February 10, 2021 • 11 mins
On this day in 1355, riots broke out in Oxford, England, when a couple of university students incited a pub brawl over bad wine. / On this day in 1996, the IBM computer Deep Blue won its first game against a world chess champion.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all. Eves here were doubling up today with two
events in history on with the show. Hi, I'm Eves
and welcome to this Day in History Class, a show
that on covers a little bit more about history every day.
(00:21):
The day was February. It was St. Scholastica's Day, commemorative
day of feasting that honors the Catholic Saints Scholastica. On
this day in Oxford, England, a couple of students from
the University of Oxford were drinking at the swindle Stock
(00:42):
Tavern and just did not like the wine they were guzzling.
The students, who were claimed to be one Walter Springhouse
and a Roger de chester Field, expressed their distaste by
complaining to the taverner, and the taverner named John Croydon
(01:03):
responded and kind, exchanging some snappy words with the students.
In the end, the students through the wine at the
tavern keeper's head and beat him up. This bar fight
sparked three days of riots which resulted in the death
of sixty three students and thirty locals. On the surface,
(01:25):
it seems like the riots were incited by a group
of people who made a mountain out of a mole hill.
But tensions between the townspeople and the university folk are
still called town and gown had been brewing for a while.
The university had a lot of power in the town
and the townspeople weren't all happy with the university's growing
(01:48):
control and Oxford's worsening economic conditions. There were conflicts between
the town and the university over the control of prices,
and plenty of town versus own riots had broken out
in the thirteenth century. There was even violence between scholars
within the university. So after the students through the wine
(02:10):
at the tavern keeper, a brawl broke out in the bar.
Mayor of Oxford, John to Bearford, acts the chancellor of
the university to arrest the two offending wine throwers, but
that did not happen. A local rang the bill at
St Martin's Church to call out the town's folk, and
students rang the bill at the university church at St
(02:33):
Mary's to alert the academic folk, and from there the
pub brawl turned into an all out riot. Armed with bows,
arrows and other weapons, the two sides fought all day,
and by the end of that day nobody had been
killed or fatally wounded. But the next day the locals
(02:56):
put armed men at St. Giles Church who attacked passing
people from the university. People joined the riots from the
surrounding countryside, and they looted and set fire to some
of the academic halls. And the day after that the
townspeople apparently reached havoc on the university folk. Students houses
(03:17):
were looted, one of the town's gates have been destroyed.
They scalped some scholars. The locals seemed to have emerged victorious,
but in the end the university had the upper hand.
King Edward the Third was staying at Woodstock, which is
near Oxford, and he sent judges to Oxford to investigate
(03:40):
the riots and find out who led them. A bunch
of people were imprisoned, including the mayor. The King told
the townsfolk to give everything they had looted back to
the university and to pay a hefty sum. He said
that there would also be a charter for the university
that said the chancellor would have jurisdiction over the selling
(04:03):
of food in Oxford, and he would get the profits
of the town's judicial process. The charter also said that
every future sheriff of Oxford would take an oath to
defend the privileges of the university and protect the students
from violence. The king also gave the university members immunity
(04:24):
from prosecution for robbery, trespassing, arson, and other crimes they
had committed. On top of all this, the Bishop of
Lincoln put Oxford under an interdict that lasted for about
a year. The interdict was lifted on the condition that
the mayor, bailiffs, and sixty other leading townspeople attend and
(04:46):
pay for a mass every year on the anniversary of
the riots. During the mass, they were required to pray
for the souls of those who have been killed, and
each person was supposed to offer a penny at the altar.
