Any number of historic moments in the civil-rights struggle have been used to identify Martin Luther King, Jr. — prime mover of the Montgomery bus boycott, keynote speaker at the March on Washington, youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. But in retrospect, single events are less important than the fact that King, and his policy of nonviolent protest, was the dominant force in the civil-rights movement during its decade of greatest achievement, from 1957 to 1968.
On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist minister. King received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 helped organized the first major protest of the African-American civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and the movement gained momentum.
A powerful orator, King appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and Northern whites. In 1963, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph led the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; the event’s grand finale was King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered outside the Lincoln Memorial to hear the stirring speech.
In 1964, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which abolished the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities. Later that year, King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is welcomed with a kiss by his wife Coretta after leaving court in Montgomery, Ala., March 22, 1956. King was found guilty of conspiracy to boycott city buses in a campaign to desegregate the bus system, but a judge suspended his $500 fine pending appeal. (Gene Herrick / The Associated Press)
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to the media on May 20, 1956, about his arrest for leading the Montgomery bus boycott. (The Associated Press)
The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, left, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. walk away from the Montgomery County Courthouse in Montgomery, Ala., in this Feb. 24, 1956, file photo. (Gene Harrick/ AP)
The Rev. Martin Luther King is arrested in September 1958 on a charge of loitering (later changed to “failure to obey an officer”) in the vicinity of the Montgomery Recorder’s Court. He was released on $100 bond. (Charles Moore/ AP)
New York Gov. Averell Harriman talks with Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King in Harlem Hospital where King was recovering from a stab wound. He was attacked by an African American woman while promoting his book – “Stride Toward Freedom” (Harper), his recollections of the Montgomery bus boycott – in a Harlem bookstore. Sept. 23, 1958. (Seattle Times file)
On the 5th September 1981, the Welsh group “Women for Life on Earth” arrived on Greenham Common, Berkshire, England. They marched from Cardiff with the intention of challenging, by debate, the decision to site 96 Cruise nuclear missiles there. On arrival they delivered a letter to the Base Commander which among other things stated “We fear for the future of all our children and for the future of the living world which is the basis of all life.”
When their request for a debate was ignored they set up a Peace Camp just outside the fence surrounding RAF Greenham Common Airbase. They took the authorities by surprise and set the tone for a most audacious and lengthy protest that lasted 19years. Within 6 months the camp became known as the Women’s Peace Camp and gained recognition both nationally and internationally by drawing attention to the base with well publicized imaginative gatherings. This unique initiative threw a spotlight on ‘Cruise’ making it a national and international political issue throughout the 1980s and early ’90s.
The presence of women living outside an operational nuclear base 24 hours a day, brought a new perspective to the peace movement - giving it leadership and a continuous focus. At a time when the USA and the USSR were competing for nuclear superiority in Europe, the Women’s Peace Camp on Greenham Common was seen as an edifying influence. The commitment to non-violence and non-alignment gave the protest an authority that was difficult to dismiss – journalists from almost every corner of the globe found their way to the camp and reported on the happenings and events taking place there.
Living conditions were primitive. Living outside in all kinds of weather especially in the winter and rainy seasons was testing. Without electricity, telephone, running water etc, frequent evictions and vigilante attacks, life was difficult. In spite of the conditions women, from many parts of the UK and abroad, came to spend time at the camp to be part of the resistance to nuclear weapons. It was a case of giving up comfort for commitment.
The protest, committed to disrupting the exercises of the USAF, was highly effective. Nuclear convoys leaving the base to practice nuclear war, were blockaded, tracked to their practice area and disrupted. Taking non-violent direct action meant that women were arrested, taken to court and sent to prison.
The conduct and integrity of the protest mounted by the Women’s Peace Camp was instrumental in the decision to remove the Cruise Missiles from Greenham Common. Under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the missiles were flown back to the USA along with the USAF personnel in 91/92. The Treaty signed by the USA and the USSR in 1987, is in accord with the stated position held by women, in defence of their actions on arrest, when it states :
“Conscious that nuclear weapons would have devastating consequences for all mankind.”
A number of initiatives were made by women in Court testing the legality of nuclear weapons. Also, challenges to the conduct and stewardship of the Ministry of Defence as landlords of Greenham Common. In 1992 Lord Taylor, Lord Chief Justice, delivering the Richard Dimbleby
Lecture for the BBC, referring to the Bylaws case (won by Greenham women in the House of Lords in 1990) said “…it would be difficult to suggest a group whose cause and lifestyle were less likely to excite the sympathies and approval of five elderly judges. Yet it was five Law Lords who allowed the Appeal and held that the Minister had exceeded his powers in framing the byelaws so as to prevent access to common land.”
