Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was born at Blenheim palace in 1874, the elder son of Lord Randolph Churchill and the American heiress Jennie Jerome. He was educated at Harrow and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Churchill joined the Fourth Hussars in 1895 and saw action in India and Sudan where he took part in the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. While in the army he supplied military reports and wrote books. After leaving the British Army in 1899 he worked as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. When he was reporting on the Boer War in South Africa he was taken prisoner by the Boers but made headlines when he escaped.

In 1900 Churchill was elected as a Conservative member in the House of Commons but joined the Liberals in 1904. On 12th September 1908 Churchill married Clementine Ogilvy Spencer. During the First World War Churchill championed the disastrous Dardanelles campaign in 1915, whose failure forced him to rejoin the British Army and command a battalion of the Royal Fusiliers on the Western Front. When the Second World War broke out in September 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appointed Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty.

On the 10th May 1940 Churchill was appointed Prime Minister after Chamberlain resigned. Churchill formed a coalition government and placed the leaders of the Labour Party in key positions. Churchill developed a strong relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt which led to the sharing and trading of war supplies. He provided strong leadership during the war but was criticized for interfering in military matters. Churchill inspired the British people to greater effort during the war by making public broadcasts on important occasions which contributed to eventual victory.

Churchill lost the election in July 1945 but as the leader of the Conservative Party in opposition he still spoke on international matters. He returned to power as the Prime Minister in 1951 but he retired in April 1955. Winston Churchill...