WWII codebreaker Alan Turing honoured on new UK bank note

The new note, laden with high-level security features, completes the bank’s rejig of its stable of paper currencies over the past few years.

The Bank of England has unveiled a new design for Britain’s top-value banknote featuring gay World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, celebrating diversity even as cash falls out of favour. The more durable and forgery-secure polymer 50-pound note (about $70) will enter circulation on June 23, Turing’s birthday, the UK’s central bank said on Thursday. Turing was a mathematician and is considered the father of modern computing. He spearheaded a team at Britain’s Bletchley Park that cracked the Nazis’ Enigma code in 1941.