text: Winston Churchill, Political Leader / Writer / World War II Figure \n\nBorn: 30 November 1874 \nBirthplace: Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England \nDied: 24 January 1965 \nBest Known As: Indefatigable prime minister of Britain during World War II \nSoldier, politician and finally prime minister, Winston Churchill was one of Britain's greatest 20th-century heroes. Churchill fought with the British Army in India and Sudan, and as a journalist was captured in South Africa (where his dispatches from the Boer War first brought him to public prominence). He became a member of Parliament in 1900 and remained an MP for over 64 years. His early topsy-turvy political career earned him many enemies, but his stirring speeches, bulldog tenacity and his refusal to make peace with Adolf Hitler made him the popular choice to lead England through World War II. When Britain and its allies prevailed in 1945, Churchill's place in history was assured. (Ironically, he lost the prime ministership two months after Germany's surrender, when the opposition Labor Party took majority control of Parliament.) One of the 20th century's most quotable wits, Churchill wrote a plethora of histories, biographies and memoirs, including the landmark four-volume A History of the English-speaking Peoples (1956-58). In 1953 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; he was knighted the same year.\n\nChurchill served as prime minister from 1940-45 and again from 1951-55... His wartime contemporaries included presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, French resistance leader Charles de Gaulle and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin... More recent British PMs have included Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair... The famous portrait of a scowling Churchill was taken by Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh.\n\nBritish politician and writer. As prime minister (1940–1945 and 1951–1955) he led Great Britain through World War II. Churchill published several works, including The Second World War (1948–1953), and won the 1953 Nobel Prize for literature.\n\nEarly Career\n\nEducated at Harrow and Sandhurst, he became (1894) an officer in the 4th hussars. On leave in 1895, he saw his first military action in Cuba as a reporter for London's Daily Graphic. He served in India and in 1898 fought at Omdurman in Sudan under Kitchener. Having resigned his commission, he was sent (1899) to cover the South African War by the Morning Post, and his accounts of his capture and imprisonment by the Boers and his escape raised him to the forefront of English journalists.\n\nPolitical Career\n\nEarly Government Posts\n\nChurchill was elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1900, but he subsequently switched to the Liberal party and was appointed undersecretary for the colonies in the cabinet of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Under Asquith, he was initially (1908–10) president of the Board of Trade, then home secretary (1910–11), and championed innovative labor exchange and old-age pension acts. As first lord of the admiralty (1911), he presided over the naval expansion that preceded World War I.\n\nDiscredited by the failure of the Dardanelles expedition, which he had championed, Churchill lost (1915) his admiralty post and served on the front lines in France. Returning to office under Lloyd George, he served as minister of munitions (1917) and secretary of state for war and for air (1918–21). As colonial secretary (1921–22), he helped negotiate the treaty that set up the Irish Free State.\n\nAfter two defeats at the polls he returned to the House of Commons, as a Constitutionalist, and became (1924–29) chancellor of the exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government. As an advocate of laissez-faire economics, he was strongly criticized by John Maynard Keynes. Churchill was not a financial innovator; he basically followed conventional advice from his colleagues. Nevertheless, Churchill's decision to return the country to the prewar gold standard in