The Camp was brought to a close in 2000 to make way for the Commemorative and Historic Site on the land that housed the original Women’s Peace Camp at Yellow Gate Greenham Common between the years 1981 – 2000.
Male Orthodox Jews considered their beards and sidekicks an important aspect of their religious identity. Shaving these off not only took away their ‘identity’ and served as a source of great embarrassment, but their hairless faces and shaved heads (the latter also true of women) made them look other-worldly and less human. This dehumanization made it easier for the ‘civilized’ German soldier to perceive of the Jew as an untermensch, some lower form of human, or even as non-human, ripe for isolation and/or extermination.
Most of the 1.5 million German soldiers who participated in the attack on Poland had been socialized in the Nazi state and had also undergone ideological indoctrination in the party’s mass organizations. In late 1939, 31 percent of the solders in an average German infantry division were members of a Nazi organization. One-fifth were former Hitler Youth members, between one-third and one-half had served in the Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD), and all had done at least one year of military training. Members of the SS and the police, most of whom had an affinity for Nazi doctrine anyway, underwent special ideological training. Propaganda and indoctrination were used to strengthen and radicalize the already widespread resentment of Poles and Jews in German society.
After the German invasion of Poland, aggressive anti-Semitism found release in “lightning pogroms” (Blitzpogrome), during which so-called Eastern Jews (Ostjuden), in particular, were humiliated, abused, and also murdered. In addition to subjecting these Jews to drills and forced labor, the regime’s henchmen often mocked them by cutting or burning off their beards – a practice that was later continued during the military campaign against the Soviet Union.
After WW II, the French were known to have shaved the heads of women who collaborated/ fraternized with the Germans.
Long before Donald Trump even ran for President, in 1989, he was the subject of a protest by AIDS activists. Lee Snider’s photos of ACT UPs 1989 protest outside Trump Tower in New York against city valuing developers over homeless people living with HIV/AIDS.
On Oct. 31, 1989, roughly 100 protesters from the AIDS activist group ACT UP New York descended on Trump Tower at 5th Avenue and 56th Street. One protester, dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, waved a sign demanding, “Surrender Donald.” ACT UP was in a fight for the lives of people with HIV and AIDS, striking out against government indifference and corporate greed. And they saw Trump for what he was: a monster in the making.
ACT UP, short for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, had been formed two-and-a-half years earlier, out of mounting anger over inadequate city, state, and federal government responses to rising numbers of HIV/AIDS cases and related deaths. The group quickly became known for their disruptive, theatrical demonstrations, calling for expanded and faster drug research, more affordable medications, and greater AIDS education. The Trump Tower protest was organized by ACT UP’s Housing Committee, which hoped to draw attention to the lack of housing for homeless people with AIDS.
Photographs from the October 1989 Trump Tower demonstration give a sense both of its boldness and its humor. They were taken by photographer Lee Snider, who had been documenting LGBTQ life and politics in New York for the gay press since the 1970s. Through the rain, protesters maintained a picket line, carrying a range of printed and handmade signs: “Silence Equals Death,” “In NYC 10,000 Homeless PWAs, 64 Beds,” “Money For AIDS Not For Malls.” Two participants hung a banner, “10,000 Homeless With AIDS,” from the windows across the street.
It was Halloween, and the protest took on a special, sometimes ghoulish campiness. A flier featured the headlines, “New York Tricked Out of AIDS Care, Trump Treated to Tax Abatements,” and “Don’t Let New York Become a Ghost Town.” One participant wore a vampire costume and held a sign depicting Trump as Freddy Krueger, with the words, “Nightmare on Trump Street.” Others wore paper masks featuring Trump with his lips pursed. Eventually some protesters went inside Trump Tower where they threw fliers from the escalators, eluding security guards. In the end, the police put a stop to the protest and arrested six people on charges of illegal trespass, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.
For decades, the country’s black majority was controlled by racist laws enshrining white supremacy. From 1948 through the 1990s, a single word dominated life in South Africa. Apartheid—Afrikaans for “apartness”—kept the country’s majority black population under the thumb of a small white minority. It would take decades of struggle to stop the policy, which affected every facet of life in a country locked in centuries-old patterns of discrimination and racism.
A sign common in Johannesburg.
The system was rooted in the country’s history of colonization and slavery. White settlers had historically viewed black South Africans as a natural resource to be used to turn the country from a rural society to an industrialized one. Starting in the 17th century, Dutch settlers relied on slaves to build up South Africa. Around the time that slavery was abolished in the country in 1863, gold and diamonds were discovered in South Africa.
