:: wikimiki.org ::

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

See that page also for other people named "Winston Churchill". The Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was an British statesman, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. At various times a soldier, journalist, author, and politician, Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in British and world history. He won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature. Churchill's legal surname was Spencer-Churchill, but starting with his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, his branch of the family always used just the name Churchill in public life.

Early life

Born at Blenheim Palace, near Woodstock in Oxfordshire, Winston Churchill was a descendant of the first famous member of the Churchill family, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Winston's politician father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough; Winston's mother was Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome. Churchill spent much of his childhood at boarding schools, including the Headmaster's House at Harrow School. He famously sat the entrance exam but on confronting the Latin paper he carefully wrote the title, his name and the number 1 followed by a dot and could not think of anything else to write. He was accepted despite this, but placed in the bottom division where they were primarily taught English, at which he excelled. Today at Harrow there is an annual Churchill essay prize on a subject chosen by the head of the English department. He was rarely visited by his mother, whom he virtually worshipped, despite his letters begging her to either come or let his father permit him to come home. He followed his father's career keenly but had a distant relationship with him. Once, in 1886, he is reported to have proclaimed "My daddy is Chancellor of the Exchequer and one day that's what I'm going to be." His desolate, lonely childhood stayed with him throughout his life. The young Winston was very close to his nurse, Elizabeth Ann Everest (nicknamed "Woom" by Churchill), and was deeply saddened when she died on July 3, 1895. He paid for her gravestone at the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium. Churchill did badly at Harrow, regularly being punished for poor work and lack of effort. His nature was independent and rebellious and he failed to achieve much academically, failing some of the same courses numerous times despite showing great ability in other areas such as maths and history, in both of which he was placed at times top in his class. But his refusal to study the classics undermined any chance of success at a school like Harrow. The view of Churchill as a failure at school is one which he himself propagated, probably due to his father's intense dislike of the young Winston and his obvious readiness to label his son a disappointment. He did, however, become the school's fencing champion. Churchill attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

The Army

Graduating from Sandhurst, Churchill joined the army at 21 as a Subaltern of the IV (Queen's Own) Hussars Cavalry regiment. This regiment was stationed in Bangalore, India. When arriving in India Churchill dislocated his shoulder while reaching from his boat for a chain from the dock and being thrown against the Quay. This shoulder gave him trouble in later years, occasionally dislocating from its socket. In India the main occupation of Churchill's regiment was polo, which they devoted a great deal of time and effort to — with notable success, winning the Golconda Cup within 50 days of disembarking in India, and being the first regiment from Southern India to win the Inter-Regimental Cup. Churchill also devoted his time to self-educating himself from books which he had sent out. While stationed in India Churchill's other main occupation was chasing wars. In 1895 he and Reggie Barnes obtained leave to travel to Cuba to observe the Spanish battles against Cuban guerrillas. Churchill also obtained a commission to write about the conflict from the Daily Graphic newspaper. To Churchill's delight they came under fire for the first time on his twenty-first birthday. On his way to Cuba he also made his first visit to the United States, being introduced to New York society by one of his mother's lovers, Bourke Cockran. In 1897 Churchill attempted to travel to the Greco-Turkish War but this conflict effectively ended before he could arrive. He therefore continued on to England on leave before hearing of the Pathan revolt on the North West Frontier and rushing back to India to participate in the campaign to put it down. Churchill had previously obtained a promise from Sir Bindon Blood, the commander of this expedition, that if he were to command again Churchill could accompany him. He wasted no time in reminding Blood of his promise and was able to participate in the 6 week campaign, also writing articles for the newspapers The Pioneer and The Daily Telegraph at £5 an article. By October 1897 Churchill was back in Britain and his first book The Story of the Malakand Field Force, on that campaign, was published in December. While still officially stationed in India, and having obtained a large amount of leave, Churchill attempted to get himself assigned to the army being put together and commanded by Lord Kitchener intended to achieve the reconquest of the Sudan. Kitchener was opposed to having Churchill on the staff, feeling he should be back with his regiment in India, and Churchill pulled a great many strings to get his presence approved - even arranging a telegram to Kitchener from the Prime Minister the Marquess of Salisbury. In the end Churchill was able to attend the war after obtaining a posting to the 21st Lancers, a force whose composition was chosen by the War Office not Kitchener. He also served as a war correspondent for the Morning Post, at a rate of £15 per column. While in the Sudan Churchill participated in the battle of Omdurman, the last British cavalry charge in battle. By October 1898 he had returned to Britain and begun work on the 2 volume The River War, published in 1899. In 1899 Churchill left the army and decided upon a parliamentary career. He stood as a Conservative candidate in Oldham constituency in a by-election of that year. He came third (Oldham was at that time a 2-seat borough), failing to be elected. On 12 October 1899 the second Anglo-Boer war between Britain and Afrikaners broke out in South Africa. Churchill set off as a War correspondent for the Morning Post, receiving £250 a month for 4 months. Once in South Africa he accepted a lift on a British Army Armoured Train under the command of Aylmer Haldane; this train was thrown off the tracks by a Boer ambush and explosion. Churchill, though not officially a combatant, took charge of operations to get the track cleared and managed to ensure that the engine and half the train, carrying the wounded, could escape. Churchill however was not so lucky and, together with other officers and soldiers was captured and held in a POW camp in Pretoria, despite doubt about his combatant status. Churchill managed to escape from his prison camp, resulting in a long running criticism and controversy as it was claimed that he did not wait for Haldane and another man who had planned the escape but who were unable, or unwilling, to risk slipping over the fence when Churchill did. Once outside the Pretoria prison camp Churchill travelled almost 300 miles to Portuguese Lourenco Marques in Delgagoa Bay. He achieved this due to the assistance of an English mine manager who hid him down his mine and smuggled him onto a train headed out of Boer territory. His escape made him a minor national hero for a time in Britain, though instead of returning home he took ship to Durban and rejoined General Redvers Buller's army on its march to relieve Ladysmith and take Pretoria. This time, although continuing as a war correspondent Churchill gained a commission in the South African Light Horse. He fought at Spion Kop and was one of the first British troops into Ladysmith and Pretoria; in fact, he and the Duke of Marlborough, his cousin, were able to get ahead of the rest of the troops in Pretoria where they demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer guards of the prison camp there. Churchill's two books on the Boer war, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March, were published in May and October 1900 respectively.

