

To: Bletchley Park.
From: Facebook.
What: A lot of money.
Facebook made a million-pound ($1.3 million) donation to Bletchley Park, the Victorian country house in England where modern computing was born. Why? Because without Bletchley Park, Facebook wouldn’t exist.
During World War II, codebreakers worked day and night at Bletchley Park. Their top-secret mission was decoding encrypted military messages from Nazi Germany.
The whizzes at Bletchley Park had to crack the codes made by the Enigma machine, Germany’s cipher creator. Before World War II, people did the jobs computers do now. Difficult calculations could take hours. And they had to check each other’s work too.
Human computers couldn’t begin to keep up with Enigma. No simple typewriter, Enigma rotated the letters of the alphabet, creating a constantly changing cipher. Enigma could mix 103 sextillion possible codes!
Enter British mathematician Alan Turing. A few years earlier, Turing invented the idea of modern computers. At Bletchley Park, Turing designed an electromechanical machine called the Bombe. Bombe cracked Enigma’s codes, and soon the British could read all the German Navy’s communications. Many say this work made the war two years shorter than it would have been and saved millions of lives. Turing’s ideas also made the first digital computers possible.
Imagine a world without Bletchley Park codebreakers—Enigma’s code uncracked, Nazi Germany the victor of World War II, and the computer never invented. Computers have come a long way from the hot, noisy, room-sized calculators they were at first. Now tiny computers fit almost anywhere and solve problems a lot faster than people can. That’s why they’re ubiquitous (practically everywhere). Little ones inside machines make planes fly and cars drive. Do you see someone wearing a computer inside a wristwatch? How about someone carrying a phone? All these machines make complex calculations in less than a blink.
When the war ended, Bletchley Park became a museum. People went there to learn about coding. (Coding, or computer programming, is how people give instructions to a computer.)
But now Bletchley Park is in trouble. Hundreds of thousands of people visit during a normal year—but 2020 has not been normal for anyone. Like places all over the world, Bletchley Park couldn’t receive nearly as many visitors as usual during the coronavirus pandemic. It lost almost all its income.
Steve Hatch is Facebook’s vice president for northern Europe. He says Facebook’s technologies wouldn’t have been possible without the work done at Bletchley Park. The donation will help keep the park running and let staff keep their jobs.
“Our hope is that Bletchley staying open inspires the next generation of engineers,” says Hatch.
Hooray! 1st Comment!
Facebook? Seriously?! Dad says the owner of Facebook is evil, and he even did something to my dad's work!
That place looks old.
That place looks old since it existed in the old days.
I still don't get why
I still don't get why Facebook has to......oh nvm
That's interesting...
@Audrey: The owner of Facebook- uh yeah
That's a LOT of money!
That's a LOT of money!
this is Mylee
It's interesting how facebook gave this place money....... I hate social Media bc it's ful of lies !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I see what he's doing...
I think he's trying to look good and generous because people are starting to distrust him. You can't censor information in a biased manner for long before people start to hate it.
Donations
Its good that Facebook donated, even if the owner isn’t a good person, but its still donating!
@Above
I think the building is so neat looking! Codebreaking must have been hard, but think of the satisfaction it would give you to break a code and give an important message to the military! Yeah, I don't like social media. It is full of lies.
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Oops
Oops
This is London
The media just ruins everything *lies* at least they donated. And that is so cool how it can crack codes
Yeah, I doubt that that was
Yeah, I doubt that that was the ONLY reason he gave all that money to them...
Facebook is soooo biased...I
Facebook is soooo biased...I plan on never using it...
P.S. This is Caro
That mansion is so cool looking!
Bletchley park
Facebook is not that great as they remove things that people say that they don’t agree with. Thankfully, there are good Christian groups on there, where you can connect with people.
I was just doing Bletchley Park today!! I said to my mum ‘I think there’s an article about Bletchley park on Worldteen.’ I would like to visit one day. Anyone interested in going with me? Jk Just kidding. Did you know? People who worked there had to swear to silence. They couldn’t tell ANYONE what happened in the building. At last, in the 1970’s they could finally tell the world but it wasn’t till the 1990’s that the full story was told. That’s a long time to keep such a secret!! And there were 9000 people working there during the 2nd World War. That’s a lot. I’m grateful for all the work that those people worked so hard to help their Nation. It certainly made a big difference!
Hey, get this. That Turing
Hey, get this. That Turing guy may actually be vaguely alluded to by Apple...it's very possible.
P.S. This is Caro
@Mirela, sure! I'll come with you! :)
@ Caro
I’m glad! I look forwards to it!! :-)
@Mirela
I would love to go thanks! Are you going to pay for my airplane ticket? XD
P.S. This is Caro
You know, if we were adults and actuly knew each other I would totally come! Like actully we could go and see it together! But I don't actully know you LOL
@Riley D
Happily!
@ Caro
Yeah I know! Lol!
@ Caro
Do you wanna visit the UK one day?
P.S. This is Caro
Probably! I want to travel all over the world! :)I'm an extrovert and I love traveling but the rest of my family are homebodies. ;(
@ Caro
I used to be a home-body but now I seriously have itchy feet! I cannot wait to be a little older so that I can travel! And guess what? The US will be my first destination!
I feel like I said something
I feel like I said something wrong - nobody’s replied to my comment. But that is fine! Because there’s not much to say to me about what I wrote I’m sure! XD haha