History UsefulNotes / WinstonChurchill

%%Compare/contrast UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, another racist genocidal tyrant who also pursued eugenics (although Churchill was viewed more sympathetically due to his efforts during World War II).

These included the abortive eugenics initiative proposed above. Churchill managed to become First Lord of the Admiralty and masterminded the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne Gallipoli Campaign of 1915]], resigning upon its failure. He lost his seat in 1922, and tried to [[StartMyOwn set up his own party]], the Constitutionalist Party, but three elections in two years ended up rendering it impractical to do so, and he instead rejoined the Conservatives following the 1924 election. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) for the next five years, where he made a disastrous decision to reintroduce the gold standard. Churchill described this as the biggest mistake of his career; it contributed to high unemployment and mass strikes. He was isolated within the party in the 1930s, in no small part due to being the one of the few politicians who publicly opposed forcing Edward VIII to abdicate over his impending marriage to Wallis Simpson,[[note]](Ironically, Churchill didn't actually think much of Edward on a personal level, and repudiated any past support for him after his Nazi sympathies became publicly known; however, Churchill also didn't consider it to be the government's business to tell the king who he could or couldn't marry)[[/note]] but made a political comeback after his opposition to the appeasement of Germany was vindicated.

* ''Savrola'' (1899)

* In ''{{Film/Churchill}}'', another 2017 biopic of him, he's portrayed by Creator/BrianCox. This focuses on a less celebrated period of Churchill's career, 1944, by which time control of the Allied effort in [=WW2=] had shifted largely to the Americans. The story is about Churchill's (true-to-life) fears that he's no longer relevant, including his doubts about the impending Allied invasion of Normandy, and his adjusting to a less prominent role: the filmmakers called it "a ComingOfAgeStory about a man in his seventies". This made it unpopular with those Churchill fans who prefer to focus on his glory years.

Famously, his party were routed by the Labour Party on the 5th of July 1945 general election, just two months after victory in Europe. He appears to have campaigned on the basis of his own personal popularity, and was not seen to have adequately acknowledged the popular mood favouring state programmes to care for the crippled, wounded, ill, impoverished, under-educated, and elderly. While many voters considered him a fine wartime leader, they seem to have been sceptical about his ability to govern the country in peacetime (which mirrors the view historians have of him). More generally, the Conservative Party wasn't helped by voters still remembering UsefulNotes/StanleyBaldwin's dismissive attitude towards those affected by TheGreatDepression, along with what at the time were seen as UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain's failed appeasement policies. Churchill later recovered and won a second term in 1951[[note]]though Labour actually received more votes than the Conservatives in that election[[/note]], serving until his retirement from frontline politics in 1955. (During this time, [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen Elizabeth II]] became Queen.) [[note]] In June 1953, literally weeks after Elizabeth's coronation, Churchill suffered his second stroke, which prompted Elizabeth to initiate the planning for his funeral.[[/note]]

Churchill took over as Prime Minister after UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain resigned in 1940 after the Nazis invaded Norway, and invited the Labour Party to join his government. From the 21st of June 1940 to the 22nd of June 1941, the [[{{UsefulNotes/Britain}} UK]] was the only country--apart, that is, from Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and a host of Asian and African protectorates and puppet states, basically, the rest of UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire--fighting against Germany. A few members of his own cabinet suggested not-so-discreetly that Churchill should just sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler, let the Nazis have their way with mainland Europe, and focus on building up the UK's defences enough to make invading the island an unappealing prospect.[[note]](in fairness to said cabinet members, however, this was before anyone outside of Hitler's inner circle knew that he was gearing up in earnest for the Holocaust; had it been widely known, there's almost no way that any of Churchill's cabinet would have suggested making peace with Hitler)[[/note]] Churchill was unswayed, however, and with the support of Labour leader UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee and Liberal leader Archibald Sinclair, was able to persuade his party that they should continue the war. Churchill drafted, practiced, and performed some of his most famous speeches around this time with the aide of just two speechwriters and a handful of typists (and the advice of his colleagues). These are rightly considered brilliant works of oration, and are often credited with maintaining the entire Commonwealth's fighting spirit.

