard exactly once.
The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The device was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel. The chessmasters who secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret, and William Schlumberger, but the operators within the mechanism during Kempelen's original tour remain unknown.Construction
Kempelen was inspired to build the Turk following his attendance at the court of Maria Theresa of Austria at Schönbrunn Palace, where François Pelletier was performing an illusion act. An exchange afterward resulted in Kempelen promising to return to the Palace with an invention that would top the illusions.
The result of the challenge was the Automaton Chess-player, known in modern times as the Turk. The machine consisted of a life-sized model of a human head and torso, with a black beard and grey eyes, and dressed in Ottoman robes and a turban—"the traditional costume", according to journalist and author Tom Standage, "of an oriental sorcerer". Its left arm held a long Ottoman smoking pipe while at rest, while its right lay on the top of a large cabinet that measured about 3.5 feet (110 cm) long, 2 feet (61 cm) wide, and 2.5 feet (76 cm) high. Placed on the top of the cabinet was a chessboard, which measured 18 inches (460 mm) on each side. The front of the cabinet consisted of three doors, an opening, and a drawer, which could be opened to reveal a red and white ivory chess set.
The interior of the machine was very complicated and designed to mislead those who observed it. When opened on the left, the front doors of the cabinet exposed a number of gears and cogs similar to clockwork. The section was designed so that if the back doors of the cabinet were open at the same time one could see through the machine. The other side of the cabinet did not house machinery; instead it contained a red cushion and some removable parts, as well as brass structures. This area was also designed to provide a clear line of vision through the machine. Underneath the robes of the Ottoman model, two other doors were hidden. These also exposed clockwork machinery and provided a similarly unobstructed view through the machine. The design allowed the presenter of the machine to open every available door to the public, to maintain the illusion.Neither the clockwork visible to the left side of the machine nor the drawer that housed the chess set extended fully to the rear of the cabinet; they instead went only one third of the way. A sliding seat was also installed, allowing the operator inside to slide from place to place and thus evade observation as the presenter opened various doors. The sliding of the seat caused dummy machinery to slide into its place to further conceal the person inside the cabinet.The chessboard on the top of the cabinet was thin enough to allow for a magnetic linkage. Each piece in the chess set had a small, strong magnet attached to its base, and when they were placed on the board the pieces would attract a magnet attached to a string under their specific places on the board. This allowed the operator inside the machine to see which pieces moved where on the chess board. The bottom of the chessboard had corresponding numbers, 1–64, allowing the operator to see which places on the board were affected by a player's move. The internal magnets were positioned in a way that outside magnetic forces did not influence them, and Kempelen would often allow a large magnet to sit at the side of the board in an attempt to show that the machine was not influenced by magnetism.As a further means of misdirection, the Turk came with a small wooden coffin-like box that the presenter would place on the top of the cabinet. While Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a later owner of the machine, did not use the box, Kempelen often peered into the box during play, suggesting that the box controlled some aspect of the machine. The box was believed by some to have supernatural power; Karl Gottlieb von Windisch wrote in his 1784 book Inanimate Reason that "[o]ne old lady, in particular, who had not forgotten the tales she had been told in her youth ... went and hid herself in a window seat, as distant as she could from the evil spirit, which she firmly believed possessed the machine."The interior also contained a pegboard chess board connected to a pantograph-style series of levers that controlled the model's left arm. The metal pointer on the pantograph moved over the interior chessboard, and would simultaneously move the arm of the Turk over the chessboard on the cabinet. The range of motion allowed the operator to move the Turk's arm up and down, and turning the lever would open and close the Turk's hand, allowing it to grasp the pieces on the board. All of this was made visible to the operator by using a simple candle, which had a ventilation system through the model. Other parts of the machinery allowed for a clockwork-type sound to be played when the Turk made a move, further adding to the machinery illusion, and for the Turk to make various facial expressions. A voice box was added following the Turk's acquisition by Mälzel, allowing the machine to say "Échec!" (French for "check") during matches.An operator inside the machine also had tools to assist in communicating with the presenter outside. Two brass discs equipped with numbers were positioned opposite each other on the inside and outside of the cabinet. A rod could rotate the discs to the desired number, which acted as a code between the two. | null | null | null | null | 1 |
[
"Mechanical Turk",
"owned by",
"Wolfgang von Kempelen"
] | null | null | null | null | 4 |
|
[
"Mechanical Turk",
"owned by",
"Eugène de Beauharnais"
] | null | null | null | null | 6 |
|
[
"Mechanical Turk",
"has use",
"hoax"
] | null | null | null | null | 8 |
|
[
"Mechanical Turk",
"has use",
"temporary exhibition"
] | null | null | null | null | 12 |
|
[
"Mechanical Turk",
"owned by",
"Peale Museum"
] | null | null | null | null | 16 |
|
[
"Mechanical Turk",
"owned by",
"John Kearsley Mitchell"
] | null | null | null | null | 18 |
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