The population was 20,547 in 2015 according to a US Census Estimate. As of 2015 the metro region had a population of 450,051.
Clio, Alabama
Clio is a city in Barbour County, Alabama, United States. The population was 1,399 at the 2010 census, down from 2,206 in 2000.
It is the birthplace of former Governor George C. Wallace.
Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)
The Great Northern Railway (GNR) was a British railway company established in 1846. The main line ran from London King's Cross station via Hitchin, Peterborough, and Grantham, to York. There was a loop line from Peterborough to Bawtry (south of Doncaster) via Boston and Lincoln. There were also branch lines to Sheffield and Wakefield. On 1 January 1923 the company became a part of the London and North Eastern Railway. Today, the GNR main line forms part of the East Coast Main Line.
North Eastern Railway (UK)
The North Eastern Railway (NER) was a British railway company. It was incorporated in 1854 by the combination of several existing railway companies. In 1923, it was merged with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railway under the Railways Act 1921. The NER main line survives today as part of the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh.
George Steiner
Francis George Steiner, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a French-born American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator. He wrote about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the impact of the Holocaust.
Steiner died on February 3, 2020 at his home in Cambridge at the age of 90.
The Turk
The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player was a trick chess-playing machine. First put on show in 1770, the machine was in use until it was destroyed in a fire in 1854. It was later found to be a hoax. It was built in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen to impress the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. The machine could play chess against a human. It could also perform the knight's tour, a puzzle where a player moves a knight to every square of a chessboard exactly once.
The Turk was not a real machine, but a mechanical illusion. There was a person inside the machine working the controls. With a skilled chess player hidden inside the box, the Turk won most of the games. It played and won games against many people including Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The chess players who secretly worked inside the box included Johann Allgaier, Hyacinthe Henri Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret, and William Schlumberger.
The machine had a life-sized model of a human head and body, placed next to a large wooden box. The model was dressed in Ottoman robes and wore a turban. Its left arm held a long smoking pipe. The large box was about three-and-a-half feet (110 cm) long, two feet (60 cm) wide, and two-and-a-half feet (75 cm) high. On the top of the box was a chessboard, about 18 inches square. The front of the box had three doors, an opening, and a drawer. Inside the drawer was a red and white ivory chess set.
The inside of the box was very complicated. It was meant to trick those who looked into it. When the left front doors were opened you could see clockwork gears and cogs. If the back doors of the box were open at the same time you could see through the machine. The other side of the box contained a red cushion and some removable parts. This area also gave a clear view through the machine. Under the robes of the Turk were two more doors. When these were opened you could also see the clockwork parts with a view right through the machine. The design allowed the presenter of the machine to open every door to the public, to keep the illusion.
However the clockwork parts on the left side and the drawer did not go back as far as the back of the box. They only went one third of the way. This gave room for a sliding seat, so the person inside was able to slide from place to place. This meant they were not seen when the doors were opened. Moving the seat caused fake machinery to slide into its place to further hide the person inside the box.
The chessboard on the top of the box was thin. This allowed for a magnetic linkage. Each piece in the chess set had a small, strong magnet joined to its base. When placed on the board the pieces would attract a magnet attached to a string under their places on the board. The person inside the machine could see which pieces moved where on the chess board. The bottom of the chessboard was also numbered, 1–64, allowing the person to see which places on the board were affected by a player's move. The magnets were placed so that they were not affected by any magnets outside the box. Kempelen would let people from the audience put a large magnet next to the board to show that the machine was not influenced by magnetism.
To distract the audience, the Turk came with a small wooden box. This would be put on the top of the box. Kempelen would look into into the small box during play, suggesting that it controlled the machine. The box was believed by some to have magic powers.
Inside the box was a chess board connected to a series of levers. These controlled the model's left arm and could move it around the chess board. The arm could be moved up and down, and turning the lever would open and close the Turk's hand. This let it pick up the chess pieces on the board. The machinery made a clockwork-type sound when the Turk made a move, further adding to the machinery illusion. The levers also made the Turk make various facial expressions. A voice box was added later, allowing the machine to say "Échec!" (French for "check") during matches.
The person inside and the presenter on the outside could send messages to each other. There were two brass discs with numbers on the inside and outside of the box. The discs could be turned to a number which acted as a code between the two.
The first display of the Turk was in 1770 at Schönbrunn Palace. Kempelen showed everyone what he had built. He opened the doors and drawers of the cabinet, so the audience could look into the machine. It was then ready for a game.
The Turk would use the white pieces and have the first move. Between moves its left arm sat on a cushion. The Turk could nod twice if it threatened the other player's queen, and three times upon placing the king in check. If the other player made an illegal move, the Turk would shake its head, move the piece back. The first person to play against the Turk was Count Ludwig von Cobenzl, an Austrian courtier at the palace. He was quickly defeated.
Another part of the show was the knight's tour, a famed chess puzzle. The puzzle requires the player to move a knight around a chessboard, touching each square once along the way. While most experienced chess players of the time still struggled with the puzzle, the Turk was able to make the moves easily. The person inside had a map of moves needed.
The Turk could also communicate with the audience using a letter board. It was able to do this in English, French, and German. Carl Friedrich Hindenburg, a university mathematician, wrote down the conversations during the Turk's time in Leipzig and published it in 1789 as "Über den Schachspieler des Herrn von Kempelen und dessen Nachbildung" (or "On the Chessplayer of Mr. von Kempelen And Its Replica"). Questions included the Turk's age, marital status, and its secret workings.
Interest in the machine grew across Europe. Kempelen, however, was more interested in his other projects and did not want to show the Turk. He would tell people it was not working.  After the performances at the Schönbrunn Palace the Turk only played Sir Robert Murray Keith, a Scottish noble. Kempelen took the machine to pieces after the match. Kempelen said the machine was a "mere bagatelle". He was not pleased with its popularity and would rather continue his work on steam engines and machines that could speak.