Also on this day

Revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought is launched by Edward VII.

Tom and

Jerry, pictured, make their first on-screen appearance.

to life. Things had changed by the 1970s and in 1976 Chess Challenger, the first chess computer simulator, was sold commercially.

As computers became more powerful, it was only time before they could beat a human. In 1988, Deep Thought, an IBM precursor to Deep Blue, was first to beat a grandmaster, Bent Larsen, in a regular tournament game. It was able to look at 500 million positions per move, thinking 10 or 11 moves ahead. Despite this, it was easily defeated by Kasparov.

Eight years later it had evolved into Deep Blue, resulting in the famous 1996 game. Kasparov took on the computer again the following year – and lost 3½–2½.

Artificial intelligence makes computers even more formidable. In 2017, AlphaZero, created by Google’s DeepMind, beat the world’s best chess programme, having learned to play in four hours. AlphaZero also beat the world’s best players in Go, the Chinese board game, seen as much harder as it has far more moves.

Computing, and now artificial intelligence, go far beyond board games – and are shaping all our futures.

Last week I asked which German inventor, credited with bringing the printed word to Europe, died on February 3, 1468? The answer is Johannes Gutenberg. This week: Which US swimmer, born this day in 1950, won seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics?

Watch Shaun and his colleagues on The Chase on ITV at 5pm every day of the week.