70 Fun Facts About Winston Churchill

At which grand house was Churchill born in November 1874?

Blenheim Palace was Queen Anne's and Parliament's reward to his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, for his 1704 triumph at Blenheim.

Churchill's mother Jennie was the daughter of an American businessman named what?

Leonard Jerome, a stock speculator dubbed the King of Wall Street, helped build Jerome Park Racetrack, where the first Belmont Stakes was run in 1867.

Whom did Churchill mourn as 'my dearest and most intimate friend' when she died in 1895?

His nanny Elizabeth Everest, whom he called Woom, had cared for him since infancy; he attended her funeral and paid for her headstone.

Which military college did Churchill attend as a cavalry cadet before joining the army?

Sandhurst admitted him in September 1893, but only after he had failed its entrance exam twice.

What did Churchill call the recurring depression that troubled him through life?

Churchill named his recurring depression his black dog, and biographer Roy Jenkins saw writing as his chief defence against it.

At which 1898 battle in Sudan did Churchill take part in one of the British Army's last cavalry charges?

Omdurman saw him charge as a 21st Lancers subaltern, though he was a 4th Hussars officer on attachment; he later wrote The River War about the campaign.

During the Second Boer War, Churchill was captured after Boer shelling derailed what?

He was interned in Pretoria; his dramatic escape weeks later made him famous.

How did Churchill escape his Boer captors in December 1899?

He made it to Portuguese East Africa, and the escape brought him great publicity.

In 1904 Churchill 'crossed the floor' from the Conservatives to which party?

He joined the Liberals as a free trader in 1904, then crossed back to the Conservatives twenty years later, in 1924.

Whom did Churchill marry in September 1908 at St Margaret's, Westminster?

Clementine Hozier accepted his proposal that August, and their marriage lasted more than 56 years, until his death in January 1965.

As President of the Board of Trade, what did Churchill's 1909 Trade Boards Act let boards set?

Minimum wages set by the new boards were legally enforceable, so exploitative employers could be prosecuted.

During which 1911 East End incident did Churchill controversially stand with police as a house burned?

The Siege of Sidney Street, where members of a Latvian gang who had killed three policemen were holed up in a Stepney house.

Which word is Churchill said to have coined as First Lord of the Admiralty?

Seaplane, a coinage credited to Churchill; the word dates from 1913, while he was running the Admiralty.

Churchill was blamed for which failed 1915 campaign, which cost him the Admiralty?

Gallipoli: the Conservatives, who detested him as a defector, made his removal from the Admiralty their condition for joining Asquith's coalition.

As First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill backed which new weapon, first used at the Somme in September 1916?

The tank: to keep the machines secret, they were passed off as water carriers, and 'tank' began as a code name.

Which Kent country house did Churchill buy in 1922?

Chartwell, near Westerham, which remained the Churchills' family home until his death in 1965.

Churchill joked that after the 1922 election he was without an office, a seat, a party and what?

An appendix: surgeons removed it in October 1922, and the weakness that followed left him barely able to campaign in Dundee.

As Chancellor in 1925, Churchill controversially restored Britain to what, against Keynes's advice?

The gold standard, at its pre-war rate; critics blame the decision for depressing the economy and raising unemployment.

During the 1926 General Strike, which government propaganda paper did Churchill edit?

The British Gazette: Churchill even requisitioned newsprint, forcing the strikers' British Worker down from eight pages to four.

Which Indian leader did Churchill scorn in 1931 as a seditious lawyer turned fakir?

Gandhi, who had himself trained as a barrister at London's Inner Temple.

What name is given to Churchill's 1930s spell out of office, when he warned about Nazi Germany?

His wilderness years, when officials Desmond Morton and Ralph Wigram secretly fed him figures on German rearmament.

How did Churchill describe the 1938 Munich Agreement in the Commons?

"A total and unmitigated defeat", he told MPs on 5 October 1938, adding that France had suffered even more than Britain.

On Churchill's orders in 1940, HMS Cossack boarded which German ship in Norwegian waters, freeing 299 seamen?

The Altmark, supply ship to the Admiral Graf Spee, was carrying seamen captured from ships the raider had sunk.

Whom did Churchill succeed as prime minister in May 1940?

Neville Chamberlain, days after Leo Amery told him in the Commons, quoting Cromwell, 'In the name of God, go!'

Which new post did Churchill create and take, making him Britain's most powerful wartime prime minister?

Minister of Defence; he also brought in outside experts, such as the physicist Frederick Lindemann as his scientific adviser.

Which one word did Churchill give as Britain's aim in his 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' speech?

Victory: 'victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror', because without victory there is no survival.

Churchill hailed 'a miracle of deliverance' after which 1940 operation rescued about 338,000 Allied troops?

Dynamo: yet Churchill warned MPs that 'wars are not won by evacuations.'

In which speech did Churchill vow to fight on the beaches and never surrender?

