Winston S. Churchill, 1874-1965
1874
November 30. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill is born at 1:30 in the morning at Blenheim Palace. A descendant of John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough, he is the elder son of Lord Randolph Churchill, a prominent British politician, and Lady Randolph Churchill, an American originally named Jennie Jerome. Dr. Frederic Taylor, a local physician from Woodstock, handled the delivery.
December 27. Churchill is baptized in the chapel at Blenheim by the Reverend Henry William Yale.
1880
February 4. Churchill’s brother, John Stranger Spencer Churchill, is born in Dublin.
1882
November 3. Churchill enters St. George’s School, Ascot.
1884
September 16. Churchill enters the Misses Thomson School, Hove.
1886
March. Churchill is ill with pneumonia. He is treated by Dr. Robert Roose, and Lord and Lady Randolph rush to their son’s bedside.
1888
April 17. Churchill enters Harrow in the lowest form.
1891
December 21. Churchill departs for France where he will spend the holidays with a French family in order to improve his ability in the language.
1892
April 8. Churchill wins the Public School Fencing Championships by beating fencers from Brafield and Tonbridge in tournament held at Aldershot.
August. Churchill learns the results of the entrance examination for Sandhurst. He fails the exams, placing 390 out of 693 candidates.
1893
January 10. During a stay at Bournemouth, Churchill falls thirty feet from a bridge. He is unconscious for three days before making a slow recovery.
February. Churchill is sent to Captain James’s “crammer” in London for six months in order to pass the entrance examination for Sandhurst. He passes the examination on his third attempt.
August 3-29. In the company of his brother Jack and J.D.G. Little (an Eton tutor), Churchill completes a walking tour in Switzerland. At Lausanne Churchill and Jack nearly drown while rowing on the lake.
September 1. Churchill enters the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
1894
December. Churchill passes out of Sandhurst eighth out his class of 150.
1895
January 24. After a prolonged illness, Lord Randolph Churchill dies in London.
February 20. Churchill is commissioned an army officer and joins the 4th Hussars, a cavalry regiment.
November-December. Churchill visits the United States and then travels to Cuba to observe the Spanish Army, then engaged in operations against Cuban rebels. He begins his career as a journalist by sending articles from Cuba to the Daily Graphic, a London newspaper.
1896
October 1. Posted to India, Churchill disembarks at Bombay with his regiment and entrains for Bangalore.
1897
July 26. While on leave in England, Churchill delivers his first political speech at a meeting of the Primrose League in Bath.
September 1. Churchill joins the Malakand Field Force on the North West Frontier of India.
1898
March 14. Churchill’s first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, is published.
August 2. Churchill joins the 21st Lancers which forms part of Lord Kitchener’s expedition to the Sudan.
September 2. Churchill takes part in the cavalry charge of the 21st Lancers at the Battle of Omdurman.
1899
February 24. As a member of the Hussars polo team, Churchill wins the prestigious Inter-Regimental Polo Tournament in India.
March. Churchill departs India. He resigns his army commission in order to enter British politics.
July 6. Churchill unsuccessfully contests the by-election at Oldham for the Conservatives, losing by fifteen hundred votes.
October 14. Churchill departs for South Africa to cover the Anglo-Boer War as a correspondent for the Morning Post.
November 6. The River War, Churchill’s account of the reconquest of the Sudan, is published.
November 15. Churchill is captured by the Boers and imprisoned in a POW Camp in Pretoria.
December 12. Churchill escapes from the Boers and reaches Durban 11 days later.
1900
February 1. Churchill’s only novel, Savrola, is published. Churchill later remarks, “I have consistently urged my friends to abstain from reading it.”
February 28. After temporarily rejoining the British army, Churchill takes part in the relief of Ladysmith.
May 16. London to Ladysmith, the first of Churchill’s two books on the South African War, is published.
June 2. Churchill cycles through Boer-held Johannesburg ahead of the British troops.
