Rise of the Colossus!

On this day in 1944, the improved Colossus Mark 2 started working just in time for the Normandy Landings on D-Day.

The Colossus was the world's first electronic digital computer that was at all programmable. It was designed by Tommy Flowers at Bletchley Park, England to solve a problem posed by a mathematician, Max Newman. In December 1943 the prototype, Colossus Mark 1, was shown to work.  The computers were used by British code breakers, giving the Allies valuable intelligence obtained from reading many encrypted high-level telegraphic messages between the German High Command and their army commands.

By the end of the Second World War, there were ten Colossus computers in use.

​This scene was built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on British history. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.