Winston Churchill

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/winston_churchill

WINSTON CHURCHILL

 

Famous Prime Ministers

The Prime Minister is the most powerful person in Great Britain from a political point of view: he/she appoints the Government and is responsible for its policy. He is responsible for a wide range of tasks, from awarding honours and titles up to taking decisions concerning the armed forces and Church.

Sir Winston Churchill

Everybody knows what the “V for victory” sign means, but not everybody knows who invented it and made it famous all over the world, using it as a weapon against his country’s enemies every time he appeared in public.

Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of Britain during World War II. A famous statesman and orator, Churchill was also a historian and a writer, he was even awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Churchill was the first to recognize the threat Hitler posed to the world, but his warnings were largely ignored. He refused to compromise with Nazi Germany and would not agree to an armistice with Hitler.

Churchill supports his people

When he spoke in public, he was inspiring. In his famous first speech as Prime Minister he declared: “I have nothing to offer but blood, tears, toil and sweat”. He then gave the “V-sign” as a symbol of British resistance to German bombing.

The Alliance

During the war Churchill’s relationship with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt guaranteed Britain food supplies, oil and ammunition without any payment. The two statesmen kept on working together  to defeat Hitler and the Nazis.

After the victory against Germany Churchill announced to the nation that Germany had surrendered. “This is your victory” he told the huge crowd and the people responded “No, it is yours!”

After the War

At the Yalta Conference, together with his good friend Roosevelt and Stalin, Churchill had the honour of defining the new post-war order  and deciding the future course of world history.

In 1951 he again became Prime Minister and witnessed many foreign crises, as well as the final decline of British Empire.

Today Churchill’s statue stands in Parliament Square in London.