October 1. Churchill is elected Member of Parliament for Oldham for the Conservatives.
October 12. Churchill’s second book on the South African War, Ian Hamilton’s March, is published.
November. Churchill makes a lecture tour of Britain.
December. Churchill makes a lecture tour of the United States and Canada which lasts until February 1901. During the tour he meets Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, and the American writer also named Winston Churchill.
1901
February 14. Churchill takes his seat in the House of Commons.
February 18. Churchill makes his maiden speech in the House of Commons, in which he bitterly criticizes the war in South Africa saying “if I were a Boer I hope I should be fighting in the field.”
1902
December 10. Churchill present at the ceremony for opening of the Aswan dam.
1904
May 31. After disagreements with the Balfour Government over Free Trade, Churchill quits the Conservative Party and joins the Liberal Party.
1905
December 9. Churchill is appointed Under Secretary of State for the Colonies.
1906
January 2. Churchill’s two-volume biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, is published.
January 13. Churchill is elected Member of Parliament for Manchester, Northwest, for the Liberals.
1907
April-May. Churchill attends the Colonial Conference held in London.
May 1. Churchill becomes Privy Councillor.
October. Churchill departs for a lengthy tour of East Africa, which includes traveling through Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt.
1908
April 12. Churchill is appointed to the cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. He takes a prominent role in enacting the government’s program of social legislation creating trade boards, labour exchanges, and unemployment and sickness insurance.
April 24. Churchill is defeated at a by-election for Manchester, Northwest as a Liberal candidate.
May 9. Churchill is elected Member of Parliament for Dundee, for the Liberals.
August 11. Churchill becomes engaged to Clementine Hozier at Blenheim.
September 12. Churchill marries Clementine Hozier at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.
December. Churchill’s My African Journey is published.
1909
July 11. Churchill’s first child, Diana Spencer Churchill, is born.
September 6. Churchill delivers a combative and controversial speech on Lloyd George’s budget at the Palace Theatre, Leicester.
November 13. Churchill is attacked by Miss Theresa Garnett, a suffragette, with a dog whip at Bristol railway station.
1910
January. Churchill is reelected Member of Parliament for Dundee for the Liberals.
February 14. Churchill is appointed Home Secretary.
November 8. Churchill incurs great controversy when he sends army troops and Metropolitan police to Tonypandy, Wales, to maintain order during a mining strike.
December 8. Churchill is reelected Member of Parliament for Dundee for the Liberals.
1911
January 3. Churchill appears in person to observe the police siege of two anarchists barricaded in a house in Sidney Street, East London.
May 28. Churchill’s son, Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer Churchill, is born.
June 22. Churchill and Clementine ride in the procession for the coronation of King George V.
October 23. Churchill is appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. He modernizes the navy, establishes the Royal Flying Corps, and supports the construction of an early version of the tank, then known as “Winston’s Folly.”
1913
Although he never solos, Churchill takes up flying and makes many flights.
1914
July 28. Churchill orders the British naval fleets to take up battle stations. Britain declares war on Germany on August 4, 1914.
October 3-6. Churchill organizes and accompanies the expedition to defend Antwerp.
October 7. Sarah Millicent Hermione Churchill, Churchill’s second daughter, is born.
1915
February 19. The Royal Navy begins the Gallipoli Campaign with the bombardment of Turkish fortifications at the Dardanelles. The expedition, devised and promoted by Churchill, ends in a prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful ground campaign.
May 25. Churchill is dismissed as First Lord of the Admiralty by Prime Minister Asquith.
May 27. Churchill is appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
June. While at Hoe Farm in Surrey, Churchill takes up painting.
November 11. Churchill resigns from the government. He departs seven days later to join the Grenadier Guards regiment in France.
1916
January 5. Churchill takes command of the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers in France.
