Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, in full Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, was born on November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England—died January 24, 1965, London, He's British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940–45, 1951–55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.After a sensational rise to prominence in national politics before World War I, Churchill acquired a reputation for erratic judgment in the war itself and in the decade that followed. Politically suspect in consequence, he was a lonely figure until his response to Adolf Hitler’s challenge brought him to leadership of a national coalition in 1940. With Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin he then shaped Allied strategy in World War II, and after the breakdown of the alliance he alerted the West to the expansionist threat of the Soviet Union. He led the Conservative Party back to office in 1951 and remained prime minister until 1955, when ill health forced his resignation.

Churchill wrote about 20 books over the course of his life, the first of which detailed his army experiences in India, Sudan and South Africa. He later penned a biography of his father, a biography of the first Duke of Marlborough, numerous volumes on World War I and World War II, a history of English-speaking peoples and one novel that he urged his friends not to read. In 1953, while serving his second term as prime minister, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

As a student, Churchill performed poorly in virtually every subject except history and English composition. He was particularly inept at foreign languages. In a memoir, he described taking a two-hour-long Latin test that he left completely blank apart from his name and the number of the first question, along with “a blot and several smudges.” His plan to attend the Royal Military College at Sandhurst suffered a setback when he twice failed the entrance examinations. With the help of a military tutor, he finally qualified the third time around, but only for the cavalry class, which had lower standards than the infantry.

In the late 19th century, it was rather common for British aristocrats to marry U.S. heiresses. One such relationship matched Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough, with Jennie Jerome, the Brooklyn-born daughter of a wealthy financier. The couple had two children together: Winston in 1874 and Jack in 1880. Yet the relationship purportedly soured, and Jennie was frequently absent. She remained in England following Lord Randolph’s death in 1895 and would marry twice more, in both instances to men two decades her junior.

After graduating from Sandhurst, Churchill took leave from the army and traveled to Cuba, where he reported on an uprising for a London newspaper. He subsequently served as a war correspondent and military officer, a dual role then permitted, in India, Sudan and South Africa. Upon arriving in South Africa in 1899, his armored train was ambushed by Boers, the descendants of Dutch settlers who were fighting the British at the time. Churchill was captured and marched to a prison camp, which he soon escaped from by scaling a wall at night, even as two of his fellow prisoners turned back. With no precise plan, Churchill luckily stumbled upon the house of a British coal mine manager, who hid him in a mineshaft for three days and then sent him on a wool-filled rail truck into Mozambique. From there, Churchill caught a ship back to South Africa and rushed to the front a newfound hero.