Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer (as Winston S. Churchill), and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

Churchill was born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer family. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.

At the forefront of politics for fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and First Lord of the Admiralty as part of Asquith's Liberal government. During the war, he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He then briefly resumed active army service on the Western Front as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He returned to government under Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Baldwin's Conservative government of 1924–1929, controversially returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure on the UK economy.

Winston Churchill (novelist)

Winston Churchill (November 10, 1871 – March 12, 1947) was an American novelist and was one of the best selling novelists of the early 20th century.

He is nowadays overshadowed, even as a writer, by the very much more famous British statesman of the same name, with whom he was acquainted, but not related. Their lives had some interesting parallels.

Biography

Churchill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Edward Spalding Churchill by his marriage to Emma Bell Blaine. He attended Smith Academy in Missouri and the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1894. At the Naval Academy, he was conspicuous in scholarship and also in general student activities. He became an expert fencer and he organized at Annapolis the first eight-oared crew, which he captained for two years. After his graduation, he became an editor of the Army and Navy Journal. He resigned from the navy to pursue a writing career. In 1895, he became managing editor of the Cosmopolitan Magazine, but in less than a year he retired from that, to have more time for writing. While he would be most successful as a novelist, he was also a published poet and essayist.

Cigar

A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaf, rolled in a series of types and sizes, that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth.

Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Canary Islands (Spain), Italy and the Eastern United States. The origins of cigar smoking are still unknown. In Guatemala, a ceramic pot dating back to the tenth century features a Mayan smoking tobacco leaves tied together with a string. Sikar, the term for smoking used by the Maya, may have inspired the name cigar.

Etymology

The word cigar originated from the Spanish cigarro, which in turn probably derives from the Mayan sicar ("to smoke rolled tobacco leaves" – from si'c, "tobacco;"). There is also a possible derivation, or at least an influence, from the Spanish cigarra ("cicada"), due to their similar shape. The English word came into general use in 1730.

Honours of Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill received numerous honors and awards throughout his career as a British Army officer, statesman and author.

Perhaps the highest of these was the state funeral held at St Paul's Cathedral, after his body had lain in state for three days in Westminster Hall, an honor rarely granted to anyone other than a British monarch or consort. The funeral also saw one of the largest assemblages of statesmen in the world.

Throughout his life, Churchill also accumulated other honors and awards. He was awarded 37 other orders and medals between 1885 and 1964. Of the orders, decorations and medals Churchill received, 20 were awarded by the United Kingdom, three by France, two each by Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain, and one each by the Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Libya, Nepal, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States. Ten were awarded for active service as an Army officer in Cuba, India, Egypt, South Africa, the United Kingdom, France, and Belgium. The greater number of awards were given in recognition of his service as a minister of the British government.

Winston Churchill (politician, born 1940)

Winston Spencer-Churchill (10 October 1940 – 2 March 2010), generally known as Winston Churchill, was a British Conservative Party politician and a grandson of former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, his namesake.

Biography

Early life

Churchill was born at Chequers while his grandfather was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford.

Career

Before becoming a Member of Parliament, he was a journalist, notably in the Middle East during the Six Day War, during which time he met numerous Israeli politicians, including Moshe Dayan, and published a book recounting the war.

Churchill's first attempt to enter Parliament was at the Manchester Gorton by-election in 1967. In spite of the unpopularity of the incumbent Labour Government, he was unsuccessful. Churchill became Member of Parliament for the constituency of Stretford, near Manchester, from 1970 until the 1983 general election. Boundary changes which took effect at that election made his seat more marginal (it was subsequently taken by the Labour Party), and he transferred to the nearby Davyhulme constituency, which he represented until the seat was abolished for the 1997 general election. Although well known by virtue of his family history, he never achieved high office and remained a backbencher. His cousin Nicholas Soames is also a serving Conservative MP.

Winston Churchill (McVey)

Winston Churchill is a portrait sculpture by William M. McVey. It is constructed of cast bronze.

History

It was unveiled by Dean Rusk, on 9 April 1966.

A model is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The accompanying plaque notes that one of Churchill's feet is on American soil and one on British Embassy grounds, symbolizing his dual British-American ancestry and his work towards the maintenance of the Anglo-American alliance.

References

External links

Winston Churchill (1620–1688)

Sir Winston Churchill FRS (18 April 1620 – 26 March 1688), known as the Cavalier Colonel, was an English soldier, historian, and politician. He was the father of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, as well as an ancestor of his 20th-century namesake, Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.

Life

Churchill was the son of John Churchill of Dorset, a lawyer, and his wife Sarah Winston, daughter of Sir Henry Winston. Winston Churchill was educated at St John's College, Oxford, but left university without taking a degree. Churchill was a fervent Royalist through his life and fought and was wounded in the Civil War as a Captain in the King's Horse and, after the Royalists were defeated, was forced to pay a recompense fee of £446 (equivalent to around £44,600 in the present). After the Restoration he sat as a Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis from 1661 to 1679 and for Lyme Regis from 1685 to 1688. Churchill was also a Commissioner of the Irish Court of Claims and Explanations between 1662 and 1668 and a Junior Clerk Comptroller to the Board of Green Cloth from 1664 to 1679. He was knighted in 1664 and made a Fellow of the Royal Society the same year. He also published a history of the kings of England, entitled Divi Britannica; being a remark upon the Lives of all the Kings of this Isle, from the year of the World 2855 until the year of Grace 1660.