Timeline of Historical Events related to the The Imitation Game.
1843 - Samuel Morse builds the first telegraph system in the U.S. between Washington D.C. and Baltimore.
1844, May 24 - first telegraph message sent reading “What hath God wrought?”
1895 - Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi sends a wireless Morse Code message to a source more than a kilometer away
1901, December 12 - Guglielmo Marconi and his assistant, George Kemp, heard the faint clicks of Morse code for the letter "s" transmitted without wires across the Atlantic Ocean
1917 - German engineer Arthur Scherbius invents the Enigma machine
1923 - German firm Scherbius & Ritter, co-founded by Scherbius, bring the Enigma machine to market
1926 - Enigma adopted by German Military
1932 - A small team of Polish mathematician-cryptanalysts, led by Marian Rejewski, deduced the internal wiring of Enigma
1938 - Alan Turing joins the Government Code and Cypher School
1938 - Marian Rejewski’s team creates the Bomba, a code-breaking machine
1938 - Bletchley Park acquired by the British Government and established as a code breaking site
1939, September 1 - Germany invades Poland, beginning WWII
1939, September 3 - Britain and France declare war on Germany - Start of Movie Events
1939, September - Alan Turing moves to Bletchley Park
1940 - Turing and others design the Bombe, another code-breaking machine
1940, May - German operating procedures change rendering the Bomba useless
1941 - Alan Turing proposes to Joan Clarke.
1941 - Alan Turing breaks off engagement with Joan Clarke. The two remain good friends for the rest of their lives.
1942 - Alan Turing devises the first systematic method for breaking messages encrypted by the sophisticated German cipher machine that the British called “Tunny”
1945, May 4 - Germany surrenders
1945, May 8 - Fighting in Europe ceases
1945, September 9 - Japan surrenders, marking the end of WWII
1945 - Alan Turing recruited to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London
1948, June - World’s first working electronic stored-program digital computer created by Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester
1948 - Alan Turing became the deputy directorship of the Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester (there was no director)
1950 - Pilot Model of Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine built at NPL
1950 - Alan Turing proposes Turing Test as a criterion for whether an artificial computer is thinking in his 1950 seminal paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"
1951, March - Alan Turing was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London
1951 - Ferranti Mark I became the first marketable electronic digital computer. By this point Alan Turing had written the first-ever programming manual, as his programing system was used from the Ferranti Mark I
1952, March - Alan Turing convicted of “gross indecency” and sentenced to 12 months of hormone “therapy”
1954, June 7 - Alan Turing dies of Cyanide poisoning - End of Movie Events
mid-1970s - British wartime information declassified
1987 - Bletchley Park is closed
1992, February - Bletchley Park declared a conservation area
1994 - Bletchley Park opens as a museum
2014 - The Imitation Game is released
Source Links:
Elon University. “1830s – 1860s: Telegraph – Imagining the Internet.” Elon University, 2005, www.elon.edu/u/imagining/time-capsule/150-years/back-1830-1860/.
Elon University. “1890s – 1930s: Radio – Imagining the Internet.” Elon University, 2005, www.elon.edu/u/imagining/time-capsule/150-years/back-1890-1930/.
"Milestones:Reception of Transatlantic Radio Signals, 1901." Engineering and Technology History Wiki, 31 Dec. 2015, https://ethw.org/Milestones:Reception_of_Transatlantic_Radio_Signals,_1901#:~:text=On%2012%20December%201901%2C%20Guglielmo,in%20both%20science%20and%20technology. Retrieved 3 Dec. 2024.
Hughes, Thomas A., and John Graham Royde-Smith. “World War II.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Feb. 2022, www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II.
“Enigma.” Bletchley Park, bletchleypark.org.uk/our-story/enigma/.
Copeland, B.J. “Alan Turing | Biography, Facts, & Education.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Alan-Turing.
Lewis, Robert. “Bletchley Park | Government Establishment, England, United Kingdom | Britannica.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2020, www.britannica.com/place/Bletchley-Park.
Singh, Simon. The Code Book : The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. Bridgewater, Nj, Distributed By Paw Prints / Baker & Taylor, 2009.
Crypto Museum. “Enigma History.” Cryptomuseum.com, 2009, www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/enigma/hist.htm.
“Research Uncovers Secrets of Newnham Women Sent to Codebreak at Bletchley Park.” Newnham College, 13 Feb. 2024, newn.cam.ac.uk/newnham-news/research-uncovers-secrets-of-newnham-women-sent-to-codebreak-at-bletchley-park.
Lewis, Katy. “Bletchley Goes back to the Future.” BBC News, 18 June 2014, www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-27808962.
“Preserving Bletchley Park.” Bletchley Park, 23 Feb. 2022, bletchleypark.org.uk/our-story/preserving-bletchley-park/.