Winston Churchill is considered one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century. Born in 1874 to an American mother and a father descended from the Duke of Marlborough, he began a career as an officer that led him to participate in four military campaigns in the British Empire. Elected as a Member of Parliament at 25 in 1900, a cabinet minister at 31, and twice Prime Minister, his political career lasted nearly 60 years.
With his ferocious humor and disregard for decorum, he made many enemies. He distinguished himself by a unique combination of courage, inventiveness, determination—sometimes bordering on stubbornness—authoritarianism, and historical vision.
When Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, Churchill was one of the only parliamentarians to warn of the danger, predict war, and call for the country's rearmament. Isolated at the time, events proved him right. In May 1940, when France was invaded, he was appointed Prime Minister. His speech on May 13th went down in history: "I have nothing to offer but blood and tears." Faced with all those who would negotiate a compromise peace, he refused to lay down his arms. "We will never surrender," he declared on June 4th, 1940. It was thanks to him that England held firm, alone against Nazism, until the invasion of the USSR and then the attack on Pearl Harbor.
With his famous cigar and his V for victory, he became the embodiment of the country at war and of resistance to totalitarianism. After 1945, he became famous for his Fulton speech on the Iron Curtain and his Zurich speech on European unity. Author of more than 40 works, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. A great friend of France, he was made a Companion of the Liberation in 1958. When he died in 1965, his funeral was worthy of that of a king.
