Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace, the famous palace near Oxford that was built by the nation for John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough. Blenheim meant a lot to Winston Churchill. It was there that he became engaged to his wife, Clementine Ogilvy Hozier. He later wrote his historical masterpiece, The Life and Times of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. With English on his father's side and American on his mother's, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill expressed the national qualities of both his parents. His name proves the richness of his historic background: Winston, after the Royalist family, who the Churchill’s married before the English Civil War; Leonard, after his remarkable grandfather, Leonard Jerome of New York; Spencer, the married name of a daughter of the first duke of Marlborough, from who the family descended; Churchill, the family name of the first duke, which his descendants maintained after the Battle of Waterloo. All these strands come together in a career that had no resemblance in British history for richness, length, and achievement. Churchill took a leading part in laying the foundations of the welfare state in Britain, in preparing the Royal Navy for World War I, and in settling the political boundaries in the Middle East after the war. In World War II he began as the leader of the United British Nation and Commonwealth to resist the German domination of Europe, as an inspirer of the resistance among free people, and as a prime architect of victory. In this, and in the struggle against communism later, he made himself an essential link between the British and American people, for he saw that the best defense for the free world was for the English-speaking people to come together. (Down 133).

Strongly historically minded, he also had predictive foresight: British-American unity was the message of his last great book, A History of the English-speaking Peoples. He was a combination of a soldier, writer, artist, and statesman. He was not so good as a party politician. He stands out not only as a great man of action, but as a writer of it too. He was a genius; as a man he was charming, happy, and enthusiastic. As for personal faults, he was bound to be a great egoist; so strong a personality was likely to be overbearing.
He was something of a gambler, always too willing to take risks. In his ...

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...ed across the Atlantic with a supply of weapons that made a beginning.
On Oct. 26, 1951, at the age of 77, he again became prime minister, as well as minister of defense. As the Conservatives held a very small majority and Britain faced very difficult economic circumstances, only the old man's willpower enabled his government to survive. He held on to see the young Queen Elizabeth II crowned at Westminster in June 1953, attending as a Knight of the Garter, an honor he had received a few weeks earlier. In 1953, also, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. On April 5, 1955, in his 80th year, he resigned as prime minister, but he continued to sit in Commons until July 1964. Churchill's later years were relatively calm.
In 1958 the Royal Academy devoted its galleries to a retrospective one-man show of his work. On April 9, 1963, he received, by special act of the U.S. Congress, the unique honor of being made an honorary American citizen. When he died in London on Jan. 24, 1965, at the age of 90, he was acclaimed as a citizen of the world, and on January 30 he was given the funeral of a hero. He was buried at Bladon, in the little churchyard near Blenheim Palace, his birthplace.