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Alan Turing was born
English scientist Alan Turing was born on June 23, 1912 in Maida Vale, London, England. -
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Alan Turning
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Christopher Morcome
While at Sherborne, Turing meets a young boy by the name of Christopher Morcom. Morcom was assumed to be Turing's first love. Christophr died suddenly in February 1930. Turing was devastated but dedicated his famous code breaking machine which he named "Christopher". -
Turing graduated from Sherborne School
Alan Turing attended Sherborne School in Dorset from 1926 to 1931, where he was a member of Westcott House. It was a large boarding school. Turning studied advanced modern scientific ideas, such as relativity, on his own, and ran far ahead the syllabus. -
Alan Graduated from King's College, Cambridge
Alan graduated in 1934 from King’s College, Cambridge, England where he attended since 1931. -
Turing was elected fellow of King's College, Cambridge
Turing was elected a fellow of King’s College in 1935 for a paper on the Gaussian error function which proved fundamental results on probability theory, specifically the central limit theorem. The central limit theorem had recently been discovered but Turing was unaware of this and had discovered it independently as well. -
Alan Turing graduates from Princeton
Turing went to Princeton University in New Jersey where he received his Ph.D. in 1938. He studied mathematics and cryptology at the Institute for Advanced Students in Princeton. While at Princeton, Turing had played with the idea of constructing a computer. -
Turing breaks the Enigma Code
After graduating from Princeton, Turing returned to Britain and joined the government’s code-breaking department. In July 1939, the Polish Cipher Bureau passed on crucial information about the Enigma machine which was used by the Germans to encipher all its military and naval signals. After September 1939, Turing developed a new machine which was known as the Bombe, capable of breaking the Enigma messages on an industrial scale. -
ACE
In March 1946 Turing produced a detailed design for what was called the Automatic Computing Engine, also known as ACE. His report emphasised the unlimited range of applications opened up by this technological revolution, and software developments ahead of parallel American developments. Yet his relationship with NPL soured and he left in 1948, before a pilot version of the ACE was made in 1950. -
Alan Turing was charged with gross indecency
In the early 1950s homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom. In January 1952, Turing called the police to his home after a break-in and admitted to police he had a sexual relationship with 19-year-old Arnold Murray. He was charged with gross indecency. -
The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis
"The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" written by Turing, described the he way in which non-uniformity may arise naturally out of a homogeneous, uniform state.The theory has served as a basic model in theoretical biology. Some see it as the beginning of Chaos Theory . -
Alan Turing trial following arrest
Alan Turing came to trial on March 31, 1952 after learning about his sexual relationship with a young man by the name of Arnold Murray. He did not deny it and told everyone that he saw nothing wrong with his actions. He was forced to decide between imprisonment or probation on the condition that he receive hormonal injections for libido reduction. He chose the probation option, and was injected with an estrogen hormone for a year, which eventually made him impotent. -
Alan Turing dies
Alan Turing died on June 7, 1954 while conducting electrolysis experiments. He died of potassium cyanide poisoning. The cyanide was found on a half-eaten apple beside him, though no apple parts were found in his stomach. The autopsy reported that "four ounces of fluid which smelled strongly of bitter almonds, as does a solution of cyanide" was found in the stomach. They ruled the death a suicide even though his mother insisted and constantly maintained that it was accidental. -
ACM AM Turning Award
In 1966 the AM Turing award was established and first given out. It is said to be the Nobel Prize of computing. -
A Royal Pardon
In December 2013, Alan Turing was granted a royal pardon, formally cancelling his criminal conviction for being homosexual. It followed a four-year campaign supported by tens of thousands of people, including scientists Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. -
The Imitation Game
On November 26, 2014 the film The Imitation Game was released. The film was about a newly created British intelligence agency. Turing was there to crack Nazi codes, including Enigma, and the develop of the machine which he used to do so. The film is about Turing and his life. The struggles of his homosexuality, school, and the intelligence he maintained and proved through computers.