Parliament

After returning from South Africa Churchill again stood as a Conservative party candidate in Oldham, this time in the 1900 general election, or Khaki election. He was duly elected but, rather than attending the opening of Parliament, he embarked on a speaking tour throughout the UK and USA, by means of which he raised ten thousand pounds for himself (members of parliament were unpaid in those days and Churchill was not rich by the standards of the time). While in the USA one of his speeches was introduced by Mark Twain and he dined with New York Governor and Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt. In February 1901 Churchill arrived back in the U.K. to enter Parliament, and became associated with a group of Tory dissidents led by Lord Hugh Cecil and referred to as the Hughligans or "Hooligans". During his first parliamentary session Churchill provoked controversy by opposing the government's army estimates, arguing against extravagant military expenditure. By 1903 he was drawing away from Lord Hugh's views. He also opposed the Conservative leader Joseph Chamberlain, who proposed extensive tariff reforms intended to protect the economic pre-eminence of Britain behind tariff barriers. This earned him the detestation of his own party — indeed, Conservative backbenchers staged a walkout once while he was speaking. His own constituency effectively deselected him, although he continued to sit for Oldham until the next general election. In 1904 Churchill's dissatisfaction with the Conservatives and the appeal of the Liberals had grown so strong that on returning from the Whitsun recess he crossed the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party. As a liberal he continued to campaign for free trade. The winnable Liberal seat of Manchester North West was found for him for the 1906 general election which he won. From 1903 until 1905 Churchill was also engaged in writing Lord Randolph Churchill, a 2-volume biography of his father which came out in 1906 and was received as a masterpiece. However, filial devotion caused him to soften some of his father's less attractive aspects. 1905, then in opposition, to Churchill's proposals for funding the navy; and invoking the song You made me love you popularised in a 1913 Al Jolson recording.]]

Ministerial office

When the Liberals took office, with Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, in December 1905 Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Serving under the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, Churchill dealt with the adoption of constitutions for the defeated Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony and with the issue of 'Chinese slavery' in South African mines. He also became a prominent spokesman on free trade. Churchill soon became the most prominent member of the Government outside the Cabinet, and when Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by Herbert Henry Asquith in 1908, it came as little surprise when Churchill was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Under the law at the time, a newly appointed Cabinet Minister was obliged to seek re-election at a by-election. Churchill lost his Manchester seat to the Conservative William Joynson-Hicks but was soon elected in another by-election at Dundee constituency. As President of the Board of Trade he pursued radical social reforms in conjunction with David Lloyd George, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1910 Churchill was promoted to Home Secretary, where he was to prove somewhat controversial. A famous photograph from the time shows the impetuous Churchill taking personal charge of the January 1911 Sidney Street Siege, peering around a corner to view a gun battle between cornered anarchists and Scots Guards. His role attracted much criticism. The building under siege caught fire. Churchill denied the fire brigade access, forcing the criminals to choose surrender or death. Arthur Balfour asked, "He [Churchill] and a photographer were both risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer was doing but what was the Right Honourable gentleman doing?" In 1911, Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he would hold into the First World War. He gave impetus to military reform efforts, including development of naval aviation, tanks, and the switch in fuel from coal to oil, a massive engineering task, also reliant on securing Mesopotamia's oil rights, bought circa 1907 through the secret service using the Royal Burmah Oil Company as a front company. The development of the battle tank was financed from naval research funds via the Landships Committee, and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a stroke of genius, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds. The battle tank was deployed ineptly in 1915, much to Churchill's annoyance. He wanted a fleet of tanks used to surprised the Germans under cover of smoke, and to open a large section of the trenches by crushing barbed wire and creating a breakthrough sector. However, he was also one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Gallipoli landings on the Dardanelles during World War I, which led to his description as "the butcher of Gallipoli". When Asquith formed an all-party coalition government, the Conservatives demanded Churchill's demotion as the price for entry. For several months Churchill served in the non-portfolio job of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, before resigning from the government feeling his energies were not being used. He rejoined the army, though remaining an MP, and served for several months on the Western Front. During this period his second in command was a young Archibald Sinclair who would later lead the Liberal Party.

Return to power

In December 1916, Asquith resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by Lloyd George. However, the time was thought not yet right to risk the Conservatives' wrath by bringing Churchill back into government. However, in July 1917 Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions. After the end of the war Churchill served as both Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air (1919–1921). On the possible use of gas weapons (tear gas) in quelling uprisings in the British mandated territories of the former Ottoman Empire, Churchill wrote: :I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected. During this time (1919–21), he undertook with surprising zeal the cutting of military expenditure. However, the major preoccupation of his tenure in the War Office was the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention, declaring that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". He secured from a divided and loosely organised Cabinet an intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation — and in the face of the bitter hostility of Labour. In 1920, after the last British forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine. He became Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1921 and was a signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State.

