The Tercentenary Incident Add a review

"The Tercentenary Incident" is a science fiction/mystery short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the August 1976 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and reprinted in the collections The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976) and The Complete Robot (1982).

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine editor Frederic Dannay contacted Asimov in the fall of 1975 with a story proposal: the August 1976 issue, which would be on the stands during the United States Bicentennial, would include a contemporary mystery set in 1976 and a historical mystery set in 1876. He wanted a science fiction mystery set in 2076, and Asimov agreed to write one. Asimov's original title for the story was "Death at the Tercentenary", but when the story appeared he decided he liked Dannay's title better.

The concept of a robot taking political office in the guise of a human was also the theme of Asimov's 1946 story, "Evidence". Edwards theory about the robots motivation is similar to The Zeroth Law of Robotics, having been speculated upon earlier in The Evitable Conflict and later elaborated on in Robots and Empire.