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Alan Turing OBE FRS born on 23 June 1912, may not be a household name but he excelled during World War II. He was an English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. He lived for much of his early life in Guildford.
He was instrumental in breaking the Nazi top secret code system, Enigma, that gave the Allies a distinct advantage over the German military for much of World War II. He is also credited with creating the 'universal machine' that we know better today as the computer.
Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, when by the Labouchere Amendment, "gross indecency" was criminal in the UK. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning.
In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated." Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous
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