March 7. While on leave from the front, Churchill suffers a severe political setback when he condemns the government’s conduct of the war in a speech in the House of Commons and calls for the return of Sir John Fisher as First Sea Lord.
May 7. After six months’ service in the trenches, Churchill returns to Britain to resume his political career.
1917
July 17. Churchill is appointed Minister of Munitions in Prime Minister David Lloyd-George’s cabinet. He pushes forward production of the new tanks.
July 30. Churchill is reelected Member of Parliament for Dundee for the Liberals.
1918
November 11. On the night of the Armistice, Churchill dines with Lloyd George and F.E. Smith at 10 Downing Street.
November 15. Churchill’s third daughter, Marigold Frances Churchill, is born.
December 14. Churchill is reelected Member of Parliament for Dundee for the Liberals.
1919
January 9. Churchill is appointed Secretary of State for War and Air.
February 14-17. Churchill attends the Paris Peace Conference and unsuccessfully presses for military intervention in the Russian Civil War.
November 17. The report of the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors is released. It concludes that it was “primarily due to the receptivity, courage, and driving force of the Rt. Hon Winston Spencer Churchill that the general idea of the use of such an instrument of warfare as the Tank was converted into a practical shape.”
1921
February 13. Churchill is appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies. He is a member of the Cabinet committee that negotiates a treaty with the leaders of the Irish Rebellion.
March 12-22. Churchill chairs the Cairo Conference on the future of Iraq and British policy in the Middle East.
March 20. Churchill, Clementine, Lawrence of Arabia, and Gertrude Bell visit the pyramids.
June 29. Lady Randolph Churchill dies.
August 23. Marigold Frances Churchill dies.
December 6. Churchill is one of the signatories of the treaty between Great Britain and Ireland.
1922
September-October. Churchill supports Prime Minister Lloyd-George in the Chanak Crisis.
September 15. Churchill’s fourth daughter, Mary Churchill, is born. That same day Churchill buys Chartwell Manor in Kent.
November 15. Churchill is defeated in the general election at Dundee, standing as a National Liberal candidate. He later writes, “I found myself without office, without a seat, without a party, and even without an appendix.”
1923
April 10. The first volume of the World Crisis, Churchill’s account of the First World War, is published. The fifth and last volume of the work is published in 1931.
December 6. Churchill is defeated in the general election at Leicester West standing as a Liberal candidate.
1924
March 19. Standing as an Independent Anti-Socialist candidate, Churchill is defeated at the by-election for Westminster Abbey.
October 29. Churchill is elected as a Member of Parliament for Epping as a Constitutionalist candidate.
November 6. Churchill is appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative government. He later rejoins the Conservative Party.
1925
January 14. Churchill attends the Inter-Allied Finance Conference held in Paris.
April 28. In his first budget as Chancellor, Churchill returns Britain to the Gold Standard at the prewar parity.
1926
April 27. Churchill presents his second budget as Chancellor to the House of Commons.
May 5-13. During the General Strike, Churchill edits the British Gazette, a newspaper published by the government.
July 7. Churchill speaks in a raucous debate on the British Gazette in the House of Commons. He declares, “I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire.”
July 12. In London, Churchill signs an agreement for the settlement of the War Debt of France to Great Britain.
1927
January 8. While in Malta, Churchill plays his last game of polo.
January 14. During a visit to Rome, Churchill meets Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
April 11. Churchill presents the budget to the House of Commons.
1928
April 24. Churchill delivers his fourth budget at the House of Commons in which the first British tax on petrol is introduced.
October 10. Under the occupation of bricklayer, Churchill is admitted to the Amalgamated Union of Building Trades Workers.
1929
April 15. Churchill delivers his fifth budget to the House of Commons.
May 30. Although Churchill is reelected as a Member of Parliament for Epping for the Conservatives in the general election, the Conservatives lose the election and he leaves cabinet office.