That discovery represented a lucrative opportunity for white-owned mining companies that employed—and exploited—black workers. Those companies all but enslaved black miners while enjoying massive wealth from the diamonds and gold they mined. Like Dutch slave holders, they relied on intimidation and discrimination to rule over their black workers.
The mining companies borrowed a tactic that earlier slaveholders and British settlers had used to control black workers: pass laws. As early as the 18th century, these laws had required members of the black majority, and other people of color, to carry identification papers at all times and restricted their movement in certain areas. They were also used to control black settlement, forcing black people to reside in places where their labor would benefit white settlers.
Those laws persisted through the 20th century as South Africa became a self-governing dominion of the United Kingdom. Between 1899 and 1902, Britain and the Dutch-descended Afrikaners fought one another in the Boer War, a conflict that the Afrikaners eventually lost. Anti-British sentiment continued to foment among white South Africans, and Afrikaner nationalists developed an identity rooted in white supremacy. When they took control in 1948, they made the country’s already discriminatory laws even more draconian.
Racist fears and attitudes about “natives” colored white society. Though apartheid was supposedly designed to allow different races to develop on their own, it forced black South Africans into poverty and hopelessness. “Grand” apartheid laws focused on keeping black people in their own designated “homelands.” And “petty” apartheid laws focused on daily life restricted almost every facet of black life in South Africa.
These South African signs are examples of what was known as Petty Apartheid, which was the range of laws implemented by the National Party that placed detailed restrictions on the behavior of the different races in the country.
A woman sat in the wagon reserved for White people to protest against Apartheid, 1952.
Signs in English and Afrikaans, in Wellington railway station, South Africa, enforcing the policy of apartheid or racial segregation, 1955.
A sign common in Johannesburg, 1956.
White children paddling in a pond marked by a sign reading “For European Children Only,” 1956.
Signs in both English and Afrikaans in Johannesburg, 1957.
Facing the death –– This group of men show a wide range of emotions: the first from the left looks anguished, the next one looks defiant, the last one looks resigned... but the man third from the left is smiling at his executioners. He knows he is sure to die as others had been executed before him, but he faces his end with a smile.
The different expressions of six Polish civilians moments before death by firing squad, after the Nazi invasion of Poland at the outset of World War II, Bydgoszcz, Poland, 1939. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
On September 3, 1939, two days after the start of the German invasion of Poland, a series of killings occurred in and around the Polish town of Bydgoszcz (German: Bromberg), where a sizable German minority lived. These killings were termed ‘Bloody Sunday’.
The Nazis exploited the deaths as grounds for a massacre of Polish inhabitants after the Wehrmacht captured the town. In an act of retaliation for the killings on Bloody Sunday, a number of Polish civilians were executed by German military units of the Einsatzgruppen, Waffen SS, and Wehrmacht.
According to German historian Christian Raitz von Frentz, 876 Poles were tried by German tribunal for involvement in the events of Bloody Sunday before the end of 1939. 87 men and 13 women were sentenced without the right to appeal. Polish historian Czesław Madajczyk notes 120 executions in relation to Bloody Sunday, and the execution of 20 hostages after a German soldier was allegedly attacked by a Polish sniper.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who spied on behalf of the Soviet Union and were tried, convicted, and executed by the federal government of the United States. They provided top-secret information about radar, sonar, and jet propulsion engines and were accused of transmitting valuable nuclear weapon designs; at that time the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons.
Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who had made a plea agreement), Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell. Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist working in Los Alamos, was convicted in the United Kingdom.
Julius Rosenberg and his wife, Ethel
For decades, the Rosenbergs' sons Michael and Robert Meeropol, and many other defenders maintained that Julius and Ethel were innocent of spying on their country and were victims of Cold War paranoia.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, much information concerning them was declassified, including a trove of decoded Soviet cables, code-named VENONA, which detailed Julius's role as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets and Ethel's role as an accessory.
Their sons' current position is that Julius was legally guilty of the conspiracy charge, though not of atomic spying, while Ethel was only generally aware of his activities. The children say that their father did not deserve the death penalty and that their mother was wrongly convicted. They continue to campaign for Ethel to be posthumously and legally exonerated.
In 2014, five historians who had published works based on the Rosenberg case wrote that newly available Soviet documents show that Ethel Rosenberg hid money and espionage paraphernalia for Julius, served as an intermediary for communications with his Soviet intelligence contacts, relayed her personal evaluation of individuals whom Julius considered recruiting, and was present at meetings with his sources. They support the assertion that Ethel persuaded her sister-in-law Ruth Greenglass to travel to New Mexico to recruit her brother David Greenglass as a spy.
