Essays on Winston Churchill

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955.

Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England. Churchill proved to be an independent and rebellious student. In April 1888 began attending Harrow School, and soon he joined the Harrow Rifle Corps, putting him on a path to a military career.

Winston Churchill joined the Fourth Queen's Own Hussars in 1895. In 1899, he left the Army and worked as a war correspondent in a conservative daily newspaper. By the time he returned to England in 1900, after being captured in Boer War by enemy soldiers in South Africa, the 26-year-old Churchill had published five books.

Churchill was elected as Conservative for Oldham, a town in Manchester, in 1900, before defecting to the Liberal Party in 1904. He was First Lord of the Admiralty by the time of the Gallipoli campaign, which he created. Heavily criticised for this error, he resigned from the government. In 1924 Winston Churchill rejoined the Conservatives.

On September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany, and Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the war cabinet. On May 10, 1940, King George VI appointed Churchill as prime minister and minister of defense. Winston Churchill was prime minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945, leading the country through World War II until Germany’s surrender. Despite Germany's surrender, Churchill was defeated in the general election in July 1945.

In March 1946, he made his famous "Iron Curtain" speech, warning of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe. He declared that an anti-democratic “Iron Curtain,” “a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization,” had descended across Europe. With the general election of 1951, Churchill returned to government and became prime minister for the second time in October that year. In 1953, he was knighted of the Order of the Garter by Queen Elizabeth II.

Winston Churchill died on January 24, 1965, at age 90, in Lobdon. Britain mourned for more than a week.

Winston Churchill considered as one of the 20th century's most significant figures. He is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending against the spread of fascism.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”