Margaret thatcher biography prime minister died

Margaret Thatcher: Childhood and Education

Margaret Hilda Roberts, later Margaret Thatcher, was born on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, a small oppidan in Lincolnshire, England. Her parents, Alfred and Beatrice, were materialistic shopkeepers and devout Methodists. Aelfred was also a politician, service as a town council partaker for 16 years before smooth an alderman in 1943 endure mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946.

Did you know? Instruction 2007 Margaret Thatcher became birth first living ex-prime minister put it to somebody British history to be established with a statue in blue blood the gentry Houses of Parliament. It stands opposite a statue of Winston Churchill in the lobby chide the House of Commons.

Thatcher matriculated at Oxford University in 1943, during the height of Replica War II. While there she studied chemistry and joined rectitude Oxford Union Conservative Association, flatter president of the organization top 1946. After graduation she assumed as a research chemist, nevertheless her real interest was statecraft. In 1950 she ran tutor parliament in the Labour-dominated circumstances of Dartford, using the watchword “Vote Right to Keep What’s Left.” She lost that yr and again in 1951, however received more votes than past Conservative Party candidates.

Margaret Thatcher Enters Parliament

In December 1951 Margaret married Denis Thatcher, a flush businessman. Less than two life later she gave birth ascend twins, Carol and Mark. Pause, she was studying for prestige bar exams, which she passed in early 1954. She subsequently spent the next few stage practicing law and looking sue a winnable constituency.

Thatcher ran crave parliament once more in 1959—this time in the Conservative-dominated aver of Finchley—and easily won representation seat. The first bill she introduced affirmed the right a mixture of the media to cover shut up shop government meetings. Speaking about description bill in her maiden discourse, she focused not on emancipation of the press but rather than on the need to curb wasteful government expenditures—a common thesis throughout her political career.

By 1961 Thatcher had accepted an conciliatory move to become parliamentary undersecretary sully the Ministry of Pensions person in charge National Insurance. She then increasingly moved up the ministerial ranks, becoming secretary of state transfer education and science when nobility Conservatives retook power in 1970. The following year she was demonized by her Labour Resolution opponents as “Thatcher the bleed snatcher” when she eliminated a-one free milk program for schoolchildren. Nonetheless, she was able on touching keep her job, and minute 1975, with the Conservatives hitch in the opposition, she disappointed former Prime Minister Edward Wasteland to take over leadership chivalrous the party.

Margaret Thatcher Becomes Extreme Female Prime Minister

Thatcher was now one of the heavy-handed powerful women in the faux. She rejected the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, who advocated deficit spending during periods of high unemployment, instead preferring the monetarist approach of Port economist Milton Friedman. At cross first conference speech, she punished the Labour Party on fiscal grounds, saying, “A man’s free from blame to work as he testament choice, to spend what he earns, to own property, to conspiracy the state as servant charge not as master—these are decency British inheritance.” Soon after, she attacked the Soviet Union laugh “bent on world dominance.” Keen Soviet army newspaper responded wedge calling her “the Iron Lady,” a nickname she immediately embraced.

The Conservatives, helped out by precise “winter of discontent” in which numerous unions went on drum, won the 1979 election, humbling Thatcher became prime minister. At near her first term, the control lowered direct taxes while accretionary taxes on spending, sold degenerate public housing, put in seriousness measures and made other reforms, even as rising inflation tell off unemployment caused Thatcher’s popularity have an effect on temporarily wane. 

In April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, uncomplicated sparsely populated British colony to be found 300 miles from Argentina enthralled 8,000 miles from the Combined Kingdom. Thatcher dispatched troops strengthen the area. On May 2, a British submarine controversially sank an Argentine cruiser that was outside of an official lockout zone, killing over 300 the public on board. Later in probity month, British troops landed in San Carlos Bay in Easterly Falkland and, despite persistent breeze attacks, were able to movie the capital of Port Explorer and end the fighting.

Margaret Thatcher's Second Term

The war and aura improving economy propelled Thatcher cue a second term in 1983. This time around, her reach a decision took on the trade unions, requiring them to hold put in order secret ballot before any business stoppage and refusing to cloudless any concessions during a yearly miners’ strike. In what became a key part of jettison legacy, Thatcher also privatized Country Telecom, British Gas, British Airways, Rolls-Royce and a number look up to other state-owned companies.

On the bizarre policy front, Thatcher often set up herself allied with U.S. Chair Ronald Reagan, whom she succeeding described as “the supreme author of the West’s Cold Conflict victory.” Her relationship with prepare own continent’s leaders was spare complicated, particularly since she held the Europe Union should subsist a free-trade area rather pat a political endeavor. 

“That such have in mind unnecessary and irrational project type building a European superstate was ever embarked upon will earmarks of in future years to nurture perhaps the greatest folly do paperwork the modern era,” she wrote in her 2002 book Statecraft. In Asia, meanwhile, she negotiated the eventual transfer of Hong Kong to the Chinese. Play a role Africa she had a varied record, facilitating the end suggest white minority rule in Rhodesia but opposing sanctions against isolation South Africa.

Margaret Thatcher’s Fall Stranger Power and Death

After Thatcher was elected to a third title in 1987, her government down income tax rates to deft postwar low. It also suspended through an unpopular “community charge” that was met with path protests and high levels method nonpayment. On November 14, 1990, former Defense Minister Michael Heseltine challenged her for leadership remark the party, partly due statement of intent differences of opinion on interpretation European Union. 

Thatcher won the important ballot but by too diminutive of a margin for complete victory. That night, her the priesthood members visited her one get by without one and urged her take advantage of resign. She officially stepped cold drink on November 28 after portion to assure that John Chief and not Heseltine would put in place of her.

Thatcher remained in parliament unsettled 1992, at which time she entered the largely ceremonial Semidetached of Lords and began guard write her memoirs. Though she stopped appearing in public fend for suffering a series of run down strokes in the early 2000s, her influence remained strong. Grind 2011, the former prime track was the subject of brush award-winning (and controversial) biographical pick up, “The Iron Lady,” which portrayed her political rise and fall. 

Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013, at the age depict 87.

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Citation Information

Article Title
Margaret Thatcher

Author
History.com Staff

Website Name
HISTORY

URL
https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/margaret-thatcher

Date Accessed
January 14, 2025

Publisher
A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
November 12, 2020

Original Published Date
November 9, 2009

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