On this day in 1997, Deep Blue, an IBM computer, beat Garry Kasparov, widely seen as one of the greatest chess players in history, 2 games to 1.
It was the second time in as many years man and machine had faced off. Kasparov had beaten the computer in 1996 four games to two.
It marked the first time a computer had ever beaten a human player as accomplished as Kasparov.
As the Washington Post wrote at the time:
A visibly upset Kasparov stormed out of the small match room after only about an hour of play, effectively resigning the sixth -- and final -- game with a scant 19 moves played. Most chess experts here said Kasparov, who appeared frustrated from the start of today's game, likely would have been conquered by the computer within a few moves.
"This was the single most historic event in the history of chess," said Daniel Edelman, a grandmaster and an editor of the American Chess Journal.
"We have a machine here that is truly remarkable," said David Levy, the vice president of the International Computer Chess Association. "This was an amazing victory."
Kasparov, in a postgame news conference, accused International Business Machines Corp. of building a machine specifically to defeat him. "It was nothing to do about science. . . . It was zeal to beat Garry Kasparov," he said. "And when a big corporation with unlimited resources would like to do so, there are many ways to achieve the result. And the result was achieved."
This short documentary on the match — and the development of Deep Blue — is worth the watch.