Michael Ventris publishes Work Note 20, a turning point in the long quest to understand Linear B. The tablets had been found by Sir Arthur Evans 52 years earlier. Ventris notices that certain sequences of symbols appear frequently, and hypothesizes that they are the names of important cities such as Amnisos, Knossos, and Tulissos. He thus identifies eight signs. This is a huge step forward. Other words similar to Ancient Greek will later be understood, thanks also to the contribution of John Chadwick. It will finally be understood that around 1450 BC, the Mycenaeans conquered the Minoans, imposing their language, thus transforming Linear A, which was an independent language, into Linear B, which was instead heavily influenced by Ancient Greek. Then, on June 24, 1953, Ventris gives a public lecture on the subject, and the following day the decoding of Linear B is published in The Times, alongside the article on the conquest of Everest. Ventris died in tragic circumstances in a car accident on September 6, 1956.
