BBC: Royal Pardon for Alan Turing (Finally!)

Two days ago, fifty-nine years after he was driven to suicide by discrimination and the overwhelming solitude of misunderstanding, Alan Turing finally received a royal pardon for violating the so-called "gross indecency" laws of his time:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315

Though his downfall was perhaps not as well-publicized and posthumously noted as that of Oscar Wilde in the century before his, it was no less a travesty for humanity. (And to think that society had not budged an inch on homosexuality between 1900 and 1954!) Turing was one of the finest cryptanalysts in history, as well as one of the founding fathers of modern computer science, and he was just forty-one years old when he died. One can't help but wonder what great and wonderful things he might have accomplished in his later years had he lived.

I am reminded, somewhat, of the story of Johnny Gunther, immortalized in his father's memoir Death Be Not Proud. Gunther was another extremely promising young man who died even younger, as a teenager, after a valiant struggle with brain cancer. Untimely "early" deaths, like those of Turing, Wilde, and Gunther seem especially tragic because of the injustice of the situation (particularly with Turing and Wilde, whose deaths were entirely preventable) and the abruptly curtailed possibilities of their later lives. Entirely due to human stupidity and prejudice, Turing was never afforded the opportunity to reach his full potential. I can only imagine, for a person brimming with ideas, curiosity, and the drive to contribute meaningfully to the sum of human knowledge, to hold in his hand the poisoned apple and think that such an exit was preferable to the future that lay before him...

The royal pardon is too little, too late, but at least some six decades later, we recognize and regret the human cruelty that hounded Alan Turing to his death, and move forward as a society with an awareness that we did not have before.

World War II in Real Time, 72 Years Later

If I used Twitter, this is one of the Twitter accounts I would most likely be following:
https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII

It's a "real time" update feed on the events of the Second World War, transposed exactly 72 years into the present day. It includes such gems as:

Athens rumour: Greek soldier Konstantinos Koukidis refused to raise swastika over Acropolis; instead leaped to death wrapped in Greek flag.
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 27, 2013

and

Noel Coward, UK actor & spy, reports from London: "At the Savoy. Pretty bad blitz, but orchestra kept on playing." twitter.com/RealTimeWWII/s…
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 20, 2013

and

Royal Canadian Mounted Police are hunting 28 escaped Luftwaffe airmen, prisoners from UK who've tunneled out of a PoW camp in remote Ontario
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 19, 2013

This is such an amazing project, not least because (I imagine) it takes a lot of research to put together. It appears to be a labor of love, or at least of deep fascination. I especially appreciate that it features events not typically covered in textbooks, true and relevant quotations, and lesser-known arenas of the war.

io9: Pigeon-Guided Missile Could Have Changed the Course of WWII

Well, in theory, it could have worked:
http://io9.com/5828298/pigeon+guided-missile-could-have-changed-the-course-of-world-war-ii

Carrier pigeons have actually been used in war, of course, but using them as missiles takes it to a whole new level.

For another, more humorous use of homing pigeons, check out the last section of the Wikipedia article.

The Real Wonder Woman: WWII Hero Nancy Wake Dies at 98

Working with science fiction and fantasy, I see a lot of fictional heroines who kick some serious butt. They seem to be all the rage these days -- women who wield flaming swords, rescue their men from the clutches of fell beasts, and single-handedly take on the entire Dark Lord's army. Sometimes it goes overboard in its eagerness to affirm feminist ideals (culinary ability isn't the first step to subservience, really). But there is some real life precedent for all of this:

http://www.bust.com/blog/2011/08/12/the-real-wonder-woman-wwii-hero-nancy-wake-dies-at-98.html

How's that for female empowerment? (Note, of course, that the premise of her mission's success was at least partially that the enemy would categorically underestimate her based on her gender.)

BBC: Churchill's Butterfly Garden, 70 Years in the Making

This is a must-see, if you're ever in Britain (Kent, specifically):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11025174

From the picture accompanying this article, the estate looks beautiful. Butterfly conservation is increasingly important in industrialized nations, and such a conservatory (with such an illustrious patron) can only aid efforts therein.

It's interesting how famous (and infamous) leaders often had such incongruous hobbies; aside from Churchill, the Emperor Hirohito would have preferred to be a marine biologist rather than an emperor (and was especially saddened by his ejection from the Royal Society), Nero famously played the harp (fiddles weren't invented yet), Henry VIII was a composer of some talent, and Marcus Aurelius is better remembered for his philosophical writings than for his statecraft.

Obama plays basketball, I hear.

NYTimes: Russia's "Illegals"

This could be fuel for more than a few thriller novels -- or James Bond films (my father has a slight obsession with them):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/world/europe/30sleepers.html?hpw

Deep-cover spies seem rather anachronistic in this day and age -- a relic of the Cold War, perhaps -- but I can see why the idea is appealing. It's like the way small girls love having "secrets" in the schoolyard, secrets they can deny their classmates and giggle about amongst themselves, or how small boys are attracted to the idea of having a pistol hidden in the lining of an expensive suit. It's the same impulse that explains, methinks, my love of Sherlock Holmes and Dumas's musketeers.

NYTimes: Hitler's Art Collection

Hitler: dictator, mass murderer, sociopath, art collector.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/arts/design/19abroad.html?hpw

The story goes: if he hadn't been rejected from art school, the Holocaust might not have happened. His racial politics were in part fueled by his distorted perception of art history. The Jews, in particular, did not have much of a tradition of visual art, given their religious proscription of graven images.

Ironic, perhaps?

BBC: Bletchley Park WWII Archive to Go Online

This is actually really exciting!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/10239623.stm

I was, for a long time, fascinated with cryptography (I took a cryptography course at CTY when I was in seventh/eighth grade). The Playfair cipher, I remember, was one of my favorites. But nothing beat the paper Enigma. Yes, we reconstructed a version (albeit simplified) of the Enigma machine out of paper and manila folders. It was such fun!

And then, I'm a history nerd. World War II is a bit later-period for me, but I'm a fan of military history, so I've read my fair share on it. They'll have maps!

The Life and Customs of the (British) Royal Navy during World War II

I was doing research for a (fictional) story I was thinking of writing (it's still in gestation), and found this:

http://www.naval-history.net/WW2aaNavalLife-Customs1.htm#for

Very thorough, very informative. If any of you are writing 1940s naval fiction, let me know.