Due to Alan Turing’s efforts to break Nazi cypher codes, military historians estimate he helped to end WWII several years early and save two million lives.
Turing was a brilliant English mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park, a British intelligence school. There he led the effort to decipher the Nazi Enigma code which Hitler and generals used to secretly communicate with each other. By being able to quickly read those messages, the allies could locate German U-boats, given them a significant advantage at sea.
Turing knew he was homosexual. If found out, sex between men had been illegal in England since 1885 when "gross indecency" laws were passed by parliament. Author Oscar Wilde was tripped up by that law.
While at Bletchley, Turing proposed marriage to Joan Clarke, a colleague and cryptanalyst. He told her the truth about himself yet she accepted his proposal. But ultimately Turing called it off.
After the war, Turing began exploring his true nature more fully. In 1952, while “dating” a young man, Turing’s home was burglarized. The thief may have been a former sex partner. When he reported it to the police, the detectives suspected he might be homosexual. They took it on themselves to pursue a charge of “gross indecency”. The British Government may have considered Turing’s liaisons a security risk and did nothing on his behalf.
Convinces by his brother and his attorney, Turing entered a plea of guilty. His punishment - chemical castration and he was barred from any further work on cryptography.
In 1954, Turing was found dead from Cyanide poisoning. The coroner determined death by suicide. It was assumed he laced an apple with the poison and ate it (a core was found near his body). But the apple itself was not tested.
Some modern historians argue that the poisoning may have been accidental (inhaled not eaten). Turing had chemicals and apparatuses in his home that he used for his work - electroplating gold with Potassium cyanide.
Turing’s life work as mathematician, computer scientist, and cryptanalyst, influenced the development of modern computers. Without it I wouldn’t be typing this with the iPhone in my hand.
August 2009, British programmer John Graham-Cumming started a petition to urge British government to apologise for Turing's prosecution. It received 30,000+ signatures.
A month later Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, released an apology and describing Turing’s treatment as "appalling".
In 2014 Quern Elizabeth pardoned Turing for his criminal conviction.
Then in 2017, Parliment passed the Alan Turing Law which retroactively pardon men who were cautioned or convicted for being homosexuals.
A statue was erected in Turing’s honor in Manchester, where he attended its University. The plaque reads:
“Father of computer science, mathematician, logician, wartime codebreaker, victim of prejudice”
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