Career between the wars

In October 1922, Churchill underwent an operation to remove his appendix. Upon his return, he learned that the government had fallen and a General Election was looming. The Liberal Party was now beset by internal division and Churchill's campaign was weak. He lost his seat at Dundee to prohibitionist, Edwin Scrymgeour, quipping that he had lost his ministerial office, his seat and his appendix all at once. Churchill stood for the Liberals again in the 1923 general election, losing in Leicester, but over the next few months he moved towards the Conservative Party, though initially using the labels "Anti-Socialist" and "Constitutionalist". Less than one year later, in the General Election of 1924, he was elected to represent Epping as a "Constitutionalist" with Conservative backing (a statue in his honour in Woodford Green was erected when Woodford Green was part of the Epping constituency). The following year he formally rejoined the Conservative Party, commenting wryly that "Anyone can rat [change parties], but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat." He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw the United Kingdom's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926. This decision prompted the economist John Maynard Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, correctly arguing that the return to the gold standard would lead to a world depression. Churchill later regarded this as one of the worst decisions of his life. To be fair to him, it must be noted that he was not an economist and that he acted on the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, Montague Norman (of whom Keynes said, "Always so charming, always so wrong".) During the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machineguns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and during the dispute he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country." Furthermore, he was to controversially claim that the Fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing as it had "a way to combat subversive forces" — that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. The Conservative government was defeated in the 1929 General Election. In the next two years, Churchill became estranged from the Conservative leadership over the issues of protective tariffs and Indian Home Rule. When Ramsay MacDonald formed the National Government in 1931, Churchill was not invited to join the Cabinet. He was now at the lowest point in his career, in a period known as "the wilderness years". He spent much of the next few years concentrating on his writing, including Marlborough: His Life and Times — a biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough — and A History of the English Speaking Peoples (which was not published until well after WWII). He became most notable for his outspoken opposition towards the granting of independence to India (see Simon Commission and Government of India Act 1935). Soon, though, his attention was drawn to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the dangers of Germany's rearmament. For a time he was a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself to counter the belligerence of Germany. Churchill was a fierce critic of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. He was also an outspoken supporter of King Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis, leading to some speculation that he might be appointed Prime Minister if the King refused to take Baldwin's advice and consequently the government resigned. However, this did not happen, and Churchill found himself politically isolated and bruised for some time after this.

Role as wartime Prime Minister

At the outbreak of the Second World War Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. In this job he proved to be one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called "Phoney War", when the only noticeable action was at sea. Churchill advocated the pre-emptive occupation of the neutral Norwegian iron-ore port of Narvik and the iron mines in Kiruna, Sweden, early in the War. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the operation was delayed until the German invasion of Norway, which was successful despite British efforts. In May 1940, directly upon the German invasion of France by a surprising lightning advance through the Low Countries, it became clear that the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war. Chamberlain resigned, and Churchill was appointed Prime Minister and formed an all-party government. In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, he created and took the additional position of Minister of Defence. He immediately put his friend and confidant, the industrialist and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of aircraft production. It was Beaverbrook's astounding business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering that eventually made the difference in the war. Lord Beaverbrook Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled United Kingdom. His first speech as Prime Minister was the famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech. He followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the Battle of Britain. One included the immortal line, "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." The other included the equally famous "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", which engendered the enduring nickname "The Few" for the Allied fighter pilots who won it. The Few, and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943]] His good relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt secured the United Kingdom vital supplies via the North Atlantic Ocean shipping routes. It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was re-elected. Upon re-election, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new method of not only providing military hardware to Britain without the need for monetary payment, but also of providing, free of fiscal charge, much of the shipping that transported the supplies. Put simply, Roosevelt persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the USA; and so Lend-lease was born. Churchill had 12 strategic conferences with Roosevelt which covered the Atlantic Charter, Europe first strategy, the Declaration by the United Nations and other war policies. Churchill initiated the Special Operations Executive (SOE) under Hugh Dalton's Ministry of Economic Warfare, which established, conducted and fostered covert, subversive and partisan operations in occupied territories with notable success; and also the Commandos which established the pattern for most of the world's current Special Forces. The Russians referred to him as the "British Bulldog". Special Forces]] However, some of the military actions during the war remain controversial. Churchill was at best indifferent and perhaps complicit in the Great Bengal famine of 1943 which took the lives of at least 2.5 million Bengalis. Japanese troops were threatening British India after having successfully taken neighbouring British Burma. Some consider the British government's policy of denying effective famine relief a deliberate and callous scorched earth policy adopted in the event of a successful Japanese invasion. Churchill supported the bombing of Dresden shortly before the end of the war; many have since maintained that the city was primarily a civilian target with little military value. However, the bombing was seen at the time as being helpful to the Soviet allies. bombing of Dresden]] Churchill was party to treaties that would redraw post-WWII European and Asian boundaries. These were discussed as early as 1943. Proposals for European boundaries and settlements were officially agreed to by Harry S. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at Potsdam. The settlement concerning the borders of Poland, i.e. the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union and between Germany and Poland, was viewed as a betrayal in Poland during the post-war years, as it was established against the views of the Polish government in exile. Churchill was convinced that the only way to alleviate tensions between the two populations was the transfer of people, to match the national borders. As he expounded in the House of Commons in 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions." The transfers were in the end carried out in a way which resulted in hardship and death for many of those transferred. Churchill opposed the effective annexation of Poland by the Soviet Union and wrote bitterly about it in his books, but he was unable to prevent it at the conferences.

