Young Margaret Thatcher, aka the "Iron Lady", 1951.
She was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. Thatcher was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to have been appointed.
She was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. Thatcher was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to have been appointed.
A research chemist at Somerville College, Oxford before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his Conservative government.
In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and became the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became Prime Minister after winning the 1979 general election.
On moving into 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives intended to reverse high unemployment and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an ongoing recession.
Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasized deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labor markets, the privatization of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions.
Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and increasing unemployment, until victory in the 1982 Falklands War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983.
Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987. During this period her support for the Community Charge (referred to as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet.
She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher...
(of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire) which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords.
In 2013 she died of a stroke in London at the age of 87.
In 2013 she died of a stroke in London at the age of 87.
Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh attended her funeral, marking only the second time in the Queen's reign that she attended the funeral of any of her former prime ministers; the first and only precedent being that of Churchill, who received a state funeral in 1965.
After the service at St Paul's Cathedral, Thatcher's body was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium, where her husband had been cremated. On 28 September, a service for Thatcher was held in the All Saints Chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea's Margaret Thatcher Infirmary.
In a private ceremony, her ashes were interred in the grounds of the hospital, next to those of her husband. Always a controversial figure, she has nonetheless been lauded as one of the widest-known politicians in British history, even as arguments over Thatcherism persist.
I will never be selective when it comes to highlighting historical events and personalities. History is not only made up of good people or people who are compatible with our personal and political beliefs.
And it is important that we talk about them as well, for they have also contributed to shaping the world we live in today.
If I did that, it would be like taking a history book and ripping off all the pages of people I do not like, do not support, do not agree with, for whatever reason. In doing so, history would be incomplete. And boring.
And although that book might be perfect for me, another person would find my choices completely wrong and would rip out a few more pages.
