Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister during World War II, leading the United Kingdom through its most difficult period of the war with defiant wartime leadership.
Handed leadership at the exact moment his country's survival looked most uncertain, Churchill refused to even entertain negotiating with an enemy that much of Europe had already been forced to accommodate.
Taking Office in Crisis
Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940, at the very moment Nazi Germany's forces were sweeping across Western Europe, inheriting a national crisis that many believed Britain might not survive.
Defiance in the Darkest Hour
Churchill's powerful, defiant speeches — including his famous vow to "fight on the beaches" — refused any consideration of negotiating with Hitler and helped rally British resolve during the intense German bombing campaign known as the Blitz.
Forging the Grand Alliance
Churchill worked to build close diplomatic and military ties with the United States and the Soviet Union, coordinating closely with leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin to plan the Allied strategy that ultimately defeated Nazi Germany.
An Unexpected Electoral Defeat
Despite his wartime leadership, Churchill's Conservative Party lost the 1945 general election just months after victory in Europe, a stunning political defeat attributed largely to voters' desire for domestic social reform over continued focus on international affairs.
A Second Term and Literary Legacy
Churchill later returned as Prime Minister from 1951 to 1955. He was also an accomplished writer, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his historical and biographical writing, including his monumental history of World War II.
