- Born: 30 November 1874
- Birthplace: Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England
- Died: 24 January 1965
- Best Known As: Indefatigable prime minister of Britain during World War II
Churchill fought with the British Army in India and Sudan, and as a journalist was captured in South Africa (where his dispatches from the Boer War first brought him to public prominence). He became a member of Parliament in 1900 and remained an MP for over 64 years. His early topsy-turvy political career earned him many enemies, but his stirring speeches, bulldog tenacity and refusal to make peace with Adolf Hitlermade him the popular choice to lead England through World War II. When Britain and its allies prevailed in 1945, Churchill's place in history was assured. (Ironically, he lost the prime ministership two months after Germany's surrender, when the opposition Labor Party took majority control of Parliament.) One of the 20th century's most quotable wits, Churchill wrote a plethora of histories, biographies and memoirs, including the landmark four-volume A History of the English-speaking Peoples (1956-58). In 1953 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; he was knighted the same year.
Churchill served as prime minister from 1940-45 and again from 1951-55... He married the former Clementine Hozier in 1908. They had four daughters and a son: Diana (b. 1909), Randolph (b. 1911), Sarah (b. 1914), Marigold (b. 1918) and Mary (b. 1922). Marigold died in 1921... Winston's wartime contemporaries included presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, French resistance leader Charles de Gaulle and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin... More recent British PMs have included Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair... The famous portrait of a scowling Churchill was taken by Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh.
British statesman and author. Son of Lord Randolph Churchill and the American Jennie Jerome, he had an unhappy childhood and was an unpromising student. After joining the 4th Hussars in 1895, he saw service as both a soldier and a journalist, and his dispatches from India and South Africa attracted wide attention. Fame as a military hero helped him win election to the House of Commons in 1900. He quickly rose to prominence and served in several cabinet posts, including first lord of the Admiralty (1911 – 15), though in World War I and during the following decade he acquired a reputation for erratic judgment. In the years before World War II, his warnings of the threat posed by Adolf Hitler's Germany were repeatedly ignored. When war broke out, he was appointed to his old post as head of the Admiralty. After Neville Chamberlain resigned, Churchill headed a coalition government as prime minister (1940 – 45).
He committed himself and the nation to an all-out war until victory was achieved, and his great eloquence, energy, and indomitable fortitude made him an inspiration to his countrymen, especially in the Battle of Britain. With Franklin Roosevelt andJoseph Stalin, he shaped Allied strategy through the Atlantic Charter and at the Cairo, Casablanca, and Tehran conferences. Though he was the architect of victory, his government was defeated in the 1945 elections. After the war he alerted the West to the expansionist threat of the Soviet Union. He led the Conservative Party back into power in 1951 and remained prime minister until 1955, when ill health forced his resignation. For his many writings, includingThe Second World War (6 vol., 1948 – 53) he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953; his later works include his History of the English-Speaking Peoples (4 vol., 1956 – 58). He was knighted in 1953; he later refused the offer of a peerage. He was made an honorary U.S. citizen in 1963. In his late years he attained heroic status as one of the titans of the 20th century.
In 1911 he was named First Lord of the Admiralty and presided over the British navy before the outbreak of World War I.
The Dardanelles expedition, a plan to outflank the Germans, was a disaster for the British military. It had been his idea and as a result Churchill lost his admiralty post in 1915 and was sent to serve on the front lines in France.
In January 1916 he was appointed as Lieutenant Colonel of the 6th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers.
Re-elected in 1917 he was named minister of munitions and later secretary of state for war and air from 1918 to 1921. As colonial secretary in 1921-22, he helped negotiate the treaty to set up Ireland.
Between 1922 and 1924 Churchill left the Liberal party and rejoined the Conservatives. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer - a position he held until the election of 1929.. He was defeated at the next election.
From 1929 Through 1932, Roosevelt Lived In America
The Conservative government was defeated in 1929, and Churchill, now out of office, was in need of income. After an absence of almost thirty years, he crossed the Atlantic and undertook an extensive lecture tour of North America. He stayed in New York with Benard Baruch, his trip included his only visit to the West Coast of the United States, where he was lavishly entertained in California by William Randolph Hearst. Churchill also experienced Prohibition first hand and was in New York in time to witness the Wall Street crash. The collapse of the American stock market, in which Churchill had invested, wiped out any financial gains from the tour.
Churchill was now increasingly dependent on his writing and public speaking to sustain his lifestyle. He returned to America for yet another lecture tour in December 1931, but suffered a further setback when he was seriously injured by a car on New York's Fifth Avenue. On a late night romp he was so drunk he was hit by a car in 1932.
Churchill's Real Mentor
Baruched, and the New York Zionists mentored Churchill, who was a gambler and a drunk. He was first hooked when Baruch covered his stock losses.
Whether that was simply because of the Churchill-Roosevelt friendship or whether Baruch thought he would be useful to the Jewish cause is not clear. We do not know if Churchill made any commitment to Baruch. Churchill's hostility to Nazism seems not to have been the result of this, but rather prior to this.
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