Winston Churchill

The Folly of ‘Unconditional Surrender’

Was the call for the ‘unconditional surrender’ of Germany, Italy, and Japan the most ruinous Allied policy of the Second World War?

Churchill becomes Prime Minister again

Churchill became PM for a second time on October 26th, 1951, only a month away from his 77th birthday.

Churchill's Radio Imposter?

Solving the mystery of the British Prime Minister's wartime recordings.

Low and Churchill

Timothy Benson analyses the evolution of the love-hate relationship between Britain's greatest cartoonist and the outstanding politician of the age.

Winston Churchill and the Wartime Coalition 1940-45

In examining British politics from 1940 to 1945, Kevin Jefferys explains why the man who was widely perceived as winning the war lost the 1945 election.

Churchill and the Revisionists

Andrew Roberts defends Britain's war hero against his detractors, in our Longman/History Today Awards Lecture.

The Second British Naval Action Off Narvik. 13 April 1940.

Why Chamberlain Really Fell

Tony Corfield offers a provocative new interpretation of the events that brought Churchill to power in the spring of 1940.

Can History ever be True?

Robin Bruce Lockhart asks if eyewitness history is more reliable than that of the historians

'You are Monarchial No. 1 and value tradition, form and ceremony.' But was Clementine Churchill's encomium of her husband always reflected in Winston's personal relations with Britain's kings and queens over six decades? Philip Ziegler presents an account of a colourful but chequered relationship.

Churchill's United Europe

Ronald Quinault wonders what Churchill would have made of Maastricht in the light of his post-war activities.

In office May 1940 - July 1945, October 1951 – April 1955

In an initially turbulent career, Churchill, while home secretary (1910-11), used troops against striking miners, and he resigned as first lord of the admiralty after the failed Gallipoli landings. As chancellor of the exchequer (1924-29) he returned Britain to the gold standard. Becoming a staunch opponent of appeasement in the 1930s, Churchill entered the war cabinet in September 1939 and became prime minister in May 1940. He was an energetic, inspiring and imaginative leader, and both his oratory and cultivation of Anglo-American relations were vital to the war effort. Defeated in the general election of 1945 Churchill became prime minister again from 1951 to 1955, when he retired because of ill health. He was knighted in 1953.