Alan Turing
Wow, an online petition actually worked! Granted it was for little more than a public apology but still... A while back I saw a link to sign a petition for the British government to apologise for the treatment of Alan Turing which I happily signed. Alan did some fairly seminal work in the fields of computer science and artificial intelligence and was a major contributor to the code-breaking efforts at Bletchley Path during World War 2, helping to decrypt messages coded by German Enigma machines.
Basically, an important guy to us geeks. Unfortunately for him, he was gay in an age where homosexuality was illegal. After the war, in 1952 he was charged with gross indecency, his security clearance was removed so could no longer continue his cryptographic work. He was also subject to 'chemical castration' which is essentially being treated with female hormones meant to reduce libido. 2 years after being convicted, he committed suicide.
Then this morning I got a mail giving an update, and Gordon Brown has issued a written statement apologising on behalf of the British government for the tragic treatment of a person like this.
Wow - that is indeed a surprise. I've stopped signing these petitions because it seemed like such a waste of time. Good to hear this one did some good.