Images

The Mechanical Turk, illustration in Joseph Friedrich von Racknitz's pamphlet On Mr. von Kempelen's Chess Player and its Replica, 1789. This drawing depicts how von Racknitz believed the so-called Mechanical Turk, a supposed chess-playing...

Knight chess piece, carving made of jet from western Islamic lands, c. 8th to c. 10th century. Craftspeople may have skirted prohibitions to playing chess for iconoclastic reasons by developing more abstract pieces, as depicted here, and...

Hindu deities Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga, painting on paper, c. 18th century. Depicted here is a game of chaturanga, the progenitor of contemporary chess, being played by the central Hindu gods of Krishna and Radha. They sit upon...

A gouache on paper painting titled The Gettysburg Address 1863 by Nicha Sursock. This is part of a series of 43 works representing the history of the USA. President Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, arrives...

A gouache on paper painting titled Samuel Morse, the Telegraph, 1837 by Nicha Sursock. This is part of a series of 43 works representing the history of the USA. On May 24, 1844 Morse sent the first official long-distance telegraph from...

A gouache on paper painting titled The Battle of the Alamo, 1836 by Nicha Sursock. This is part of a series of 43 works representing the history of the USA. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna facing the Texian Frontiermen during the siege...

A 1914 photograph of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), the 28th President of the United States who served from 1913 to 1921. (Library of Congress)

Thor's hammer from Rømersdal, probably silver votive/deposit, photograph by Arnold Mikkelsen, c. 790-1100. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.

Stenkvista church runes, a runescape carving in granite, photographed by Berig, Södermanland, c. 900-1100 The sculpture is one of many runestones from the end of the Viking Age in Scandinavia and is a memorial dedicated by sons to their...

Thor's hammer pendant, silver rectangular head section, East Yorkshire, c. 900-1000. The British Museum, London.