Churchill took over as Prime Minister after UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain resigned in 1940 after the Nazis invaded Norway, and invited the Labour Party to join his government. From the 21st of June 1940 to the 22nd of June 1941, the [[{{UsefulNotes/Britain}} UK]] was the only country apart from Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and a host of Asian and African protectorates and puppet states fighting against Germany. Many members of his own cabinet suggested not-so-discreetly that Churchill should just sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler, let the Nazis have their way with mainland Europe, and focus on building up the UK's defences enough to make invading the island an unappealing prospect.[[note]](in fairness to said cabinet members, however, this was before anyone outside of Hitler's inner circle knew that he was gearing up in earnest for the Holocaust; had it been widely known, there's almost no way that any of Churchill's cabinet would have suggested making peace with Hitler)[[/note]] Churchill was unswayed, however, and with the support of Labour leader UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee and Liberal leader Archibald Sinclair, was able to persuade his party that they should continue the war. Churchill drafted, practiced, and performed some of his most famous speeches around this time with the aide of just two speechwriters and a handful of typists. These are rightly considered brilliant works of oration, and are often credited with maintaining the entire Commonwealth's fighting spirit.

However, the historian Richard Toye noted in his book ''The Roar of the Lion'' that Churchill's speeches weren't always received by everyone as being inspiring and brilliant: it depended very much on who the speech was aimed at, and who was listening. For example, the famous "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech, after the Dunkirk evacuation, was received far more warmly in the USA than it was in Britain, which reflects the fact that the speech was crafted to assure US listeners that Britain would not be seeking peace terms with Germany. Many of Churchill's colleagues considered it depressing, rather than stimulating. In general, though, Churchill's speeches served to frame British intentions in 1940 and focus attention on why the country was at war.

However, he also had a dark side frequently overlooked in British popular history. [[TheSocialDarwinist He supported eugenics (at one time suggesting 100,000 Britons should be sterilized)]], concentration camps in Kenya (with up to a million Kenyans detained), and massacres in Sudan and Afghanistan, and his bellicosity included ill-conceived plans to try to reconstitute the Wehrmacht and continue WWII to destroy the Soviet Union.[[note]]Although he wasn't really serious about that, which was why the plan was code-named "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable Operation Unthinkable]]"[[/note]] In former British colonies, particularly those of the Indian subcontinent Churchill is remembered in a negative light, in contrast to his positive reputation in Britain. He topped a BBC poll of history's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_Britons 100 Greatest Britons]], and is generally regarded as a great wartime leader - just [[WonTheWarLostThePeace not a particularly great Prime Minister]].

* The 1983 miniseries ''Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years'', starring Creator/RobertHardy, covers the period between 1929 and 1939, when his political career stalled. Hardy became so associated with the role of Churchill that he went on to play him in four more dramas and one drama-documentary.

* ''Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years'' covers the period between World Wars One and Two when his political career had seemingly stalled.

* He was played by Creator/RichardBurton in the 1974 British/American MadeForTVMovie ''The Gathering Storm'', released in the UK as ''Walk with Destiny''.

* In the 2014 miniseries about the run-up to World War One, ''Series/37Days'', during which period he was First Lord of the Admiralty, he's played by Nicholas Asbury.

* There is a duology of TV biopics made by Creator/TheBBC and {{Creator/HBO}}, released in 2002 and 2009: ''The Gathering Storm'' (named for the first chapter of his book), and ''Film/IntoTheStorm2009'' (named for one of his war-time speeches), the former talking about his "wilderness years" in political exile in the years before the Second War as the threat loomed on the horizon, and the later about his greatest moments in the war and through it. Churchill is portrayed by Creator/AlbertFinney in the first film and Creator/BrendanGleeson in the second. Like ''Film/DarkestHour'', very much stories about his GloryDays (making them unlike the 2017 ''Churchill'' mentioned above.)

* ''Film/TheYoungWinston'', a 1972 biopic of his younger days directed by Creator/RichardAttenborough and starring Creator/SimonWard as Churchill.

