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Winston Churchill
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Listen to Winston Churchill delivering his first speech as prime inister in 1940
Winston Churchill and Clementine Churchill sit closely together on a boat, bundled in coats, with the Thames and an industrial shoreline in the background.
Watch British Prime Minister Winston Churchill address a joint session of U.S. Congress after Pearl Harbor
Franklin D. Roosevelt sits between Canadian Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, with military officials standing behind them at the 1943 Quebec Allied conference. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference Yalta Conference
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British prime minister Winston Churchill
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Margaret Thatcher at the Tory Party Conference in Blackpool, Oct. 14, 1981. British Conservative politician and first woman to hold the office of Prime Minister of Great Britain (1979-90).
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British prime minister Winston Churchill
British prime minister Winston Churchill Winston Churchill, photograph by Yousuf Karsh, 1941.

Winston Churchill

prime minister of United Kingdom
Also known as: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
Written by
Herbert G. Nicholas
Rhodes Professor of American History and Institutions, University of Oxford, 1969–78. Author of Britain and the U.S.A. and others.
Herbert G. Nicholas
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
Last updated
•History

Winston Churchill (born November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England—died January 24, 1965, London) was a 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...

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