1955: Churchill retires

Sir Winston Churchill retires as British prime minister. A daring soldier and reporter in the Boer War of 1899 to 1902, Churchill subsequently held a number of high ranking government posts during the 1910’s and 1920’s. His political career went somewhat into obscurity during the 1930’s, though during this time Churchill was one of the few British politicians to recognise, from an early date, the threat that the rise of Nazism in Germany posed to Europe. After British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had unsuccessfully tried to appease Hitler, failing to prevent the outbreak of war in Europe, Churchill’s defining moment had finally come, when he was called upon to lead a coalition government in 1940. With Britain standing alone against Adolf Hitler, he rallied the British people to a resolute resistance, and expertly orchestrated Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin into an alliance that defeated the Axis. After a post-war Labour Party victory in 1945, he became leader of the opposition, but in 1951 was again elected prime minister. In 1953, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. After his retirement as prime minister, he remained in Parliament until 1964, the year before his death.