During the mass, they were required to pray for the
souls of those who have been killed, and each person
(05:07):
was supposed to offer a penny at the altar. This
practice continued all the way up until the eighteen hundreds,
although some mayors over the years did refuse to participate
in the penance. But even though the town no longer
had to continue this tradition after eighteen Parliament didn't officially
(05:29):
rescind the decree until nineteen fifty five. A lot of
the details of the riots are shaky and likely biased
or exaggerated, considering accounts of the event were largely written
by scholars from the university, and details differed from one
account to the next. But the already small town was
devastated by all the deaths and destruction, and the Saints
(05:51):
Scholastica Day Riots remain an infamous event in the history
of Oxford, England. I'm Eve Jeff Cote and hopefully you
know a little bit more about history today than you
did yesterday. You can subscribe to This Day in History
Class on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or
wherever you get your podcast. Tune in tomorrow for another
(06:15):
Day in History. Welcome back. I'm your host Eves, and
you're tuned into This Day in History Class, a show
that takes history and squeezes it into bite size stories.
(06:37):
The day was February. The IBM computer Deep Blue became
the first machine to beat a reigning chess World champion
in a regular tournament. Over the years, scientists have turned
to chess to test computer's abilities, since the game is
challenging but has to find rules. The link between machines
(06:58):
and chess goes all the way back to the eight
teenth century, when Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kimberlin created the Turk,
a fake chess playing machine that was actually operated by
a human hiding inside of it. By the nineteen fifties,
scientists were putting more serious efforts into researching computer chess playing.
Chess computers associate numerical values with the positions of each
(07:22):
chess piece using a formula called an evaluation function. The
computers used those values to determine the best move to make.
After years of researchers developing chest playing hardware, computers were
still not able to beat human chess players, but advances
in custom chip technology eventually allowed computers to do faster
(07:43):
and deeper searching. In a graduate student at a Carnegie
Mellon University named Function, Shu, began working on a chess
playing machine called chip Test. After chip Test came Deep Thought,
another computer made to play chess. Shoo, along with some
of his classmates, worked on the team that developed Deep Thought.
(08:05):
Deep Thought could process seven hundred and twenty thousand moves
per second. It was the first computer to beat a
grandmaster in a regular tournament game. It also won the
nineteen eighty nine World Computer Chess Championship, an event where
chess engines compete against one another. IBM Research hired some
of the Carnegie Melon researchers to work on a successor
(08:28):
to Deep Thought. IBM Research is the innovation arm of
IBM and American technology company. At IBM, the researchers were
joined by other computer scientists, including Jerry Brody and C. J. Tan.
They called the computer chess playing system they were working
on Deep Blue. Deep Blue went up against Gary Kasparov,
(08:49):
a Russian chess grandmaster in World Chess Champion in ninety
six at a tournament in Philadelphia on February. Deep Blue
won the opening game of the match, making it the
first machine to win a chess game against a reigning
chess world champion under regular tournament time controls. But in
the following five games of the match, deep Blue either
(09:12):
lost or drew, and Kasparov ended up winning the match.
At that point, Deep Blue can analyze one hundred million
moves per second, but that was not enough to beat
human skill and strategy, so the IBM team upgraded Deep
Blue to a system unofficially called deeper Blue. They created
a thirty processor supercomputer with four hundred and eighty custom
(09:35):
integrated circuits that were designed to play chess. The computer
could evaluate around two hundred million moves per second. This
new version of Deep Blue got a rematch against Kasparov
in New York City in May. In this sixth game match,
deep Blue defeated Kasparoff in the deciding sixth game, winning
(09:56):
three and a half to two and a half. Kasparoff,
in other chess masters, penned the defeat on a single
unexpected move that confused caspar Off. The match got a
lot of media attention and put high powered computing on
the world stage. Though Deep Blue was eventually retired, it
inspired later computers and researchers applied its architecture to financial modeling,
(10:19):
data mining, and molecular dynamics. Years after the match, one
of the computer scientists who designed Deep Blue, Murray Campbell,
said the infamous unexpected move the computer made was the
result of a book in the computer software I'm Eves
Jeff Coote, and hopefully you know a little more about
(10:40):
history today than you did yesterday. Feel free to share
your thoughts or your innermost feelings with us and with
other listeners. On social media at t d i HC podcast.
