Top 10 Facts about Winston Churchill


 

Winston Churchill is remembered as one of Britain’s great politicians with his inspiring and outstanding speeches. He is also remembered for leading Britain’s victory in the Second World War. Of course, he has critics for the morality of a few of his actions such as giving permission for the blanket bombing of German cities. However, his actions are justified by the fact that he only delivered what the British needed at its time of crisis.

It is a miracle how Churchill managed to live up to the old age of 90 considering his life choices. Churchill was a heavy chain smoker by the age of 16 and loved his alcohol. He justified these choices by stating that his religion allowed him to indulge both smoking and drinking. Discover below 10 more facts about Winston Churchill, one of the defining figures of the 20th century.

1. Churchill struggled in school and almost didn’t make it into military school.

Winston Churchill 1874 – Wikipedia

Churchill enrolled at Harrow in 1888. He scored very poorly in his entrance exams such that he was placed bottom of his class. He continued to struggle in school and this is well documented in the letter sent to Lady Randolph, Churchill’s mother, from the assistant master at Harrow in July 1888 describing Churchill’s shortcomings such as forgetfulness, carelessness and lack of punctuality.

This is farther confirmed by Churchill when he described in his memoir taking a two-hour-long Latin test that he left completely blank apart from his name and the number of the first question, along with “a blot and several smudges.”

Churchill could not be described as an unintelligent child because he did quite well in the subjects that he enjoyed such as history and English composition. After Harrow, he enrolled in the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He failed the entrance exams twice but passed it the third time with the aid of a military tutor. He qualified for the cavalry class.

2. Churchill was half American.

Lord Randolph Churchill and Lady Jennie Jerome (1874) – Wikipedia

Winston Churchill’s parents were Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill, a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Jennie Jerome, an American socialite. The two met at the Isle of Wight and got engaged three days later. The two had one more son apart from Winston, John Strange Spencer Churchill born in 1880.

He was also made an honorary American citizen in 1963. He was the first person to earn such a distinction.

3. Churchill was extremely accident-prone.

Churchill at age six – Wikipedia

In 1900, Churchill gives us an insight into his attitude towards risk, “You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.” Despite his relaxed attitude and frequent accidents, he managed to live until 90 years before succumbing to a stroke.

As a youth he suffered a ruptured kidney while playfully jumping off a bridge, he almost drowned in a Swiss lake, he fell off horses several times, he dislocated his shoulder while departing from a ship in India, and he crashed his plane while learning to fly.

The man who seemed to have nine lives like a cat was involved in a very serious life-threatening accident while crossing New York’s Fifth Avenue. It is rumored that he failed to look both ways before crossing and was hit by a car. He was able to survive this accident.

4. The great escape from a Boer’s Prison Camp.

Boers militants – Wikipedia

As a newspaper war correspondent Churchill travelled to South Africa in 1899 to cover the war between the British and the Boer’s, descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa. The armored train he was travelling in was ambushed by the Boers, he was taken as a war prisoner.

Upon the realization that his release was unlikely, he made a 300-mile escape by scaling the prison walls. As he wondered about, since he did not have a concert escape plan, he stumbled upon the house of a British coal mine manager who aided him by hiding him in a mine shaft. After three days of hiding Churchill was directed to a wool-filled rail truck that took him to Mozambique.

Funny enough once he reached Mozambique he caught a ship back to South Africa and went to the War front lines. This escape made him a national hero in Britain.

5. Churchill was passionate about painting.

Winston Churchill painting – Flickr

Churchill’s passion for painting is well depicted when he said, “When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting.” He was such a good painter that Pablo Picasso noted that, “If that man, Churchill, were a painter by profession he’d have no trouble in earning a good living.”

He began painting in 1915 and managed to produce at least 500 works during his lifetime. Many of his attractive, idealized landscape paintings were reproduced on greeting cards. In 1947, under the pen name David Winter, two of his painting were accepted in the Royal Academy. He would end up exhibiting no less than 50 pieces at the Royal Academy before his death. Today some of his paints are displayed in the National Trust Collection.

6. Churchill invented and popularized several words.

Churchill Iron Curtain Speech – Flickr

It is a well-known fact that Churchill was an ample reader who grasps the key points of long texts very fast. From his vast reading, he was able to invent a word or two. He is credited with inventing the word ‘summit’ in 1950.

He is also responsible for popularizing the word ‘quisling’ as a synonym for traitor in 1942. In 1946, he made a speech that popularized the term ‘iron curtain’ to refer to the Soviet Union. This term was used henceforth by Western officials when referring to USSR.

7. He won a Nobel Prize.

Winston Churchill’s Nobel Prize for Literature – Flickr

Churchill was not only a powerful politician, a talented painter, but he was also a gifted writer. Over the course of his life, he wrote several books, the first being a detailed account of his army experiences while in India, Sudan and South Africa, a biography of his father, many volumes on World War I and II, a history of English-speaking peoples and a novel that he requested his friends not to read.

In 1953, while serving his second term as Prime Minister, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was credited “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

8. He is honored on two occasions on British coins.

Churchill Crown – Flickr

For you to be commemorated by your country is such a great opportunity and honor that only a few get. Churchill was such an influential individual that he got the honors of being remembered on a United Kingdom coin not once but twice.

After his death in 1965, he was engraved on a coin and once again 50 years later. This makes him the only statesman to be honored twice in such a way.

9. He loved and enjoyed the good life of eating, drinking and smoking.

Churchill smoking a cigar – Flickr

Churchill truly loved and enjoyed the good life when he declared that “Hot baths, cold champagne, new peas and old brandy” were the four essentials of life. He would brook little compromise when it came to this and this is well depicted when asked not to drink in front of Saudi King due to the King’s religious beliefs he responded by saying, “my religion prescribed absolute sacred rite smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and the intervals between them.”

During the Prohibition era in the USA Churchill described this act as, “an affront to the whole history of mankind.” He took 60 bottles of alcohol with him when he was covering the Boer War and even had his oxygen mask altered so that he could smoke through it. Churchill indeed did have a formidable appetite that primary focused on eating, smoking and drinking.

10. Churchill was no fan of Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi, 1931 – Wikipedia

Gandhi is a celebrated hero who many people try to emulate up to date, but Churchill had a deep dislike for him such that at one point he referred to him as, “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East.” He even favored letting Gandhi die during the famous hunger strike.

Churchill’s dislike for Gandhi is more political based as the two had two different views when it came to India’s self-governance. Gandhi was the leader of the Indian Independence Movement and campaigned for India’s independence from the British while Churchill was against any form of autonomy for India.

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