August 3-November 5. Churchill completes a tour of Canada and the United States during which he meets Charlie Chaplin and William Randolph Hearst, as well as visits Prime Minister Mackenzie King in Ottawa and President Herbert Hoover at the White House. He loses a fortune in the stock market crash.
December 13. Churchill speaks at his installation as Chancellor at Bristol University.
1930
October 20. Churchill’s autobiography, My Early Life, is published.
1931
January 27. Churchill resigns from the Conservative shadow cabinet over policy for India and enters the “wilderness.”
February 23. Churchill opposes India’s constitutional negotiations in a speech to the West Essex Conservatives in which he calls Gandhi “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer.”
October 27. Churchill is reelected as a Member of Parliament for Epping for the Conservatives in the general election.
December 13. Churchill is injured when he is knocked down by an automobile in New York City, at the start of a lecture tour.
December 31. Churchill departs New York to complete his recovery in the Bahamas.
1932
January 25. Churchill returns to New York to complete a lecture tour which runs through March.
February 13. Churchill is received at the White House by President Hoover.
May 13. In a speech to the House of Commons, Churchill warns against France and Germany being equal in military strength saying he would ask those who do, “Do you wish for war?”
November 10. Churchill’s book Thoughts and Adventures is published.
December 12. Churchill gives the bride away at the wedding of his daughter Diana to John Bailey held at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.
1933
March 10. In the House of Commons, Churchill opposes the government’s proposals to reduce spending on the air force for the second year in a row.
June 28. Churchill speaks on India at a meeting of the Conservative Central Council in London, but fails to change the government’s policy.
October 6. Marlborough, Churchill’s biography of his ancestor, is published. The fourth and last volume in the work is published in 1938.
November 7. Churchill warns that Germany has already begun to rearm in the House of Commons.
1934
March 8. In a parliamentary debate over Air Estimates, Churchill urges an increased spending on the Royal Air Force and stronger air defenses.
November 28. Churchill warns in a speech in the House of Commons that Germany will reach parity in air strength in 1935.
1935
May 21. Churchill attends the funeral of T.E. Lawrence at Moreton Church, Dorset.
July 9. Churchill joins the Committee of Imperial Defence on Air Defence Research.
September 16. Churchill gives the bride away at the wedding of his daughter Diana to Duncan Sandys held at St. Ethelburga’s Church, Bishopsgate. There are three children from the marriage: Julian (born 1936), Edwina (born 1938), and Celia (born 1943)
October 29. Germany makes a diplomatic protest to Britain over an article written by Churchill on Hitler that was published in the Strand.
November 14. Churchill is reelected as a Member of Parliament for Epping for the Conservatives.
1936
November 12. Churchill makes a brilliant speech in the House of Commons in the defence debate.
November-December. Churchill incurs great unpopularity by advising and supporting King Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis.
December 7. Churchill can not make himself heard amid the uproar and is shouted down in the House of Commons as he pleads on the King’s behalf.
1937
October 4. Great Contemporaries by Churchill is published.
1938
March 14. Churchill speaks on the German annexation of Austria in the House of Commons.
June 24. Arms and the Covenant, a collection of Churchill’s speeches, is published.
October 5. Churchill denounces the Munich Agreement in the House of Commons as “a defeat without a war.”
1939
June 27. Churchill’s Step by Step is published.
July. A large billboard appears in the Strand, London which reads “What Price Churchill?”
September 3. With the start of the Second World War, Churchill is appointed for a second time the First Lord of the Admiralty.
October 1. Churchill makes his first radio broadcast of the war.
October 4. Churchill attends the marriage of Randolph Churchill to Pamela Digby at St. John’s, Smith Square. There is one son from marriage, Winston Churchill, Jr., who was born on October 10, 1940.
1940
May 8. Churchill vigorously defends the government in the Norway debate in the House of Commons.
May 10. Neville Chamberlain resigns and Churchill is appointed Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. He forms a coalition government that includes the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal parties.