Churchill had actually been a senior politician for decades. Originally elected as a Conservative in 1900, he changed to the Liberal Party due to his support for free trade. He soon became a cabinet minister and the architect of several of the reforms and welfare programs introduced by the Liberals, and was involved in many more.

He'd been in the army before going into politics and was also a war correspondent. He served in both UsefulNotes/TheRiverWar and the UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar, playing minor but conspicuous roles in each. In the former, he charged with the 21st Lancers at Omdurman; in the latter, he escaped from a Boer POW camp and traveled 300 miles to neutral Portuguese East Africa. He even served briefly in World War I after his resignation from the Cabinet. As well as his Nobel Prize-winning book on the UsefulNotes/SecondWorldWar (not the most reliable source, but an invaluable memoir), he wrote a history of the English-speaking peoples and a largely forgotten political thriller called ''Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania''.

Churchill was notably a child of a binational marriage; his mother Jeanette Jerome was an [[UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates American]] socialite from [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Brooklyn]]. A study of her biography, and that of her father Leonard Jerome, makes it very clear which side of the family Sir Winston got his resiliency from.

Churchill took over as Prime Minister after UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain resigned in 1940 after the Nazis invaded Norway, and invited the Labour Party to join his government. From the 21st of June 1940 to the 22nd of June 1941, the [[{{UsefulNotes/Britain}} UK]] was the only country apart from Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and a host of Asian and African protectorates and puppet states fighting against Germany. Many members of his own cabinet suggested not-so-discreetly that Churchill should just sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler, let the Nazis have their way with mainland Europe, and focus on building up the UK's defences enough to make invading the island an unappealing prospect.[[note]](in fairness to said cabinet members, however, this was before anyone outside of Hitler's inner circle knew that he was gearing up in earnest for the Holocaust; had it been widely known, there's almost no way that any of Churchill's cabinet would have suggested making peace with Hitler)[[/note]] Churchill was unswayed, however, and with the support of Labour leader UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee and Liberal leader Archibald Sinclair, was able to persuade his party that they should continue the war. Churchill drafted, practiced, and performed some of his most famous speeches around this time with the aide of just two speechwriters and a handful of typists. These are rightly considered brilliant works of oration, and are credited with maintaining the entire Commonwealth's fighting spirit. The situation improved after ''[[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheUSSR Operation Barbarossa]]'' and Germany's declaration of war upon the UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates that December. Churchill became a close friend of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt, though his fondness for Roosevelt was undoubtedly much greater than Roosevelt's for Churchill, and he managed to work effectively with UsefulNotes/JosefStalin despite his hatred for communism.

* In ''Churchill'', another 2017 biopic of him, he's portrayed by Creator/BrianCox. This focuses on a less celebrated period of Churchill's career, 1944, by which time control of the Allied effort in [=WW2=] had shifted largely to the Americans. The story is about Churchill's (true-to-life) fears that he's no longer relevant, including his doubts about the impending Allied invasion of Normandy, and his adjusting to a less prominent role: the filmmakers called it "a ComingOfAgeStory about a man in his seventies". This made it unpopular with those Churchill fans who prefer to focus on his glory years.

* Played by Creator/GaryOldman in Creator/JoeWright's 2017 biopic of Churchill, ''Film/{{Darkest Hour|2017}}''.
* In ''Churchill'', another 2017 biopic of him, he's portrayed by Creator/BrianCox.

* There is a duology of TV biopics made by Creator/TheBBC and {{Creator/HBO}}, released in 2002 and 2009: ''The Gathering Storm'' (named for the first chapter of his book), and ''Film/IntoTheStorm2009'' (named for one of his war-time speeches), the former talking about his "wilderness years" in political exile in the years before the Second War as the threat loomed on the horizon, and the later about his greatest moments in the war and through it. Churchill is portrayed by Creator/AlbertFinney in the first film and Creator/BrendanGleeson in the second.

* ''Film/TheEagleHasLanded'' was a fictionalized account of a real Nazi plot to kidnap Churchill on his native soil.