We also accept electronic letters at this day at i
heart media dot com. Thanks for listening and we'll see
(11:01):
you tomorrow. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, y'all. Eves here were doubling up today with two
events in history on with the show. Hi, I'm Eves
and welcome to this Day in History Class, a show
that on covers a little bit more about history every day.
(00:21):
The day was February. It was St. Scholastica's Day, commemorative
day of feasting that honors the Catholic Saints Scholastica. On
this day in Oxford, England, a couple of students from
the University of Oxford were drinking at the swindle Stock
(00:42):
Tavern and just did not like the wine they were guzzling.
The students, who were claimed to be one Walter Springhouse
and a Roger de chester Field, expressed their distaste by
complaining to the taverner, and the taverner named John Croydon
(01:03):
responded and kind, exchanging some snappy words with the students.
In the end, the students through the wine at the
tavern keeper's head and beat him up. This bar fight
sparked three days of riots which resulted in the death
of sixty three students and thirty locals. On the surface,
(01:25):
it seems like the riots were incited by a group
of people who made a mountain out of a mole hill.
But tensions between the townspeople and the university folk are
still called town and gown had been brewing for a while.
The university had a lot of power in the town
and the townspeople weren't all happy with the university's growing
(01:48):
control and Oxford's worsening economic conditions. There were conflicts between
the town and the university over the control of prices,
and plenty of town versus own riots had broken out
in the thirteenth century. There was even violence between scholars
within the university. So after the students through the wine
(02:10):
at the tavern keeper, a brawl broke out in the bar.
Mayor of Oxford, John to Bearford, acts the chancellor of
the university to arrest the two offending wine throwers, but
that did not happen. A local rang the bill at
St Martin's Church to call out the town's folk, and
students rang the bill at the university church at St
(02:33):
Mary's to alert the academic folk, and from there the
pub brawl turned into an all out riot. Armed with bows,
arrows and other weapons, the two sides fought all day,
and by the end of that day nobody had been
killed or fatally wounded. But the next day the locals
(02:56):
put armed men at St. Giles Church who attacked passing
people from the university. People joined the riots from the
surrounding countryside, and they looted and set fire to some
of the academic halls. And the day after that the
townspeople apparently reached havoc on the university folk. Students houses
(03:17):
were looted, one of the town's gates have been destroyed.
They scalped some scholars. The locals seemed to have emerged victorious,
but in the end the university had the upper hand.
King Edward the Third was staying at Woodstock, which is
near Oxford, and he sent judges to Oxford to investigate
(03:40):
the riots and find out who led them. A bunch
of people were imprisoned, including the mayor. The King told
the townsfolk to give everything they had looted back to
the university and to pay a hefty sum. He said
that there would also be a charter for the university
that said the chancellor would have jurisdiction over the selling
(04:03):
of food in Oxford, and he would get the profits
of the town's judicial process. The charter also said that
every future sheriff of Oxford would take an oath to
defend the privileges of the university and protect the students
from violence. The king also gave the university members immunity
(04:24):
from prosecution for robbery, trespassing, arson, and other crimes they
had committed. On top of all this, the Bishop of
Lincoln put Oxford under an interdict that lasted for about
a year. The interdict was lifted on the condition that
the mayor, bailiffs, and sixty other leading townspeople attend and
(04:46):
pay for a mass every year on the anniversary of
the riots. During the mass, they were required to pray
for the souls of those who have been killed, and
each person was supposed to offer a penny at the altar.