After World War II

Although the importance of Churchill's role in World War II was undeniable, he had many enemies in his own country. His expressed contempt for a number of popular ideas, in particular public health care and better education for the majority of the population, produced much dissatisfaction amongst the population, particularly those who had fought in the war. Immediately following the close of the war in Europe, Churchill was heavily defeated in the 1945 election by Clement Attlee and the Labour Party. Some historians think that many British voters believed that the man who had led the nation so well in war was not the best man to lead it in peace. Others see the election result as a reaction against not Churchill personally, but against the Conservative Party's record in the 1930s under Baldwin and Chamberlain. Winston Churchill was an early supporter of the pan-Europeanism that eventually led to the formation of the European Common market and later the European Union (for which one of the three main buildings of the European Parliament is named in his honour). Churchill was also instrumental in giving France a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (which provided another European power to counterbalance the Soviet Union's permanent seat). Churchill also occasionally made comments supportive of world government. For instance, he once said[http://www.worldbeyondborders.org/quotes.htm]: :Unless some effective world supergovernment for the purpose of preventing war can be set up ... the prospects for peace and human progress are dark ...If ... it is found possible to build a world organization of irresistible force and inviolable authority for the purpose of securing peace, there are no limits to the blessings which all men enjoy and share. At the beginning of the Cold War, he famously mentioned the "Iron Curtain", a phrase originally created by Joseph Goebbels. The phrase entered the public consciousness after a 1946 speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, when Churchill, a guest of Harry S. Truman, famously declared: :From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere.

Second term

Churchill was restless and bored as leader of the Conservative opposition in the immediate post-war years. After Labour's defeat in the General Election of 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His third government — after the wartime national government and the short caretaker government of 1945 — would last until his resignation in 1955. During this period he renewed what he called the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States, and engaged himself in the formation of the post-war order. His domestic priorities were, however, overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises, which were partly the result of the continued decline of British military and imperial prestige and power. Being a strong proponent of Britain as an international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with direct action.

Anglo-Iranian Oil Dispute

The crisis began under the government of Clement Attlee. In March 1951, the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) voted to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and its holdings by passing a bill strongly backed by the elderly statesman Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who was elected Prime Minister the following April by a large majority of the parliament. The International Court of Justice was called in to settle the dispute, but a 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement, with recognition of nationalisation, was rejected by Mossadegh. Direct negotiations between the British and the Iranian government ceased, and over the course of 1951, the British ratcheted up the pressure on the Iranian government and explored the possibility of a coup against it. U.S. President Harry S. Truman was reluctant to agree, placing a much higher priority on the Korean War. The effects of the blockade and embargo were staggering and led to a virtual shutdown of Iran's oil exports. Churchill's return to power brought with it a policy of undermining the Mossadegh government. Both sides floated proposals unacceptable to the other, each side believing that time was on its side. Negotiations broke down, and as the blockade's political and economic costs mounted inside Iran, coup plots arose from the army and pro-British factions in the Majlis. Churchill and his Foreign Secretary pursued two mutually exclusive goals. On one hand, they wanted "development and reform" in Iran; on the other hand, they did not want to give up the control or revenue from AIOC that would have permitted that development and reform to go forward. Initially they backed Sayyid Zia as an individual with whom they could do business, but as the embargo dragged on, they turned more and more to an alliance with the military. Churchill's government had come full-circle, from ending the Attlee plans for a coup, to planning one itself. The crisis dragged on until 1953. Churchill approved a plan, with help from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, to back a coup in Iran. The combination of external and internal political pressure converged around Fazlollah Zahedi. Over the summer of 1953, demonstrations grew in Iran, and with the failure of a plebiscite, the government was destabilised. Zahedi, using foreign financing, took power, and Mossadegh surrendered to him on 20 August 1953. The coup pointed to an underlying tension within the post-War order: the industrialised Democracies, hungry for resources to rebuild in the wake of World War II, and to engage the Soviet Union in the Cold War, dealt with emerging states such as Iran as they had with colonies in a previous era. On one hand, spurred by the fear of a third world war against the USSR and committed to a policy of containment at any cost, they were more than willing to circumvent local political prerogatives. On the other hand, many of these local governments were both unstable and corrupt. The two factors created a vicious circle — intervention led to more dictatorial rule and corruption, which made intervention rather than establishment of strong local political institutions a greater and greater temptation.

The Mau Mau Rebellion

In 1951, grievances against the colonial distribution of land came to a head with the Kenya Africa Union demanding greater representation and land reform. When these demands were rejected, more radical elements came forward, launching the Mau Mau rebellion in 1952. On 17 August 1952, a state of emergency was declared, and British troops were flown to Kenya to deal with the rebellion. As both sides increased the ferocity of their attacks, the country moved to full-scale civil war. In 1953, the Lari massacre, perpetrated by Mau-Mau insurgents against Kikuyu loyal to the British, changed the political complexion of the rebellion and gave the public-relations advantage to the British. Churchill's strategy was to use a military stick combined with implementing many of the concessions that Attlee's government had blocked in 1951. He ordered an increased military presence and appointed General Sir George Erskine, who would implement Operation Anvil in 1954 that broke the back of the rebellion in the city of Nairobi. Operation Hammer, in turn, was designed to root out rebels in the countryside. Churchill ordered peace talks opened, but these collapsed shortly after his leaving office.

Malaya Emergency

In Malaysia, a rebellion against British rule had been in progress since 1948. Once again, Churchill's government inherited a crisis, and once again Churchill chose to use direct military action against those in rebellion while attempting to build an alliance with those who were not. He stepped up the implementation of a "hearts and minds" campaign and approved the creation of fortified villages, a tactic that would become a recurring part of Western military strategy in South-East Asia. (See Vietnam War). The Malayan Emergency was a more direct case of a guerrilla movement, centred in an ethnic group, but backed by the Soviet Union. As such, Britain's policy of direct confrontation and military victory had a great deal more support than in Iran or in Kenya. At the highpoint of the conflict, over 35,500 British troops were stationed in Malaysia. As the rebellion lost ground, it began to lose favour with the local population. While the rebellion was slowly being defeated, it was equally clear that colonial rule from Britain was no longer tenable. In 1953, plans were drawn up for independence for Singapore and the other crown colonies in the area. The first elections were held in 1955, just days before Churchill's own resignation, and by 1957, under Prime Minister Anthony Eden, Malaysia became independent.

