Winston Churchill
The British prime minister whose speeches and bullheaded refusal to negotiate kept Britain in WWII when it could have folded.
Origin
Winston Churchill (1874–1965) had been written off as a finished politician by 1939. When Chamberlain's appeasement collapsed, Parliament made Churchill prime minister in May 1940, days before France fell. He spent the next year refusing every back-channel peace offer from Berlin. His radio speeches — 'blood, toil, tears and sweat,' 'we shall fight on the beaches,' 'their finest hour' — held public morale through the Blitz. Voted out the moment the war ended in Europe. Returned as PM in the 1950s, won a Nobel in Literature for his histories, and remained the British self-image of stubborn defiance. His record on India and the Bengal famine has aged badly.
Modern usage
'Their finest hour' is now the standard phrase for a group rising to a crisis. 'Iron Curtain' ([[iron-curtain]]) is his coinage from a 1946 speech. The V-for-victory hand sign, the cigar, and the bulldog look are all him. Quoted constantly — usually accurately, sometimes not (the 'no greater enemy of socialism' lines floating online are mostly fake).
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