* Appeared in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E3VictoryOfTheDaleks Victory of the Daleks]]", the third episode of the 2010 series of ''Series/DoctorWho''. [[spoiler: He and the Doctor are apparently old friends, and he keeps trying to swipe the TARDIS key from the Doctor.]] He also turns up in the season finale "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong The Wedding of River Song]]" in an corrupted version of the universe where every time is happening at once, where [[spoiler: he intrinsically trusts the Doctor due to feeling echoes of their friendship in the proper timeline.]] Interestingly, in the latter, he is not prime minister; he is [[AnachronismStew Holy Roman Emperor]].

His second term as Prime Minister is generally regarded a lot less favourably than his first. Internationally, it was marked by appeasement of German nationalists and militarists, through cooperation with the Americans to further water down the already febrile 'justice' meted out against Axis War Criminals. In 1953, Churchill ordered (in his capacity as Acting Foreign Minister) the illegal release of Albert Kesselring and Erich von Manstein - who had neither been acquitted of their War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity nor served their sentences. In Australia Churchill's second term is best known for Britain's successful development of nuclear fission bombs in 1952, as the testing in Western Australia induced cancer in an entire generation of Australian farmers (care for the survivors cost 400k AUD in the 2016 federal budget). Under his leadership the British government also conducted its first studies into the likely effects of a nuclear attack upon their country, began their Cold-War policy of making no provision for the survival of the British population in the event of a nuclear exchange, and worked to prevent the dissemination of information about the effects of nuclear weapons. This was done because the non-provision of shelters and information was deemed necessary in order to save money and prevent mass-panic, demoralisation, and nuclear-disarmament sentiment.

Famously, his party were routed by the Labour Party on the 5th of July 1945 general election, just two months after victory in Europe. He appears to have campaigned on the basis of his own personal popularity, and was not seen to have adequately acknowledged the popular mood favouring state programmes to care for the crippled, wounded, ill, impoverished, under-educated, and elderly. While many voters considered him a fine wartime leader, they seem to have been sceptical about his ability to govern the country in peacetime (which mirrors the view historians have of him). More generally, the Conservative Party wasn't helped by voters still remembering UsefulNotes/StanleyBaldwin's dismissive attitude towards those affected by TheGreatDepression, along with what at the time were seen as UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain's failed appeasement policies. Churchill later recovered and won a second term in 1951[[note]]though Labour actually received more votes than the Conservatives in that election[[/note]], serving until his retirement from frontline politics in 1955. (During this time, [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen Elizabeth II]] became Queen.) [[note]] In June 1953, literally weeks after Elizabrth's coronation, Churchill suffered his second stroke, which prompted Elizabeth to initiate the planning for his funeral.[[/note]]

His second term as Prime Minister is generally regarded a lot less favourably than his first. Internationally it was marked by appeasement of German nationalists and militarists, through cooperation with the Americans to further water down the already febrile 'justice' meted out against Axis War Criminals. In 1953, Churchill ordered (in his capacity as Acting Foreign Minister) the illegal release of Albert Kesselring and Erich von Manstein - who had neither been acquitted of their War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity nor served their sentences. In Australia Churchill's second term is best known for Britain's successful development of nuclear fission bombs in 1952, as the testing in Western Australia induced cancer in an entire generation of Australian farmers (care for the survivors cost 400k AUD in the 2016 federal budget). Under his leadership the British government also conducted its first studies into the likely effects of a nuclear attack upon their country, began their Cold-War policy of making no provision for the survival of the British population in the event of a nuclear exchange, and worked to prevent the dissemination of information about the effects of nuclear weapons. This was done because the non-provision of shelters and information was deemed necessary in order to save money and prevent mass-panic, demoralisation, and nuclear-disarmament sentiment.

* "[[Music/SuppersReady There's Winston Churchill dressed in drag, he used to be a British flag]]. [[Music/{{Genesis}} Plastic bag]], [[RhymingWithItself What a drag]]".

* On ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'', after Leslie had to pull down her pants on TV to prove her innocence in sex scandal, she says this in a ConfessionCam:

* A throwaway line in ''Film/KingsmanTheGoldenCircle'' implies that Churchill was one of Kingsman's founders.