May 13. Addressing the House of Commons for the first time as prime minister, Churchill declares “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”
May 28. Churchill makes a statement in the House of Commons on the surrender of Belgium warning of “hard and heavy tidings to come.”
June 4. After the British evacuation at Dunkirk, Churchill makes the “We shall fight on the beaches” speech to the House Commons.
June. Churchill makes a visit to France for discussions with the Reynaud government. His offer of an Anglo-French Union is rejected by the French cabinet.
June 18. Churchill delivers the “Their Finest Hour” speech to the House of Commons.
July 4. Churchill speaks on the destruction of the French fleet in the House of Commons.
August. Churchill negotiates the “Destroyers for Bases” agreement with President Franklin Roosevelt in which Britain obtains fifty American destroyers in exchange for leases on bases in the West Indies, Bermuda, and Newfoundland. The agreement is finalized in 1941.
August 20. With the “Battle of Britain” underway, Churchill delivers “The Few” speech to the House of Commons.
October 9. Churchill accepts the leadership of the Conservative Party.
December. Churchill urges President Roosevelt to provide material and economic support to the British war effort which eventually results in the “Lend-Lease Agreement.”
December 18. Churchill visits Harrow for its “Songs Night,” an annual pilgrimage he will make for the next 20 years.
1941
February 9. Churchill makes the “Give Us the Tools” speech in a broadcast from London.
June 22. Churchill offers aid to the Soviet Union after the German invasion that began earlier that day in a broadcast from London.
August 9-12. Churchill meets President Roosevelt aboard HMS Prince of Wales and USS Augusta at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter is drafted and signed by Churchill and Roosevelt.
December 7. Churchill is at Chequers when he learns of the Japanese attack and speaks with Roosevelt by telephone.
December 22. Churchill arrives in the United States for the Washington Conference. Lasting until January 14, 1942 the conference coordinates the combined war effort. With President Roosevelt, he lights the National Christmas tree.
December 26. Churchill addresses both houses of Congress.
December 30. During a brief visit to Canada, Churchill addresses the House of Commons.
1942
February 19. The composition of Churchill’s new War Cabinet is announced.
March. Sir Stafford Cripps is dispatched by Churchill and the cabinet to India to negotiate a constitutional settlement.
May 26. The Anglo-Soviet Treaty is signed in London by Churchill and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheskav Molotov.
June 18. Churchill arrives in Washington by air for meetings with Roosevelt.
July 2. Following the surrender of the British garrison at Tobruk, a motion of “No Confidence” in the Churchill government is debated in the House Commons. The motion is defeated 475 to 25.
August. Churchill flies to Cairo with his senior advisers to review the military situation in the Middle East. He dismisses General Auchinleck from command and appoints General Alexander in his place with Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery to command the Eighth Army.
August 12. Churchill arrives in Moscow for meetings with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
1943
January 14-24. At the Casablanca Conference, Churchill and President Roosevelt decide on a policy of “unconditional surrender” for the enemy.
January 30. Churchill meets Turkish President Ismet Inonu at Adana in southern Turkey.
May 11-25. At the second Washington Conference, Churchill and Roosevelt agree to delay the invasion of France in May 1944.
May 19. Churchill addresses the US Congress in Washington.
June 1. Churchill addresses British soldiers at the Roman Amphitheatre in Carthage.
August 17-24. Churchill leads the British delegation of diplomatic and military advisors at the First Quebec Conference with President Roosevelt.
November-December. At the Cairo Conference Churchill and Roosevelt are joined by Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek in discussions of allied strategy.
November 28-December 1. At the Tehran Conference Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin meet together for the first time.
December 12. Churchill falls ill with pneumonia in Tunisia and convalesces in Marrakech from late December 1943 to January 1944.
1944
May. Churchill attends the Dominion Prime Ministers Conference held in London.
June 6. At midday Churchill addresses House of Commons announcing the liberation of Rome and the Normandy landings.
