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The Automaton Chess Player, known popularly as the Mechanical Turk, was constructed by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770. It played a strong game of chess but was, of course, a hoax, an elaborate illusion wherein a human chess player hid inside the base, operating the machine through a series of levers and magnets. It was a hit.

After a storied career, it spent its final days in a corner of the Peale Museum in Philadelphia, where it was destroyed in a fire in 1854.

But this piece survived. This is the template for the Knight’s Tour, a puzzle to make the Knight visit every square exactly one time, as played by the Mechanical Turk.

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    The Automaton Chess Player, known popularly as the Mechanical Turk, was constructed by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770. It...