Wolfgang von (de Pámánd) Kempelen or Ján Vlk Kempelen or Farkas Kempelen (born 23 January 1734 in Pressburg (today Bratislava), died 26 March 1804 in Vienna) was an author and inventor, who became most famous for his construction of the Mechanical Turk, which was a first-class hoax, and a manually operated speaking machine, which was a genuine pioneer step in experimental phonetics. January 23 is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events January 8 - Premiere of George Frideric Handels opera Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. ... Bratislava (until 1919: PreÅ¡porok in Slovak, Pressburg in German and English; Pozsony in Hungarian) is the capital of Slovakia and the countrys largest city, with a population of some 450,000. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (86th in leap years). ... 1804 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]; Hungarian: Bécs, Czech: Vídeň, Slovak: Viedeň, Romany Vidnya; Serbian: Beč) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine states (Land Wien). ... Engraving of the Turk The Turk was a famous hoax which purported to be a chess-playing automaton first constructed and unveiled in 1769 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804). ...