Alan Turing

◍ Open on the globe

Elliott & Fry · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

mathematician, father of computer science

1912 – 1954 · 42 years · Bletchley Park · Europe

Devised the Turing machine, the basis of computation theory, and helped break the German Enigma cipher in the war.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 20th century

Portrait: Elliott & Fry · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 38 years older
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 33 years older
Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 31 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 23 years older
Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 45 years older
George VI — Second World War king who overcame a stammer, 17 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 34 years older
Yuri Gagarin — cosmonaut, first human in space, 22 years younger
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, 42 years older
Anna Akhmatova — poet, 23 years older
Nikita Khrushchev — Soviet leader who denounced Stalin's personality cult, 18 years older
Dmitri Shostakovich — composer, 6 years older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 31 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 14 years older
Gamal Abdel Nasser — President of Egypt, 6 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 51 years older
Umm Kulthum — singer, 14 years older
Nâzım Hikmet — poet, 10 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 6 years younger
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 20 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 13 years younger
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 37 years older
Léopold Sédar Senghor — poet, first president of Senegal, 6 years older
Kwame Nkrumah — first President of Ghana, 3 years older

Asia

Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 19 years older
Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 43 years older
Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 23 years older
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 22 years older
Sukarno — first president of Indonesia, 11 years older
Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa) — WWII-era emperor who announced Japan's surrender, 11 years older

Americas

Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 23 years older
Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 56 years older
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 17 years younger
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 18 years younger
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 65 years older
Harry S. Truman — 33rd US president, the atomic bombs and the start of the Cold War, 28 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 41 years older
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 14 years older
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 7 years younger
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 24 years younger
Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 30 years older
Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga, 12 years older

The world in their lifetime

1912–1913 Balkan Wars — aged 0, Europe
1912 The death of Scott's polar party — aged 0, Oceania
1913 Ford's moving assembly line — aged 1, Americas
1914–1918 World War I — aged 2, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 2, Americas
1914 Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon — aged 2, Americas
1915 Armenian genocide — aged 3, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 4, Middle East
1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — aged 4, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917 February Revolution — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 6, Whole world
1918 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — aged 6, Europe
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 7, Europe
1920 League of Nations founded — aged 8, Whole world
1922 Formation of the USSR — aged 10, Eastern Europe & Russia
1922 March on Rome: Mussolini takes power — aged 10, Europe
1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — aged 10, Africa
1923 Great Kantō earthquake — aged 11, Asia
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 16, Europe
1928–1932 First Five-Year Plan: Soviet industrialisation — aged 16, Eastern Europe & Russia
1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — aged 17, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 17, Eastern Europe & Russia
c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — aged 18, Americas
1931 China floods — aged 19, Asia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 21, Europe
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 24, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 24, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 27, Whole world
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 29, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 29, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 30, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 33, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 33, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 35, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 36, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 37, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 41, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 41, Asia