I spend a lot of time on the internet doing research, and I’ve typed the word “bridge” and many variations of it into most websites as a matter of sheer curiosity just to see what comes up.
We know that there are great bridge videos on YouTube, an increasing amount of bridge streams on platforms like Twitch and many bridge-related newsletters out there: But what happens when you search for bridge in some unlikely places?
Here’s what happened.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a site that lists legally downloadable e-books with expired copyright, mostly ones that were released a few centuries ago. It’s a great place for historical books on nearly any topic whether you’re looking for A Treatise on Whist or the Malleus Maleficarum, whatever your reasons.
There are added categories for Auction bridge (Here), the term “bridge whist” (Here) where you can find many great e-books – including A Treatise on whist and many others.
Google Patents
Google Patents is, pretty obviously, a way to Google patents – and it’s one of my favorite places to type in terms related to bridge.
The supply of related bridge patents is seemingly endless, and although I’ll list a few of them here, feel free to do your own searches.
- Duplicate bridge-scoring device (Issued 1966) (Link: Google Patents)
- Holder for duplicate contract bridge hands (Issued 1934) (Link: Google Patents)
- Bridge board for outdoor use (Issued 1991) (Link: Google Patents)
- Compensative bridge score computer (Issued 1966) (Link: Google Patents)
The Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is one of the internet’s largest archive projects, belonging to the larger Internet Archive. It’s basically a time machine for the internet, and you can choose most websites and turn back the clock to see what it might have looked like.
The earliest available date for our own BridgeBase.com takes us to December 3, 1998 with a snapshot of the home page.
This still shows us a free Bridge Master demo, Microsoft Gaming Zone Online Bridge and Volume 1 of Private Bridge Lessons for PC.
A great find!
The US National Archives: JFK the Bridge Player
The National Archives Identified number for this piece of history is 194145.
it’s a golden find: A letter that confirms President Kennedy was a bridge player.
It’s dated February 1, 1963 and signed off by Pierre Salinger, press secretary to Presidents JFK and Lyndon B. Johnson.
It reads: “The President used to play bridge when he was in the Navy, but he hasn’t had much chance to do so in recent years.”
A scan of the whole letter is available at the direct link. (Link: National Archives)
Eerily, JFK’s life came to an end nearing the close of the same year on the 22nd of November.