The death of a genius

On 7 June 1954, Alan Turing died at his home in Wilmslow, England. He was 41. His housekeeper found him dead in his bed the next morning, a half-eaten apple beside him. The post-mortem found cyanide poisoning. The inquest ruled his death a suicide, but doubts remain to this day.

Turing was no ordinary man. As a mathematician and logician, he had contributed decisively to cracking the German Enigma code in the Second World War. Winston Churchill is said to have described him as the person who made the single biggest contribution to the Allied victory. He is also regarded as the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.

The British state rewarded him differently. In 1952 Turing was convicted of "gross indecency" because he had had a sexual relationship with a man. Homosexuality was illegal in Britain at the time. The court gave him a choice: prison or chemical castration. Turing chose the latter. For a year he received oestrogen injections that permanently changed his body and mind. In addition, his security clearance was withdrawn.

Two years later he was dead.

In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon. In 2017, the so-called "Alan Turing law" came into force, which posthumously pardoned some 65,000 men who had been convicted under the same laws.