Honours for Churchill

In 1953 he was awarded two major honours: he was invested as a Knight of the Garter (becoming Sir Winston Churchill, KG) and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values". A stroke in June of that year led to him being paralysed down his left side. He retired on 5 April 1955 because of his health but retained his post as Chancellor of the University of Bristol. In 1955, Churchill was offered elevation to dukedom as the first-ever Duke of London, a title he himself selected. However, he then declined the title after being persuaded by his son Randolph not to accept it. Since then, no people other than royalty have been offered a Dukedom in the United Kingdom. In 1956 Churchill received the Karlspreis (Engl.: Charlemagne Award), an award by the German city of Aachen to those who most contribute to the European idea and European peace. In 1959 he became Father of the House, the MP with the longest continuous service. He was to hold the position until his retirement from the Commons in 1964. He became the first person to receive Honorary U.S. Citizenship, in 1963. From 1941 to his death, he was the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a ceremonial office.

Family

On 2 September 1908 at the socially desirable St. Margaret's, Westminster, Churchill married Clementine Hozier, a dazzling but largely penniless beauty whom he met at a dinner party that March (he had proposed to actress Ethel Barrymore but was turned down). They had five children: Diana; Randolph; Sarah, who co-starred with Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding; Marigold, who died in early childhood; and Mary, who has written a book on her parents. Clementine's mother was Lady Blanche Henrietta Ogilvy, second wife of Sir Henry Montague Hozier and a daughter of the 7th Earl of Airlie. Clementine's paternity, however, is open to healthy debate. Lady Blanche was well-known for sharing her favours and was eventually divorced as a result. She maintained that Clementine's father was Capt. William George "Bay" Middleton, a noted horseman. But Clementine's biographer Joan Hardwick has surmised, due to Sir Henry Hozier's reputed sterility, that all Lady Blanche's "Hozier" children were actually fathered by her sister's husband, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, better known as a grandfather of the infamous Mitford sisters of the 1920s. Churchill's son Randolph and his grandsons Nicholas Soames and Winston all followed him into Parliament. When not in London on government business, Churchill usually lived at his beloved Chartwell House in Kent, two miles south of Westerham. He and his wife bought the house in 1922 and lived there until his death in 1965. During his Chartwell stays, he enjoyed writing there, as well as painting, bricklaying, and admiring the estate's famous black swans.

Last days

1965 Aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally, Churchill retired as Prime Minister in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden, who had long been his ambitious protégé. (Three years earlier, Eden had married Churchill's niece Anna Clarissa Churchill, his second marriage.) Churchill spent most of his retirement at Chartwell and in the south of France. In 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy named Churchill the first Honorary Citizen of the United States. Churchill was too ill to attend the White House ceremony, so his son and grandson accepted the award for him. White House On 15 January 1965 Churchill suffered another stroke — a severe cerebral thrombosis — that left him gravely ill. He died nine days later on 24 January 1965, 70 years to the day of his father's death. His body lay in State in Westminster Hall for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral. This was the first state funeral for a non-royal family member since that of Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar in 1914. As his coffin passed down the Thames on the Havengore, the cranes of London's docklands bowed in salute. The Royal Artillery fired a 19-gun salute (as head of government), and the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters. The state funeral was the largest gathering of dignitaries in Britain as representatives from over 100 countries attended, including French President Charles de Gaulle, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, other heads of state and government, and members of royalty. It also saw largest assemblage of statesmen in the world until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. It has been suggested it was Churchill's wish that, were de Gaulle to outlive him, his (Churchill's) funeral procession should pass through Waterloo Station. This is complete myth. Though President de Gaulle did attend the service and the coffin departed for Bladon from Waterloo Station, there is absolutely no connection. In fact, Churchill did not plan his own funeral as commonly believed; he made a few suggestions, but there was a private committee which made the plans, and he was not on it. At Churchill's request, he was buried in the family plot at Saint Martin's Churchyard, Bladon, near Woodstock, and not far from his birthplace at Blenheim. Because the funeral took place on 30 January, people in the United States marked it by paying tribute to his friendship with Roosevelt because it was the anniversary of FDR's birth. On February 9, 1965, Churchill's estate was probated at 304,044 pounds sterling. Final note: he was a fascist bastard, different from Hitler in degree but not in essence. If he had not had the luck to be in direct confrontation with Hitler, nobody today would have a good word to say about him.

Churchill as historian

30 January. Another cast of the same statue is found in Oslo, Norway, and a similar in Halifax, Nova Scotia.]] Churchill was a prolific writer throughout his life and, during his periods out of office, regarded himself as a professional writer who was also a Member of Parliament. Despite his aristocratic birth, he inherited little money (his mother spent most of his inheritance) and always needed ready cash to maintain his lavish lifestyle and to compensate for a number of failed investments. Some of his historical works, such as A History of the English Speaking Peoples, were written primarily to raise money. Although Churchill was an excellent writer, he was not a trained historian. In his youth he was an avid reader of history but within a narrow range. The major influences on his historical thought, and his prose style, were Clarendon's history of the English Civil War, Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Macaulay's History of England. He had little interest in social or economic history; he saw history as essentially political and military, driven by great men rather than by economic forces or social change. Churchill was the last (and one of the most influential) exponents of "Whig history" — the belief of the 18th- and 19th-century Whigs that the British people had a unique greatness and an imperial destiny, and that all British history should be seen as progress towards fulfilling that destiny. This belief inspired his political career as well as his historical writing. It was criticized as an old-fashioned view of history even in Churchill's youth, but he never modified it or showed any interest in other schools of history. Although he employed professional historians as assistants, they had no influence over the content of his works. Churchill's historical writings fall into three categories. The first is works of family history, the biographies of his father, Life of Lord Randolph Churchill (1906), and of his great ancestor, Marlborough: His Life and Times (four volumes, 1933–38). These are still regarded as fine biographies, but are marred by Churchill's desire to present his subjects in the best possible light. He made only limited use of the available source materials and, in the case of his father, suppressed some material from family archives that reflected badly on Lord Randolph. The Marlborough biography shows to the full Churchill's great talent for military history.

