November 30, 1874 – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during WWII, is born

Winston Churchill

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on 30 November 1874, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England.

He served with the British Army in India and Sudan, and became nationally known through his writings when, as a journalist, he was captured in South Africa during the Boer War.

Churchill became a member of Parliament in 1900, remaining an MP for over 64 years.

Churchill served as Prime Minister of Britain from 1940-45, during WWII. His powerful oratory and refusal to make peace with Hitler were instrumental in rallying and maintaining British resistance to Germany.

This was particularly so during the first two years of the war and the onslaught of the Blitz by the German Luftwaffe, which was aimed at crushing Bitish morale.

Initially, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would “never surrender”.

His government was defeated shortly after the war ended, but he was re-elected in 1951. In 1953 Churchill was knighted, and awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for his four-volume work, “A History of the English-speaking Peoples”.

He retired as Prime Minister in 1955 but remained in Parliament until 1964. A year later, on 24 January 1965, Churchill died and was laid to rest in the Oxfordshire parish churchyard of Bladon.