Gay Computer Creator Honoured
Gay.com UK,
June 8, 2004
http://uk.gay.com/headlines/6371
By Ben Townley, Gay.com UK
The man who is largely seen as the creator of the modern
day computer was remembered yesterday.
Alan Turing, who helped develop one of the first series
of computers as well as working on code cracking in the Second World War, was
honoured with an unveiling of a blue plaque outside his home in Wilmslow in
Cheshire.
The plaque is in recognition of his scientific and
mathematical work, which led to the creation of personal computers, as well as
his work in WWII on deciphering code from Germany in a bid to protect the
allies from attack.
However, Turing’s life was tainted by tragedy. Despite
his prominence and success, he was arrested in 1952 for being gay and, rather
than going to jail, agreed to be injected with hormones in a bid to change his
sexuality.
He killed himself two years later by eating an apple he
had injected with cyanide, although this ruling was contested by his mother at
the time, who claimed his death was the result of an experiment gone wrong.
This is not the first recognition Turing has received. He
was named in the top 20 most important people of the 20th Century by Time
Magazine, as well as one of the most important gay people of all time by the
Pink Paper in 1997.
Additionally, a statue of him eating an apple stands in
the heart of Manchester’s Sackville Park, as he attended the city’s
university.
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