Biography of Winston Churchill | British politician.

(Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill; Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, 1874 - London, 1965) British politician, especially remembered for his tenure as Prime Minister (1940-45) during the second World War: with its currency "blood, sweat and tears", was able to boost the morale of the troops and the civilian population and sustaining the nation until the Allied victory.
Throughout his brilliant career, Winston Churchill was on the most popular man and the most criticized of England, and sometimes both at the same time. Considered the last of the great statesmen, always will be remembered for his rare ability to predict future events, which occasionally became a heavy burden for his countrymen.

Winston Churchill
For years, Churchill was something like the voice of the conscience of his country, a voice that shook the spirits and insuflaba them large doses of strength and courage. His genius as well as take it to conquer the immortality in the world of politics, multi-faceted, did it highlight as a historian, biographer, speaker, war correspondent and cognac drinker, and in a plane more modest as painter, bricklayer, novelist, Aviator, player of polo, soldier and owner of chivalry.
Biography
Born on 30 November 1874 in Blenheim Palace, was then owned by his grandfather, 7th Duke of Marlborough. His father was lord Randolph Churchill and his mother a young American woman of dazzling beauty called Jennie Jerome. There is no doubt that in his early years he met happiness, because in his autobiography he evokes with tenderness the last days under the protective shadow of his mother, which besides beautiful was cultured, intelligent and sensitive.
Perhaps for this reason, to be committed by his father at an expensive school of Ascot, the child reacted with defiance; being away from home was unbearable, and Winston expressed their protest to oppose everything that was studying. It was frequently punished and his notes were always counted among the worst. When in 1888 he joined the famous Harrow School, the future Prime Minister was included in the class of the most retarded students. One of his teachers would say of him: "it was not an easy boy. Certain that his intelligence was brilliant, but studying only when he wanted to, and with teachers who deserved his approval."
Churchill failed twice in entrance exams at the Sandhurst Military Academy. However, once entered into the institution, a radical change took place in it. Proverbial stubbornness, its resolution and its indomitable spirit not forsake him, but the custom of dissent fancifully everything began to disappear. He worked hard, was applied and seriously in classes and soon stood out among the students of your level.
Shortly after he joined the fourth of Hussars, Cavalry Regiment reputed as one of the best army. It was in 1895, in the American war, and fought in India (1898) and the Sudan (1899); on the battlefields, she learned about the art of war all that had not found in textbooks, especially practical issues of strategy that would later serve him to deal with the enemies of England.
From journalism to politics
However, military life soon get tired of it. He resigned from it to devote himself to politics and joined the conservative party in 1898, presenting to elections a year later. Not getting the Act of Deputy narrowly, Churchill moved to South Africa as correspondent for the Morning Post in the Boer War.
There he was taken prisoner and transferred to Pretoria, but managed to escape and returned to London to become a folk hero: for the first time its name sprang to the front pages of the newspapers, as had travel fleeing more than four hundred kilometers, facing a host of dangers with extraordinary blood cold. It is not surprising, therefore that it managed to a seat as a conservative representative of Oldham in the House of Commons (1900) and that recently completed the twenty-six years, he could start a brilliant political career.

Winston Churchill at the age of 26
In Parliament, his speeches and his good humour soon became famous. But his spirit to independent, unwilling to submit to party disciplines, earned you major enemies in the Chamber, even among their own co-religionists. It is no wonder that changed several times from party and their interventions, both expected and feared by everyone, always raise tremendous controversy.
At odds with the Party on the South African issue, Churchill joined the Liberals in 1904 and in 1906, to the thirty and one years, reached his first Government post in the Cabinet of Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who appointed him under-Secretary for colonies; from that position he defended the granting of autonomy to the boers. Then he was Minister of trade (1908-1910) and the Interior (1910-1911) in the Government who would be Prime Minister between 1908 and 1916, Herbert Henry Asquith.
The first world war
Churchill anticipated with remarkable accuracy the events that triggered the first world war and the course that followed the war in its first stage. His prophecies considered absurd by the military, they became reality and surprised everyone by clairvoyance with which had been formulated.
In 1911, three years before exploding the conflagration, the Prime Minister Asquith appointed him lord of the Admiralty; Churchill immediately embarked on a profound reorganization of the army of his country. First proposed making the British Navy the first in the world, replacing coal with oil as fuel of the fleet and ordering the installation in all units of large caliber cannons. Then launched the creation of an air weapon and, finally, decided to counter the fearsome German power, prompted the construction of the first "land Dreadnoughts", getting the tank began to be considered indispensable as an instrument of war.