The Right Honourable

The Right Honourable (abbreviated "The Rt Hon." or "The Right Hon.") is an honorific prefix which is traditionally applied to certain classes of people in the United Kingdom, Canada, and other Commonwealth Realms.

Entitlement

People entitled to the prefix in a personal capacity are:
- Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and the Privy Council of Northern Ireland
- This includes all current and former members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, which is a committee of the Privy Council;
- Barons, viscounts and earls (marquesses are "The Most Honourable" and dukes are "The Most Noble" or "His Grace", and, if Privy Councillors, retain these higher styles); and
- The holders of certain offices of state in some Commonwealth realms (e.g. in Canada, the Governor General, Prime Minister and Chief Justice). In order to differentiate peers who are Privy Counsellors from those who are not, sometimes the suffix PC is added to the title. In addition some people are entitled to the prefix in an official capacity, i.e. the prefix is added to the name of the office, but not the name of the person:
- The Lord Mayors of London, Dublin, Cardiff, Belfast, York and Bristol; and of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart; and
- The Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow. All other Lord Mayors and Lord Provosts are "The Right Worshipful".

Corporate entities

The prefix is also added to the name of various corporate entities, e.g.:
- The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal (of the United Kingdom &c.) in Parliament Assembled (the House of Lords);
- The Right Honourable the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses (now usually the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom &c.) in Parliament Assembled (the House of Commons); and
- The Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty (the Board of Admiralty)
- The Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations (the Board of Trade) See also the corporate use of "Most Honourable," as in "The Lords of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council" (the Privy Council).

Use of the honorific

The honorific is normally only used on the front of envelopes and other written documents: for example, The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP is otherwise referred to simply as "Mr Blair". In the House of Commons, members refer to each other as "the honourable member for ..." or "the right honourable member for ..." depending upon whether or not they are Privy Counsellors. However the title "the honourable member" is only a parliamentary term and is not used outside the House. When a married woman holds this style, she uses her own given name in her style. So, when Mrs. Denis Thatcher was made a Privy Counsellor, she didn't become The Right Honourable Mrs. Denis Thatcher or The Right Honourable Mrs Thatcher, but became The Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher.

Outside the United Kingdom

Generally within the Commonwealth, ministers and judges are The Honourable unless they are appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, in which case they are The Right Honourable. Such persons generally include Prime Ministers and judges of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, and several other Commonwealth prime ministers.

Australia

In Australia some Premiers of the Australian colonies in the 19th century were appointed members of the UK Privy Council and were thus entitled to be called The Right Honourable. After Federation in 1901, the Governor-General, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the Prime Minister and some other senior ministers held the title. There has never been an Australian Privy Council. In 1972 Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam declined appointment to the Privy Council, but the practice was resumed by Malcolm Fraser in 1975. In 1983 Bob Hawke declined the appointment, and the appointment of Australians to the Privy Council was abolished shortly thereafter. The last Governor-General to be entitled to the style was Ninian Stephen. The last politician to be entitled to the style was Ian Sinclair, who retired in 1998. The only living Australians holding the title The Right Honourable for life are:
- Doug Anthony, former Deputy Prime Minister
- Sir Zelman Cowen, former Governor-General
- Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister
- Ian Sinclair, former Leader of the National Party and Speaker of the House of Representatives
- Sir Ninian Stephen, former Governor-General
- Reginald Withers, former Senator, Minister, and Lord Mayor of Perth. The Lord Mayors of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart are styled The Right Honourable, but the style (which has no connection with the Privy Council) attaches to the title of Lord Mayor, and not to their names, and is relinquished upon leaving office.