During the mass, they were required to pray for the
souls of those who have been killed, and each person
(05:07):
was supposed to offer a penny at the altar. This
practice continued all the way up until the eighteen hundreds,
although some mayors over the years did refuse to participate
in the penance. But even though the town no longer
had to continue this tradition after eighteen Parliament didn't officially
(05:29):
rescind the decree until nineteen fifty five. A lot of
the details of the riots are shaky and likely biased
or exaggerated, considering accounts of the event were largely written
by scholars from the university, and details differed from one
account to the next. But the already small town was
devastated by all the deaths and destruction, and the Saints
(05:51):
Scholastica Day Riots remain an infamous event in the history
of Oxford, England. I'm Eve Jeff Cote and hopefully you
know a little bit more about history today than you
did yesterday. You can subscribe to This Day in History
Class on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or
wherever you get your podcast. Tune in tomorrow for another
(06:15):
Day in History. Welcome back. I'm your host Eves, and
you're tuned into This Day in History Class, a show
that takes history and squeezes it into bite size stories.
(06:37):
The day was February. The IBM computer Deep Blue became
the first machine to beat a reigning chess World champion
in a regular tournament. Over the years, scientists have turned
to chess to test computer's abilities, since the game is
challenging but has to find rules. The link between machines
(06:58):
and chess goes all the way back to the eight
teenth century, when Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kimberlin created the Turk,
a fake chess playing machine that was actually operated by
a human hiding inside of it. By the nineteen fifties,
scientists were putting more serious efforts into researching computer chess playing.
Chess computers associate numerical values with the positions of each
(07:22):
chess piece using a formula called an evaluation function. The
computers used those values to determine the best move to make.
After years of researchers developing chest playing hardware, computers were
still not able to beat human chess players, but advances
in custom chip technology eventually allowed computers to do faster
(07:43):
and deeper searching. In a graduate student at a Carnegie
Mellon University named Function, Shu, began working on a chess
playing machine called chip Test. After chip Test came Deep Thought,
another computer made to play chess. Shoo, along with some
of his classmates, worked on the team that developed Deep Thought.
(08:05):
Deep Thought could process seven hundred and twenty thousand moves
per second. It was the first computer to beat a
grandmaster in a regular tournament game. It also won the
nineteen eighty nine World Computer Chess Championship, an event where
chess engines compete against one another. IBM Research hired some
of the Carnegie Melon researchers to work on a successor
(08:28):
to Deep Thought. IBM Research is the innovation arm of
IBM and American technology company. At IBM, the researchers were
joined by other computer scientists, including Jerry Brody and C. J. Tan.
They called the computer chess playing system they were working
on Deep Blue. Deep Blue went up against Gary Kasparov,
(08:49):
a Russian chess grandmaster in World Chess Champion in ninety
six at a tournament in Philadelphia on February. Deep Blue
won the opening game of the match, making it the
first machine to win a chess game against a reigning
chess world champion under regular tournament time controls. But in
the following five games of the match, deep Blue either
(09:12):
lost or drew, and Kasparov ended up winning the match.
At that point, Deep Blue can analyze one hundred million
moves per second, but that was not enough to beat
human skill and strategy, so the IBM team upgraded Deep
Blue to a system unofficially called deeper Blue. They created
a thirty processor supercomputer with four hundred and eighty custom
(09:35):
integrated circuits that were designed to play chess. The computer
could evaluate around two hundred million moves per second. This
new version of Deep Blue got a rematch against Kasparov
in New York City in May. In this sixth game match,
deep Blue defeated Kasparoff in the deciding sixth game, winning
(09:56):
three and a half to two and a half. Kasparoff,
in other chess masters, penned the defeat on a single
unexpected move that confused caspar Off. The match got a
lot of media attention and put high powered computing on
the world stage. Though Deep Blue was eventually retired, it
inspired later computers and researchers applied its architecture to financial modeling,
(10:19):
data mining, and molecular dynamics. Years after the match, one
of the computer scientists who designed Deep Blue, Murray Campbell,
said the infamous unexpected move the computer made was the
result of a book in the computer software I'm Eves
Jeff Coote, and hopefully you know a little more about
(10:40):
history today than you did yesterday. Feel free to share
your thoughts or your innermost feelings with us and with
other listeners. On social media at t d i HC podcast.
We also accept electronic letters at this day at i
heart media dot com. Thanks for listening and we'll see
(11:01):
you tomorrow. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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