Today in History, May 11th
On May 11, 1997, IBM's Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov to win their chess match. Plus Minnesota statehood and the capture of Adolf Eichmann.
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May 11 is best known for 1997, when IBM’s Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in the final game of their six-game match. The date also saw Minnesota become a state in 1858 and Israeli agents capture Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960.
The big story: Deep Blue beats Garry Kasparov (1997)
Kasparov had already handled Deep Blue once. In 1996 he beat IBM’s machine by changing his approach partway through games. The rematch was different. A team that included Feng-hsing Hsu and C.J. Tan had been building the computer since 1989, and by 1997 it could look at roughly 100 billion to 200 billion positions in the three minutes usually allowed for a move. The sixth and deciding game, on May 11, 1997, lasted only about an hour. After 19 moves, Kasparov resigned, even though other grandmasters thought his position was still playable. It was the first time a reigning world champion had lost a match to a computer under tournament conditions. Deep Blue took the match 3.5 to 2.5, with two wins, one loss and three draws. Kasparov said afterward that he had lost his fighting spirit, and the idea that machines could out-think people at their own games stopped being science fiction.
More events on May 11
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 330 | Roman emperor Constantine I dedicated Byzantium, renamed Constantinople, as his new capital. |
| 1812 | British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was shot and killed in the lobby of the House of Commons. |
| 1846 | President James K. Polk asked Congress to declare war on Mexico. |
| 1858 | Minnesota became the 32nd U.S. state. |
| 1910 | Glacier National Park was established in northwestern Montana. |
| 1934 | A huge dust storm swept from the Great Plains across the eastern states. |
| 1943 | U.S. troops landed on Attu, one of the Aleutian Islands Japan had seized in 1942. |
| 1960 | Israeli Mossad agents captured Nazi official Adolf Eichmann outside his home in the Buenos Aires area. |
| 1972 | Cesar Chavez began a 24-day hunger strike against an Arizona farm labor law. |
| 1981 | Reggae star Bob Marley died of cancer at 36. |
| 1987 | Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief in Lyon, went on trial for war crimes. |
| 2010 | Gordon Brown resigned as UK prime minister, ending 13 years of Labour Party government. |
Born on May 11
- 1811: Chang and Eng, conjoined twins whose fame made “Siamese twins” a household phrase, born in Meklong, Siam.
- 1894: Martha Graham, American modern dance pioneer, born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
- 1918: Richard Feynman, American physicist and 1965 Nobel laureate, born in New York City.
Sources
- Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess match, History.com
- This Day in History: May 11, History.com
- On This Day: May 11, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Eichmann captured, History.com
- Chang and Eng, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Martha Graham, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Richard Feynman, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Deep Blue, Encyclopaedia Britannica