Churchill in 1919
Before the failure of the battle of the Dardanelles (1915), was forced to resign; he rejoined the army and fought in the Western Commander and Lieutenant-Colonel front. In 1916, during the war, fell to the Government of Herbert Henry Asquith, who was replaced by David Lloyd George; the new Prime Minister called back to Churchill to integrate it into his Cabinet, first as Minister of armament (1917) and then to the portfolio of war and air (1918).
After the race, Winston Churchill suffered the consequences of the reaction of the postwar, and for awhile was relegated to a secondary role in the political scene. In 1924, he was reconciled with the Conservatives and a year later was put in charge of the Ministry of finance in the Government of Stanley Baldwin. It was a time of economic decline, concern, labour unrest and violent strikes, and the stubborn conservatism that was gala not contented or even to his own colleagues. In a Word, everyone was tired of him and his popularity fell to unimaginable heights years earlier.
Between two wars
Between 1929 and 1939, Winston Churchill moved away voluntarily from politics and was mainly dedicated to writing and to cultivate his passion for painting under the pseudonym of Charles Morin. "If this man is a painter by trade - Picasso-once, he said it could earn very well life."
Churchill continued belonging to Parliament, but during those years lacked practically influence. He regained prominence when, looking at the growing threat that was Adolf Hitler, proclaimed the urgency of England is rearmase and embarked on a lonely fight against the emerging fascism. On several occasions, both in the House and in his journalistic articles, he vigorously denounced the nazi danger to a nation which, once again, seemed deeply troubled a blindness that could end in tragedy.
The signing in 1938 the Munich Agreement, in which Britain and France surrendered to German power, people realized again that Churchill had been right from the beginning. There were a dozen of times in which it would have been possible to stop Hitler without shedding blood, as the experts would later assert. In each one of them, Churchill called ardorosamente for action. But despite deployed energy, their warnings had been ignored by the Government.
The Prime Minister of the second world war
On 1 September 1939, the nazi army came with sparkling precision in Poland; two days later, France and England declared war on Germany and, in the evening, Churchill was called to play his old position in the Admiralty by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who hitherto had tried a political useless appeasement against Germany. All fleet units received by radio the same message: "Winston is back with us."
The same members that a week earlier fought viciously, cheered him on foot when it made its entry into Parliament. But that was a bitter time for the history of the Kingdom. The nation was ill-prepared for war, both material and psychological. Therefore, when it was appointed Prime Minister on May 10, 1940, Churchill delivered a moving speech which claimed to not be able to offer more "blood, sweat and tears" to their fellow citizens.

Churchill on the radio
The British people accepted the challenge and terrible phrase became a true popular slogan for five years; his contribution to the victory would be decisive. Churchill managed to maintain morale in the interior and abroad through his speeches, exerting an almost hypnotic influence in all the British. Formed a Government of national concentration, which assured the cooperation of his political adversaries, and created the Ministry of defence for a best direction of the war effort. When the Soviet Union signed a Pact of non-aggression with Germany, while the United States still proclaiming its permanent neutrality, Churchill convened a meeting of his Cabinet and with excellent humour said: "well, gentlemen, we are alone. For my part, I find the situation extremely stimulating."
Of course, Churchill did everything possible so that both powers entering the war, what got in a short time. It maintained close contact with the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt; in 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the Americans declared war on the Japan and incorporated their valuable military potential to the Allied side. Also in 1941, the decisive year of the war, Hitler undertook the invasion of Russia, putting an end to Soviet neutrality and pushing a fragile alliance with England, which Churchill knew to preserve, relegating to the background the visceral anti-communism and demonstrating his pragmatism to Stalin.
As Prime Minister, it was participating in crucial conferences of Casablanca (1943), Cairo (1943), Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945), which was designed the strategy of war and, once finished the conflict, world political map that would remain effective until 1989. During endless days he directed the military and diplomatic operations working between sixteen and eighteen hours, transmitting all its vigor and infecting them with his energy and optimism.
Finally, Allied victory day, went back to the Parliament and to enter was the subject of the most tumultuous ovation that records the history of the Assembly. Members forgot all the ritual formalities and hopped on the seats, screaming and shaking newspapers. Churchill remained standing at the head of the ministerial bench, while tears rolled down her cheeks and hands trembling clung to his hat.
The last years
Despite the huge popularity achieved during the war, two months after the vote of the British deposed him office. Churchill continued in Parliament and became leader of the opposition. In a speech in March 1946 he popularized the term "iron curtain", and some months later appealed to promote the creation of the United States of Europe.
After the triumph of the conservatives in 1951 he returned to become Prime Minister, and two years later he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for his reports on the second world war. Citing reasons of age, he presented the resignation in April 1955, after being named a Knight of the Garter by Queen Isabel II and rejecting a title of nobility in order to remain as a member in the House of Commons.
Re-elected in 1959, already not arose to the 1964 election. However, its figure continued weighing on the political life and his advice continued focusing on destinations in the United Kingdom who ruled after him. The village had seen at Churchill the personification of the noblest of its history and the most beautiful qualities of their race; Why not ceased acclaiming him as their hero until his death on January 24, 1965.
Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas
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