June 12. Six days after D-Day, Churchill visits the Allied forces in Normandy.
August 10-28. Churchill travels to Algiers, visits the Italian front, and observes the amphibious landings in southern France. He holds conversations with Yugoslav Partisan leader Tito in Naples and has an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome.
September 12-16. At the Second Quebec Conference, Churchill and Roosevelt meet to discuss Allied strategy and plan for the post-war occupation of Germany.
October 9-19. At the Moscow Conference with Joseph Stalin, Churchill agrees to zones of influence in Eastern Europe.
November 10-14. Churchill visits recently liberated Paris with Charles De Gaulle and inspects the frontlines at Vosges.
December 25-29. Churchill is in Athens to negotiate an agreement between Greek political factions.
1945
February 2. Churchill meets with Roosevelt and the Combined Chiefs of Staff aboard the USS Quincy at the Grand Harbour, Malta.
February 4-11. Churchill attends Yalta Conference with President Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin.
February 15. Churchill meets with Roosevelt aboard an American cruiser in the harbour at Alexandria, Egypt.
February 16-17. In Egypt, Churchill holds separate meetings with the Emperor of Ethiopia, King Ibn Saud, the King of Egypt, and the president of the Syrian Republic.
March 5. Churchill observes the operations of the 21st Army Group in the crossing the Rhine.
May 8. Churchill announces the end of the war in Europe in the House of Commons.
May 23. With the surrender of Germany, the British coalition government is dissolved. Churchill forms a “Caretaker Government” and a general election is scheduled.
June 4. In his first broadcast of the election, Churchill makes his Gestapo speech.
July 16. In Berlin, Churchill inspects the ruins of Hitler’s Chancellery and bunker.
July 17-25. At the Potsdam Conference, Churchill meets with President Harry Truman and Stalin to discuss surrender terms for Japan and post-war boundaries for Europe.
July 26. The results of the general election are announced. The Conservatives are defeated and Clement Attlee succeeds Churchill as Prime Minister. Churchill is reelected as a Member of Parliament and becomes Leader of Opposition in the House of Commons.
August 15. Churchill speaks on the surrender of Japan in the House of Commons.
1946
January 1. Churchill is awarded the Order of Merit.
January-March. Churchill travels to the United States and Cuba and visits President Truman at the White House.
March 5. With Truman in attendance, Churchill delivers the “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.
September 19. After receiving an honorary degree at Zurich, Churchill delivers a speech urging the creation of a “kind of United States of Europe.”
1947
February 11. Churchill gives the bride away at the wedding of his daughter Mary to Christopher Soames held at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. There are five children from the marriage: Arthur (born 1948), Emma (born 1949), Jeremy (born 1952), Charlotte (born 1954), and Rupert (born 1959)
February 23. With Churchill in attendance his brother, John Strange Spencer Churchill, dies at the age of 67 in London.
May 3. Two of Churchill’s paintings, Winter Sunshine and The Loup River, are exhibited at the Royal Academy after he submitted his works under the name of David Walker.
1948
May 7. Churchill attends the inaugural Congress of Europe at The Hague.
June 21. The first volume of Churchill’s The Second World War is published. The sixth and final volume of the work is published in 1953.
November 2. Churchill attends a luncheon at the Savoy in honor of the marriage of his son Randolph to June Osborne. There is a daughter from the marriage, Arabella, born November 30, 1949.
1949
March-April. Churchill visits the United States.
August 25. Having established a racing stable earlier in the year, Churchill’s horse, Colonist II, wins at the Salisbury races.
1950
February 23. Although Churchill is reelected Conservative Member of Parliament for Woodford, the Labour Party under Attlee retain power in the general election.
1951
October 25. Churchill is reelected Conservative Member of Parliament for Woodford. The Conservative Party wins the general election and Churchill returns as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence.