The Rosenbergs were executed on June 19th, 1953. They were the only spies executed during the Cold War.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg dressed in swimming attire, circa late 1940s
Mrs Ethel talks to reporters in her Knickerbocker Village home after her husband Julius was arrested by the FBI on a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage, New York, 18 Jul 1950. (Image by Bettmann/CORBIS)
Mrs. Ethel Rosenberg, 34, dries dishes in her knickerbocker village home, New York, 18 Jul 1950. (Image by Bettmann/CORBIS)
Ethel Rosenberg after her arrest on charges of espionage, New York, August 11, 1950. (Image by Bettmann/CORBIS)
U.S. Deputy Marshals Harry McCabe (left) and James A. Shannon escort Mrs. Ethel Rosenberg, 35, as she appears in Federal Court, to be arraigned on an indictment charging her and her 33 year old husband Julius, were members of the atomic spy ring for Soviet Russia, New York, August 23, 1950. (Image by Bettmann/CORBIS)
Around 2.7 million people left the GDR and East Berlin between 1949 and 1961, causing increasing difficulties for the leadership of the East German communist party, the SED. Around half of this steady stream of refugees were young people under the age of 25. Roughly half a million people crossed the sector borders in Berlin each day in both directions, enabling them to compare living conditions on both sides. In 1960 alone, around 200,000 people made a permanent move to the West. The GDR was on the brink of social and economic collapse.
As late as 15 June 1961, GDR head of state Walter Ulbricht declared that no one had any intention of building a wall. On 12 August 1961, the GDR Council of Ministers announced that “in order to put a stop to the hostile activity of West Germany’s and West Berlin’s revanchist and militaristic forces, border controls of the kind generally found in every sovereign state will be set up at the border of the German Democratic Republic, including the border to the western sectors of Greater Berlin.” What the Council did not say was that this measure was directed primarily against the GDR’s own population, which would no longer be permitted to cross the border.
In the early morning hours of 13 August 1961, temporary barriers were put up at the border separating the Soviet sector from West Berlin, and the asphalt and cobblestones on the connecting roads were ripped up. Police and transport police units, along with members of “workers’ militias,” stood guard and turned away all traffic at the sector boundaries. The SED leadership’s choice of a Sunday during the summer holiday season for its operation was probably no coincidence.
Over the next few days and weeks, the coils of barbed wire strung along the border to West Berlin were replaced by a wall of concrete slabs and hollow blocks. This was built by East Berlin construction workers under the close scrutiny of GDR border guards. Houses on, for instance, Bernauer Strasse, where the sidewalks belonged to the Wedding borough (West Berlin) and the southern row of houses to Mitte (East Berlin), were quickly integrated into the border fortifications: the GDR government had the front entrances and ground floor windows bricked up. Residents could get to their apartments only via the courtyard, which was in East Berlin. Many people were evicted from their homes already in 1961 – not only in Bernauer Strasse, but also in other border areas.
From one day to the next, the Wall separated streets, squares, and neighborhoods from each other and severed public transportation links. On the evening of August 13, Governing Mayor Willy Brandt said in a speech to the House of Representatives: “The Berlin Senate publicly condemns the illegal and inhuman measures being taken by those who are dividing Germany, oppressing East Berlin, and threatening West Berlin….”
On 25 October 1961, American and Soviet tanks faced off against each other at the Friedrichstrasse border crossing used by foreign nationals (Checkpoint Charlie), because GDR border guards had attempted to check the identification of representatives of the Western Allies as they entered the Soviet sector. In the American view, the Allied right to move freely throughout all of Berlin had been violated. For sixteen hours, the two nuclear powers confronted each other from a distance of just a few meters, and the people of that era felt the imminent threat of war. The next day, both sides withdrew. Thanks to a diplomatic initiative by America’s President Kennedy, the head of the Soviet government and communist party, Nikita Khrushchev, had confirmed the four-power status of all of Berlin, at least for now.
In the years to come, the barriers were modified, reinforced, and further expanded, and the system of controls at the border was perfected. The Wall running through the city center, which separated East and West Berlin from one another, was 43.1 kilometers long. The border fortifications separating West Berlin from the rest of the GDR were 111.9 kilometers long. Well over 100,000 citizens of the GDR tried to escape across the inner-German border or the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1988. More than 600 of them were shot and killed by GDR border guards or died in other ways during their escape attempt. At least 140 people died at the Berlin Wall alone between 1961 and 1989.
On December 26, 1971, fifteen Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) activists barricaded and occupied the Statue of Liberty for two days to bring attention to their cause. Simultaneous protests took place at other sites across the country, such as the historic Betsy Ross house in Philadelphia (for 45 minutes) and Travis Air Force Base in California (for 12 hours). VVAW members in California also briefly occupied the South Vietnam Government consulate in San Francisco.
