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Winston Leonard Spencer
Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire,
England on November 30, 1874. His mother was Jenny Jerome,
the daughter of a New York City millionaire, and his father
was Lord Randolph Churchill. He had a younger brother named
John. His great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather,
John Churchill, led Britain to victories against the French
in the late 17th and early 16th centuries. In 1895, Churchill
graduated from the Royal Military College and went to Cuba,
India, Sudan, and South Africa to fight and be a war
correspondent for British newspapers. While he was in South
Africa covering the Boer War in 1899, he was captured and
imprisoned by Boers when they seized his train. He escaped
from the Boer prison and rode to the safety of British
territory as a stowaway on a supply train, despite the dead
or alive reward for his capture. He stayed one more year in
South Africa, then went back to England and his awaiting
lifelong political career.
Churchill was elected to
Parliament in 1900 as a Conservative for Oldham. In 1906, he
switched over to the Liberal party, where he remained until
1922. In 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by a
Serbian nationalist. Austria declared war on Serbia, and
Russia came to Serbia's aid. Germany sided with Austria and
declared war on Russia's ally, France. On the way to France,
they Germans invaded Belgium, which Britain had agreed to
protect. World War I had begun! Following Britain's entry
into the war, Churchill served in France as Lieutenant
Colonel of the Sixth Royal Scot Fusiliers. From 1911 until 1924,
Churchill served in the Cabinet as Home Secretary, First
Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of
State for War and Air, Secretary of State for the Colonies,
and Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1922, he lost a
Parliament election for the first time in 22 years. He
switched back to the Conservative party and was reelected in
to Parliament in 1924. During the 1930s,
Churchill continually warned the British government about
Germany's rearming and the rise of Nazism. Adolph Hitler had
taken control of the Rhineland, Austria, and part of
Czechoslovakia. England continued to watch and give in to
Hitler's acquisitions. Churchill opposed this policy of
appeasement. When Hitler invaded Poland, England and France
declared war on Germany. In 1940, one year after
the onset of World War II, Churchill was elected Prime
Minister. With the German invasion of France, England was
alone in its fight against the Axis powers. Thourghout World
War II, Churchill's stirring BBC radio speeches brought
confidence and inspiration to the British people during the
country's bleak times. His "V" for victory sign and cigar
became familiar and much-loved sights. In 1942, after the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war,
providing essential support to England. Early in 1945,
Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin of the
Soviet Union met at Yalta on the Black Sea to prepare for
the end of the war and to discuss how Europe was to be
controlled. At Yalta, the Big Three decided that Germany
should be divided into four zones of occupation. In 1945,
Germany and Japan surrendered and World War II
ended.
In 1908 Churchill
married Clementine Hozier and had five children; Diana in
1909, Randolph in 1911, Sarah in 1914, Marigold in 1919, and
Mary in 1922. Shortly after the war,
Churchill resigned a Prime Minster, but was elected again in
1951. In 1953, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his
leadership during the war and also won the Nobel Prize for
Literature. Following his retirement in 1955, Churchill
wrote The History of the English-speaking Peoples and
devoted more time to painting, the hobby that he loved. He
died in London and was buried near Blenheim Palace where her
was born.