Alan Turing Memorial
The British scientist Alan Turing made important contributions during World War Two, at Bletchley Park he lead the group that was responsible for cracking the German Naval code (allowing the British to know where the German U-boats would strike next). But his real claim to fame comes from his work in computer science and artificial intelligence after the war, much of it at the University of Manchester. Here he devised the famous Turing Test and helped build one of the first working computers in the world - the Mark 1 in 1949.
However, Alan Turing would soon fall from glory: As a homosexual, illegal in the UK in 1950s, he was charged with gross indecency and given the choice between imprisonment and probation, conditional on his undergoing hormonal treatment designed to reduce his libido. He accepted the latter treatment. But on 8 June 1954, just 41 years old and at the peak of his scientific career, Alan Turing was found dead from cyanide poisoning. Britain had pushed its leading computer scientist to suicide.