Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill served as British Prime Minister from May 1940 to July 1945 — the years that defined his historical legacy. A soldier, war correspondent, colonial administrator, First Lord of the Admiralty (who had championed the Gallipoli campaign), and politician of erratic brilliance through the interwar years, he had been the most consistent voice warning against Nazi Germany's rearmament and the folly of appeasement. Appointed on 10 May 1940 — the day Germany invaded France — he brought to the office a combination of pugnacious personal courage, mastery of rhetoric ('We shall fight on the beaches'), strategic vision, and the will to sustain resistance through the isolated year of 1940-41 when Britain stood alone. His partnership with Roosevelt produced the Lend-Lease programme, the Atlantic Charter, and eventually American belligerence. His relationship with Stalin was complex: necessary alliance with a murderous regime to defeat a worse one, managed with realism and occasional private horror. He wrote a six-volume history of the war, The Second World War, which is itself one of its major primary sources.
- Lived: 1874 CE – 1965 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: prime minister, orator, historian