Canada

In Canada, members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada receive the honorific The Honourable, with only the occupants of the most senior public offices being made The Right Honourable, as they used to be appointed to the British Privy Council. L'Honorable and le Très Honorable are used in French by the federal government, but the Office québécois de la langue française (the Quebec government body setting standards for the French language) considers them improper loan expressions and advises the use of Monsieur and Madame (Mr. and Ms.) instead. Although appointments of Canadians to the British Privy Council have ceased, the following public servants are domestically awarded the style The Right Honourable for life:
- the Governor General of Canada
- the Prime Minister of Canada
- the Chief Justice of Canada. (Governors General also use the style His/Her Excellency during their term of office.) Several prominent Canadians (mostly politicians) have become members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and have thus been entitled to use the title Right Honourable, either because of their services in Britain (e.g. serving as envoys to London) or as members of the Imperial War Cabinet, or due to their prominence in the Canadian Cabinet. These include:
- Sir John A. Macdonald (1879)1
- Sir John Rose (1886)
- Sir John Sparrow David Thompson (1894)1
- Sir Samuel Henry Strong (1897)4
- Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1897)1
- Sir Richard John Cartwright (1902)
- Sir Henri Elzéar Taschereau (1904)4
- Sir Charles Tupper (1907)1
- Sir Charles Fitzpatrick (1908)4
- Sir Robert Laird Borden (1912)1
- Sir George Eulas Foster (1916)
- Sir Louis Henry Davies (1919)4
- Lyman Poore Duff (1919)6
- Arthur Lewis Sifton (1920)
- Arthur Meighen (1920)1
- Charles Doherty (1920)
- Sir William Thomas White (1920)
- William Lyon Mackenzie King (1922)1
- William Stevens Fielding (1923)
- Francis Alexander Anglin (1925)4
- Sir William Mulock (1925)
- George Perry Graham (1925)
- R.B. Bennett (1930)1
- Sir George Halsey Perley (1931)
- Ernest Lapointe (1937)
- Vincent Massey (1941)3
- Raoul Dandurand (1941)
- Louis St. Laurent (1946)2
- James Lorimer Ilsley (1946)
- Clarence Decatur Howe (1946)
- Ian Alistair Mackenzie (1947)
- James Garfield Gardiner (1947)
- Thibaudeau Rinfret (1947)4
- John George Diefenbaker (1957)1
- Georges-Philéas Vanier (1963)5
- Lester Bowles Pearson (1963)1 1 - As Prime Minister. 2 - Tupper was appointed when he was no longer Prime Minister and St. Laurent was appointed when he was a cabinet minister under Mackenzie King. 3 - Massey became Governor General over a decade later. He was made "Right Honourable" while serving as Canada's High Commissioner to London. 4 - As Chief Justice of Canada 5 - As Governor General of Canada. 6 - Duff did not become Chief Justice until 1933. Canadian appointments to the British Privy Council were ended by the government of Lester Pearson. Since then, the style may only be granted for life by the Governor General to eminent Canadians who have not held any of the offices that would otherwise entitle them to the style. It has been granted to the following individuals:
- Paul Joseph James Martin (1992)
- Martial Asselin (1992)
- Ellen Fairclough (1992)
- Jean-Luc Pépin (1992)
- Alvin Hamilton (1992)
- Don Mazankowski (1992)
- Jack Pickersgill (1992)
- Robert Stanfield (1992)
- Herb Gray (2002)

Ireland

The Irish Privy Council was abolished with the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922; nevertheless the Lord Mayor of Dublin, like his counterparts in the United Kingdom, retains the usage of the honorific; the Lord Mayor of Cork has never been entitled to the title. The remaining members of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland are entitled to be styled The Right Honourable.

New Zealand

In New Zealand, the Prime Minister is customarily appointed to the British Privy Council and is styled The Right Honourable. However, the current Prime Minister, Helen Clark, has not recommended any new Privy Counsellors. The Governor-General is also usually a Privy Counsellor, but the current Governor-General, Dame Silvia Cartwright, is not. In any case the Governor-General as a plenipotentiary representative is entitled to the style "Excellency". At present there are only two Privy Counsellors in the New Zealand Parliament, both appointed by previous Prime Ministers: Helen Clark (appointed by Jim Bolger upon becoming Leader of the Opposition in 1993) and Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First (appointed by Jim Bolger upon becoming Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in 1996). Privy Counsellors recently retired include the former Speaker of the House, Jonathan Hunt (appointed by Geoffrey Palmer in recognition of long service in 1989), who retired from Parliament in 2005 to become New Zealand's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, and former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley (appointed upon becoming Prime Minister in 1997), who stepped down from Parliament at the 2002 election.

External links

- [http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/pe/titre_e.cfm Current list of Canadian notables possessing some form of honorific] (incl. Rt. Hon.) Category:Titles

Order of Merit

For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). The Order of Merit is a British and Commonwealth Order bestowed by the Monarch. It was established in 1902 by King Edward VII (based on the Prussian Pour le Mérite) as a reward for distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. The rarer military awards were distinguished from the civil by having a pair of crossed swords behind the central medallion. Appointments to the Order are in the Sovereign's personal gift and ministerial advice is not required. The Order is limited to the Sovereign and twenty-four members, but additional foreigners may be added as "honorary members." From the beginning the Order was open to women; Florence Nightingale was the first woman to receive the Order, in 1907. The Order confers no knighthood or other status, but recipients of this single-class Order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters "OM". The badge has the appearance of a red cross surmounted by a golden crown. The ribbon is red and blue. post-nominal letters

Current members

- Sovereign: HM The Queen
- Members:
- HRH The Duke of Edinburgh KG KT OM GBE AC QSO PC (1968), Royal Consort
- The Revd Owen Chadwick OM KBE (1983), Theological Historian
- Sir Andrew Huxley OM FRS (1983), Physiologist and Nobel Laureate (Medicine)
- Dr Frederick Sanger OM CH CBE FRS (1986), Biochemist and Double Nobel Laureate (Chemistry)
- The Rt Hon. The Baroness Thatcher LG OM PC FRS (1990), British Prime Minister (1979-1990)
- Dame Joan Sutherland OM AC DBE (1991), Coloratura Soprano
- Sir Michael Atiyah OM FRS (1992), Mathematician and Fields Medalist
- Lucian Freud OM CH (1993), Painter
- Sir Aaron Klug OM FRS (1995), Biophysicist and Nobel Laureate (Chemistry)
- The Rt Hon. The Lord Foster of Thames Bank OM RA (1997), Architect and Pritzker Laureate
- Sir Denis Rooke OM CBE (1997), Industrial Engineer
- Sir James Black OM FRS (2000), Pharmacologist and Nobel Laureate (Medicine)
- Sir Anthony Caro OM CBE (2000), Sculptor
- Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS (2000), Mathematical physicist
- Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE (2000), Playwright
- HRH The Prince of Wales KG KT GCB OM AK QSO PC ADC (2002), Heir to the Throne
- The Rt Hon. The Lord May of Oxford OM AC FRS (2002), Ecologist and President of the Royal Society
- The Rt Hon. The Lord Rothschild OM GBE (2002), Philanthropist
- Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS (2005), Broadcaster
- The Rt Hon. The Baroness Boothroyd OM PC (2005), First female speaker of the House of Commons
- Sir Michael Howard OM CH KBE (2005), Military historian
- Honorary Members:
- Nelson Mandela OM CC (1995), Statesman and Nobel Laureate (Peace) The recent death of Dame Cicely Saunders OM DBE has dropped the number of members to twenty-three until the Queen appoints a new member.

