For those who don't know, Alan Turing was a British computer pioneer and logician who worked at the famous "Bletchley Park" during WWII as a cryptanalyst, (codebreaker), where it is acknowledged by everybody that he saved thousands of lives through his work. He is sometimes called "The father of Computer Science and artificial intelligence. Some of his accomplishments include formalizing the concepts of algorithm and computing. He built the first machine that could perform these functions, that became known as the "Turing Machine" and devised cyphers to break codes generated by the "Enigma" machine. After the war, he went to work for the National Physical Laboratory, where among other things, he pioneered computers that had stored programs, much like the machines we currently hack out diaries on. There are really just too many wonderful advances in the technology of computing that Turing was directly or indirectly responsible for to list them all here.
(the rest is below the orange thingy)
He was also a gay man in a society and era in which being a gay man was a crime. A bit before Christmas of 1951, Turing met a young man named Arnold Murray and they began a relationship soon afterwards. During a police investigation of an only tangentially related case, Turing's relationship with Murray was exposed and he was eventually charged with "indecency". In the end he was convicted of the "crime" and was given the choice between prison or probation. One of the terms of his probation was to receive hormone injections, (chemical castration) to "reduce his libido".
Though he accepted probation, his life and body were dramatically altered as the dosage of estrogen was extremely high and he developed gynaecomastia, (man boobs) and was rendered impotent. A couple of years later, Turing had had enough and took cyanide on June 7, 1954. His death was a tragic loss for the entire world though it's significance wouldn't be clear until much later.
In August of 2009, a petition was started, demanding the British government apologize for prosecuting Turing for being gay. After thousands of signatures, Gordon Brown issued a statement and an apology, calling Turing's treatment "appalling". Except that was all. His conviction still remained. He was still a criminal, convicted of something that hasn't bee a crime in Great Britain for decades.
Until today, that is. On December 23, 2013, Queen Elizabeth II finally issued the long awaited "mercy pardon" which clears Turing's name. Though it's 59 years too late to save his life, it's about time that this good man's good name was restored. It begs the question, why so long?
Rest in peace Mr. Turing and thank you.