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159 quintillion possible settings ? 🔥 1918's war story! Cracking the Enigma: How Codebreakers Shortened WWII 1918: German engineer Arthur Scherbius invents Enigma machine 1930s: Nazi Germany adopts Enigma for military communications • Believed to be unbreakable • 159 quintillion possible settings 1939: Polish mathematicians share Enigma intel with British and French Bletchley Park, UK: • Codebreaking headquarters • Alan Turing leads team to crack Enigma The Bombe: • Turing's electromechanical device • Automated Enigma decryption process 1941: First consistent breaking of Enigma messages • Revealed German military plans • Crucial for Battle of the Atlantic U-boat communication interception: • Saved countless Allied ships • Turned tide of naval warfare Impact: • Allied forces could anticipate German moves • Estimated to have shortened war by 2-4 years • Saved millions of lives Secrecy: • Enigma breakthrough kept secret until 1970s • Turing's role unrecognized for decades