Official "This Day In History" thread

[tServo]

25 years ago, on May 11. 1997, a match of man vs machine started when IBM's Deep Blue beat GrandMaster and World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov. The match was actually quite close. Kasparov took the first game and Deep Blue took the second. The next three were draws. The match ended with Deep Blue winning the next and last game.
This match is often erroneously used as an example of AI but Deep Blue simply used massive brute force to win,
analyzing over 200 million moves per second. No AI heuristics played a part.
It should be mentioned that chess playing computers existed as early as the 1950s, but were very weak.

The first commercially available chess playing computers became available about 1977.
These were weak too but dramatically advanced in the 1980s as faster microprocessors and cheaper memory became available.

https://www.i-programmer.info/news/1...paign=platform

[Dr Sardonicus]

On Thursday, May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy made a speech before the House of Representatives. Most of it was about the Cold War. However, there was one bit near the end that became better remembered:

I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.

No single space project in this period will be more exciting, or more impressive, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

[PhilF]

Those were the days.

Today, no matter who was president, no matter what party they represented, and no matter how forward-thinking or excellent the idea, the person would be lambasted and crucified by the other party for suggesting something so outrageous.

This is the unescapable atmosphere that today's politics + media + social media + corruption + instant global mass communication has produced. It's an ugly concoction.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by PhilF

Those were the days.

I remember reading in a school textbook that there would be a manned Mars mission by ~1980. Still waiting. I suppose these days it would be worded differently, as a mission with a human crew aboard.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by PhilF

Those were the days.

Today, no matter who was president, no matter what party they represented, and no matter how forward-thinking or excellent the idea, the person would be lambasted and crucified by the other party for suggesting something so outrageous.

This is the unescapable atmosphere that today's politics + media + social media + corruption + instant global mass communication has produced. It's an ugly concoction.

A brave politician would choose to make such a statement, not because it is easy but because it is hard.

[PhilF]

Originally Posted by xilman

A brave politician would choose to make such a statement, not because it is easy but because it is hard.

Bravery aside, that wouldn't matter. They would still be battered into oblivion by the forces I mentioned.

Bottom line is that policy nowadays is determined strictly by those forces, and not at all on the merits of the issue.

[masser]

Originally Posted by xilman

A brave politician would choose to make such a statement, not because it is easy but because it is hard.

IYKYK

[Xyzzy]

Originally Posted by kriesel

I remember reading in a school textbook that there would be a manned Mars mission by ~1980. Still waiting. I suppose these days it would be worded differently, as a mission with a human crew aboard.

One of our favorite movies: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120029/

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

One of our favorite movies: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120029/

One of our favorite ideas: Project Orion.

There is a book about this written by George Dyson, the son of a certain important person involved with this project. I have a copy of this book on my bookshelf, which I have read many times.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by masser

IYKYK

I'm glad someone spotted it.

[Dr Sardonicus]

On May 27:

In 1905, the Japanese fleet destroyed most of the Russian East Sea Fleet in the Battle of Tsushima, insuring Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War.

In the runup to the war, Takahashi Korekiyo, deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, had been unsuccessful in securing loans to finance the war with Russia from London bankers. He tried again on Wall Street, with better luck. Jacob Schiff arranged substantial loans. Legend has it that Schiff told Takahashi that, as a banker, he couldn't do it.

But, there was a reason he could do it. He was a Russian Jew who had emigrated to the United States. And the Russians had just had a pogrom in his home town back in Russia. And so, he said, he would arrange the loans on one condition: that Japan would win the war.

These loans helped enhance the reputation of Wall Street as a world financial center.

US President Theodore Roosevelt helped broker the treaty which formally ended the war. His efforts earned him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.

In the movie Bridge on the River Kwai, Colonel Saito, the Japanese POW camp commandant uses the anniversary of Japan's victory in the in the Battle of Tsushima as an occasion to be magnanimous and grant the demands of Colonel Nicholson.

Moving on to World War II:

1940 British and Allied forces begin the evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) during WWII

1940 In the Le Paradis massacre, 97 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops

1941 German battleship Bismarck sunk by British naval force