VVAW protesters hang banners from the statue’s crown in December, 1971.
In 1976 VVAW members occupied the Statue of Liberty a second time to bring renewed attention to veteran issues.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War is an American tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation founded in 1967 to oppose the United States policy and participation in the Vietnam War. VVAW says it is a national veterans’ organization that campaigns for peace, justice, and the rights of all United States military veterans. It publishes a twice-yearly newsletter, The Veteran; this was earlier published more frequently as 1st Casualty (1971–1972) and then as Winter Soldier (1973–1975).
VVAW identifies as anti-war, although not in the pacifistic sense. Membership has varied greatly, from almost 25,000 veterans during the height of the war to fewer than 2,000 since the late 20th century. The VVAW is widely considered to be among the most influential anti-war organizations of the American Vietnam War era.
On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as they were leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Hinckley’s motivation for the attack was to impress actress Jodie Foster, who had played the role of a child prostitute in the 1976 film Taxi Driver. After seeing the film, Hinckley had developed an obsession with Foster. He left a long letter in his hotel room on the day he attempted to assassinate Reagan, indicating that he believed that he might be killed in his attempt and professing his love:
“... Jodie, I would abandon this idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you, whether it be in total obscurity or whatever.
I will admit to you that the reason I’m going ahead with this attempt now is because I just cannot wait any longer to impress you. I’ve got to do something now to make you understand, in no uncertain terms, that I am doing all of this for your sake! By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I’m asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love.
I love you forever,
John Hinckley”
Reagan was struck by a single bullet that broke a rib, punctured a lung, and caused serious internal bleeding, but he recovered quickly. No formal invocation of presidential succession took place, although Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated that he was “in control here” while Vice President George H. W. Bush returned to Washington.
Besides Reagan, White House Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and police officer Thomas Delahanty were also wounded. All three survived, but Brady suffered brain damage and was permanently disabled; Brady’s death in 2014 was considered homicide because it was ultimately caused by this injury.
A federal judge subpoenaed Foster to testify at Hinckley’s trial, and he was found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of attempting to assassinate the president. Hinckley remained confined to a psychiatric facility. In January 2015, federal prosecutors announced that they would not charge Hinckley with Brady’s death, despite the medical examiner’s classification of his death as a homicide. On July 27, 2016, it was announced he would be released by August 5 to live with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia; he was subsequently released on September 10.
President Ronald Reagan waves to the crowd immediately before being shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981. (Courtesy Reagan Library/Handout via REUTERS)
White House Press Secretary James Brady and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty lie wounded on the ground after John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots at President Reagan. (Courtesy Reagan Library/Handout via REUTERS)
White House Press Secretary James Brady and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty lie wounded on the ground after John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots at President Reagan. (Courtesy Reagan Library/Handout via REUTERS)
White House Press Secretary James Brady and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty lie wounded on the ground after John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots at President Reagan. (Courtesy Reagan Library/Handout via REUTERS)
White House Press Secretary James Brady and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty lie wounded on the ground after John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots at President Reagan. (Courtesy Reagan Library/Handout via REUTERS)
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, to a British father and an American mother. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a British politician and aristocrat. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was the beautiful daughter of an American entrepreneur.
Lord Randolph was the younger son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough, and, as such, neither he nor Winston were likely to succeed to the family title. Nonetheless, from his earliest days Winston was acutely aware of his lineage. He was born and often stayed at Blenheim Palace, the mansion built by his illustrious ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, to commemorate his famous victory over the French in 1704.
As was the prevailing custom in upper-class British circles, Winston and his younger brother, John (called Jack), were entrusted to the care of a nanny and were sent to a succession of boarding schools. Churchill's parents were occupied with high society and Lord Randolph's meteoric, yet brief, political career and did not spend a great deal of time with their sons.
Young Winston was sometimes rebellious and often in trouble. He was not as bad a pupil as he subsequently claimed, but neither was he particularly distinguished academically. On leaving school at the age of eighteen, he joined the British cavalry. Lord Randolph died in 1895—before Winston had the opportunity to prove himself to his often critical father.
Winston Churchill served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman, orator and strategist, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army. A prolific author, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his own historical writings.
Upon his death in 1965, he was granted the honor, by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of a state funeral which saw one of the largest assemblies of politicians in the world.
Winston Churchill aged 6 with his aunt Lady Leslie, 1880.
A portrait photo of Churchill in 1881.
Churchill pictured as a child and wearing a bowler hat.