1952
January 4-22. Churchill visits North America to hold meetings with Truman in Washington and Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent in Ottawa.
January 17. Churchill addresses the United States Congress in Washington.
February 7. Churchill pays tribute to King George VI as a “model” sovereign in a eulogy broadcast from London.
March 1. Churchill relinquishes duties as Minister of Defence, while remaining as Prime Minister.
1953
April 24. Queen Elizabeth II confers the Knight of the Garter on Churchill.
June 2. Churchill present at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
June 23. Churchill suffers a serious stroke.
October 10. Churchill addresses the Conservative party conference at Margate.
October 13. Churchill is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. As Churchill is previously scheduled to attend the Bermuda Conference, Clementine and his daughter Mary travel to Stockholm in December to accept on his behalf.
December 4-8. Churchill attends the Bermuda Conference with President Dwight Eisenhower and French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel.
1954
June 14. Churchill is installed as a Knight of the Garter.
June 25-30. Churchill visits the United States and Canada to meet President Eisenhower in Washington and Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent in Ottawa.
October 9. Churchill speaks on “Peace through Strength” at the Conservative party conference at Blackpool.
November 30. Churchill attends a ceremony at Westminster Hall on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The Lords and the Commons combined to present a portrait of Churchill by Graham Sutherland, which is later ordered destroyed by Clementine.
1955
April 5. At the age of eighty, Churchill resigns as Prime Minister. He declines the offer of a dukedom from Queen Elizabeth II to remain as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons.
May 26. Churchill is reelected Member of Parliament for Woodford for the Conservatives.
1956
May 10. Churchill is awarded the Charlemagne Prize at Aachen, Germany.
April 23. The first volume of A History of the English Speaking Peoples is published. The fourth and final volume of the work is published in 1958.
1958
September 12. Churchill and Clementine mark their Golden wedding anniversary at the Villa Capponcina, Lord Beaverbrook’s estate in France.
1959
May 6. Churchill speaks on “Union of the English-Speaking Peoples” at the White House.
September 1. Churchill attends a reunion dinner hosted by Eisenhower at the residence of the American ambassador in London with many of the leading military figures of the war in attendance.
October 8. Churchill is reelected Member of Parliament for Woodford for the Conservatives.
1960
April 6. Churchill is visited by Charles de Gaulle at his home at Hyde Park Gate, London.
1961
April. Churchill makes his final visit to the United States.
1963
April 9. After a vote of both houses of Congress, President John F. Kennedy confers honorary American citizenship on Winston Churchill. Too ill to attend, Churchill’s son Randolph accepts on his behalf at a White House ceremony.
October 19. Churchill’s daughter Diana dies by suicide.
1964
July 27. Churchill attends the House of Commons for the last time. He does not stand as a candidate at the October 15, 1964 general election and steps down as a Member of Parliament.
November 30. Churchill makes his last public appearance at the window of No. 28 Hyde Park Gate on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
1965
January 24. On the seventieth anniversary of his father’s death, Churchill dies in London.
January 27-30. Churchill lies in state at Westminster Hall as 300,000 people file past.
January 30. A state funeral for Churchill is held at St. Paul’s Cathedral. He is buried next to his parents in Bladon churchyard, a short distance from Blenheim Palace.
June 15. Clementine Churchill takes her seat in the House of Lords as Lady Spencer-Churchill, a life peerage.
1966
The first volume of Winston S. Churchill, the official biography of Churchill’s life, is published. The first two volumes are written by his son Randolph. After Randolph’s death, Sir Martin Gilbert assumes the authorship of the biography.
1968
June 6. Randolph Churchill dies at his home at East Bergholt, Suffolk.
1977
December 12. Clementine Churchill dies at age of 92 at her flat in Princess Gate, Hyde Park, London.
1982
September 24. Sarah Churchill dies at the age of 67 at her home in London.
2014
May 31. Lady Soames dies at the age of 91 in London.
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