INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT WINSTON CHURCHILL

1. His mother was an American socialite who was introduced to Lord Randolph Churchill at a regatta by future King Edward VII.  His mother had a snake tattoo on her wrist.  She remarried twice, both men were twenty years younger.

2. He was a poor student and failed his entrance exam to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst twice before getting in.

3. He became a war correspondent and went to several dangerous war zones including Cuba, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, and South Africa.  In South Africa, he was captured when the Boers stopped a train he was on.  He escaped by jumping a fence and heading out into the wilderness with “four slabs of melted chocolate and a crumbling biscuit.”  He ran into a British coal mine operator who hid him in the mine shaft for three days.  He then made it back to the British lines via trucks and trains.

4. Three women turned down marriage proposals before Clementine Hozier accepted.

5. During World War I, he proposed the Gallipoli campaign which ended in disaster with 250,000 casualties.

6. In 1921, several of his paintings were put on display in a Paris art gallery.  He used an alias.  Over 48 years, he painted 500 works of art.

7. In 1927, he made a trip to fascist Italy and praised Mussolini for running a stable and disciplined nation.  He complimented Mussolini because he preferred fascism over communism.

8. He was hit by a car while crossing a street in NYC in 1931.  He was looking the wrong way because he was used to British traffic.

9. On Oct. 14, 1940, during the Blitz, he was hosting a dinner at 10 Downing Street.  The dinner was continuing despite a bombing raid when Winston suddenly got up and ordered his guests and the kitchen staff to go to the bomb shelter.  Moments later, a bomb hit nearby and destroyed the kitchen.

10. He tried to warn Stalin about Hitler’s invasion, but Stalin refused to believe him and the Soviet Union was caught unprepared and suffered huge losses.

11. He did not lead Great Britain until the end of WWII.  In July, 1945, his Conservative Party was defeated in a landslide.  He returned to be Prime Minister from 1951-1955.

12. He was in Parliament for 54 years and served under 5 monarchs from Queen Victoria to Elizabeth II.

13. He was opposed to Great Britain giving up its colonies, especially India.  He disliked Gandhi and once stated that he wished he would die from one of his hunger strikes.

14. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 for all the books he wrote.  He was commended for his “mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

15. He was the first non-American to be made an honorary citizen.

16. He died at age 90.  His last words were:  “I’m bored with it all.” 

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