External links

- [http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1880.asp A history of the Order and a full list of all recipients 1902-2002] Category:British honours system Merit, Order of

Order of the Companions of Honour

The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order (decoration). It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry and religion. religion religion The order consists of the Sovereign, plus no more than 65 Companions of Honour, with a quota of 45 members for the United Kingdom, 7 for Australia, 2 for New Zealand and 11 for other countries. Additionally, foreigners may be added as "honorary members". The order confers no knighthood or other status, but recipients of this one-class order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters "CH". The insignia of the Order consists of an oval medallion with an oak tree, a shield with the royal arms hanging from one branch, and on the left a mounted knight in armour. The badge's clear blue border bears the motto IN ACTION FAITHFUL AND IN HONOUR CLEAR in gold letters, and the oval is surmounted by an imperial crown. Men wear the badge on a ribbon (red with golden border threads) around their necks, and women on a bow at the left shoulder.

Current members

Territorial Decoration

The Territorial Decoration (TD) (also known as the Territorial Efficiency Decoration) is a United Kingdom military medal. It is awarded for 12 years' continuous service in the Territorial Army, with wartime service counting double. The ribbon for the decoration is dark blue and green, with a central stripe of yellow. Officers awarded the medal are entitled to use the letters TD after their name.

References

- [http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/militia_vol_territorial/mvt28_1.html Queens Royal Surrey regiment] - Territorial Decorations and Medals Category:Military decorations

30 November

November 30 is the 334th day (335th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 31 days remaining, as the final day of November.

Events

- 1782 - American Revolutionary War: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
- 1786 - Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, promulgates a penal reform making his country the first state to abolish the death penalty. November 30 is therefore commemorated by 300 cities around the world as Cities for Life Day.
- 1803 - In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.
- 1804 - The Jeffersonian Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase.
- 1853 - Crimean War: The Russian navy destroys the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Sinop.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Franklin - The Army of Tennessee led by General John Bell Hood mounts a dramatically unsuccessful frontal assault on Union positions around Franklin, Tennessee (Hood lost six generals and almost a third of his troops).
- 1872 - The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England.
- 1886 - The Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
- 1902 - American Old West: Second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, Kid Curry Logan, is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labor.
- 1916 - Costa Rica becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1936 - In London, the Crystal Palace, built for the 1851 Great Exhibition, is destroyed in a fire.
- 1939 - Winter War: Soviet forces invade Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, starting the war.
- 1940 - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are married in Greenwich, Connecticut.
- 1943 - World War II: Tehran Conference - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin establish an agreement concerning a planned June 1944 invasion of Europe codenamed Operation Overlord.
- 1954 - In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, an 8.5 pound sulfide meteorite crashes through a roof and hits Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio, giving her a bad bruise, in the only unequivocally known case of a human being hit by a space rock.
- 1960 - Production of the De Soto automobile brand ceases.
- 1962 - The United Nations General Assembly elects U Thant of Burma as the new UN Secretary-General.
- 1966 - Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
- 1967 - The People's Republic of South Yemen becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
- 1972 - Vietnam War: White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning American troop withdrawals from Vietnam due to the fact that troop levels are now down to 27,000.
- 1979 - Pink Floyd release the album The Wall.
- 1981 - Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings ended inconclusively on December 17).
- 1982 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher receives a parcel bomb at 10 Downing Street.
- 1988 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for $25.07 billion.
- 1989 - Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen is killed by a Red Army Faction terrorist bomb.
- 1989 - Richard Mallory of Palm Harbor, Florida becomes female serial killer Aileen Wuornos's first victim.
- 1993 - U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill) into law.
- 1994 - Hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur is robbed of $40,000 in jewelry and survives being shot five times in a New York music studio.
- 1998 - Deutsche Bank announces a $10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world.
- 1999 - In Seattle, Washington, United States, protests against the WTO meeting by anti-globalization protesters catches police unprepared and forces the cancellation of opening ceremonies.
- 1999 - British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defence contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.
- 2000 - The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 comes into force in the UK.
- 2004 - Longtime Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings finally loses, leaving him with $2,520,700, television's all-time biggest game show haul.
- 2004 - Lion Air Flight 538 crashlands in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia, killing 26.
- 2005 - Rt Rev John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in the Church of England as Archbishop of York.

Births

- 539 - Gregory of Tours, French bishop and historian (d. 594)
- 1340 - John, Duke of Berry, son of John II of France (d. 1416)
- 1364 - John FitzAlan, 2nd Baron Arundel, English soldier (d. 1390)
- 1466 - Andrea Doria, Italian naval leader (d. 1560)
- 1508 - Andrea Palladio, Italian architect (d. 1580)
- 1554 - Philip Sidney, English courtier, soldier, and writer (d. 1586)
- 1594 - John Cosin, English clergyman (d. 1672)
- 1625 - Jean Domat, French jurist (d. 1696)
- 1637 - Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, French historian (d. 1698)
- 1667 - Jonathan Swift, Irish writer and satirist (d.1745)
- 1670 - John Toland, Irish philosopher (d. 1722)
- 1683 - Ludwig Andreas Graf Khevenhüller, Austrian field marshal (d. 1744)
- 1719 - Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, Princess of Wales (d. 1772)
- 1722 - Theodore Gardelle, Swiss painter and enameler (d. 1761)
- 1723 - William Livingston, revolutionary Governor of New Jersey (d. 1790)
- 1756 - Ernst Chladni, German physicist (d. 1827)
- 1781 -