Alan Turing (1912-1954) is rightly credited for bringing WW II in Europe to a sooner ending by breaking the secret code of the enemy's message sending machine. For his part in saving thousands of his countrymen at home and abroad Turing was not awarded a knighthood but as he was a gay person, he was chemically castrated instead of the usual prison sentence. Turing died on 7 June 1954, aged 41, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as suicide, but the evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning. Following a campaign in 2009, the British prime minister made an official public apology for "the appalling way Turing was treated". Queen Elizabeth II granted a pardon in 2013. The term "Alan Turing law" is used informally to refer to a 2017 law in the UK that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.