His Dunkirk address of 4 June 1940 closes by looking to the New World to step forth to the rescue, a clear appeal to the neutral United States.

Churchill's 18 June 1940 speech, declaring the Battle of France over, is known as what?

Their finest hour: he told MPs he expected the Battle of Britain was about to begin.

What did Churchill tell Hugh Dalton to do with the newly formed Special Operations Executive?

'Set Europe ablaze': he said it on 22 July 1940, the day the SOE was formed to run sabotage and resistance in occupied Europe.

Of whom did Churchill say 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'?

The RAF fighter pilots: he first said the line to General Ismay after watching the battle from the RAF Uxbridge bunker four days earlier.

In 1941 Churchill said that if Hitler invaded Hell, he would do what?

Make a favourable reference to the Devil: he said it the night before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, despite his long hostility to communism.

Churchill and Roosevelt issued which joint statement of war aims at Placentia Bay in August 1941?

The Atlantic Charter: Churchill had crossed aboard HMS Prince of Wales, and the charter inspired the 1942 Declaration by United Nations.

What did Churchill suffer on 26 December 1941, the night after addressing the US Congress?

A mild heart attack: days later he took the train to Ottawa and addressed Canada's parliament.

Churchill called the 1942 fall of which city 'the worst disaster' in British military history?

Singapore, where about 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops surrendered to some 30,000 Japanese front-line soldiers.

In his November 1942 speech after El Alamein, which phrase did Churchill use for the war's progress?

"the end of the beginning": to mark El Alamein, he had church bells rung across Britain for the first time since 1940.

At which 1943 conference did Churchill and Roosevelt commit the Allies to 'unconditional surrender'?

Casablanca, where Roosevelt announced the demand at a press conference; Stalin had declined to attend because of Stalingrad.

Churchill's 1944 'Percentages agreement' with Stalin divided post-war influence over what region?

The Balkans: Churchill jotted percentages of influence for each country on paper, and Stalin ticked it.

Which German city's destruction did Churchill's March 1945 memo call 'a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing'?

Dresden, crowded with refugees when British and US bombers struck; a 2010 commission put the dead at up to 25,000.

What was the code name of the plan Churchill commissioned in May 1945 for a possible war on the USSR?

Operation Unthinkable, which imagined a surprise attack on Soviet forces in Germany starting on 1 July 1945.

In his 1945 election broadcast, Churchill claimed a socialist government would have to fall back on what?

Some form of Gestapo: the jibe backfired, and his opponents made political capital from it in the campaign.

Who defeated Churchill's Conservatives in the 1945 general election?

Clement Attlee's Labour Party, though the results took three weeks to declare while soldiers' votes came home from overseas.

In which US town did Churchill make his 1946 'Iron Curtain' speech?

Fulton, Missouri, where he also called for 'a special relationship' between the British Commonwealth and the United States.

What did Churchill win in 1953 for his historical writing?

The Nobel Prize in Literature, whose citation also praised his 'brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values'.

Which future prime minister delivered Churchill's 1951 pledge to build 300,000 homes a year?

Harold Macmillan, who met the target as Minister of Housing and Local Government and was promoted in 1954.

What honour did Elizabeth II give Churchill in 1953, at which he was also knighted?

The Order of the Garter; on retiring in 1955 he turned down the Queen's offer to make him Duke of London.

What did Churchill suffer in June 1953 that was kept secret from the public and press?

A serious stroke; he recovered by November and stayed on as prime minister until April 1955.

Churchill's only painting of the Second World War, a gift for Roosevelt, shows which city?

Marrakesh: his Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque later belonged to Angelina Jolie, who sold it at Christie's in 2021.

Besides painting, which craft did Churchill practise at home, even joining a builders' union?

Bricklaying: he built garden walls and even houses on his own estate.

Which honour did President Kennedy confer on Churchill in 1963?

Honorary US citizenship, granted under an Act of Congress; he was the first person ever to receive it.

How was Churchill honoured after his death on 24 January 1965?

With a state funeral: his coffin lay in state in Westminster Hall for three days before the service at St Paul's Cathedral.

Where was Churchill buried in January 1965?

St Martin's Church, Bladon, near his parents; the train carrying his coffin from Waterloo was hauled by a locomotive named Winston Churchill.

In a 2002 BBC public poll, Churchill was voted what?

The greatest Briton; the US Navy named a destroyer, USS Winston S. Churchill, in his honour.

Why did Churchill start signing his books 'Winston Spencer Churchill'?

An American novelist shared his name and was far better known in the 1890s, so Churchill offered to sign with his full surname.

Which artist's portrait of Churchill, presented for his 80th birthday, was later destroyed?

Graham Sutherland: Churchill publicly called it 'a remarkable example of modern art', and he and his wife reportedly hated it.

Which 2017 film won Gary Oldman an Oscar for playing Churchill?

Darkest Hour; Albert Finney and Brendan Gleeson both won Emmys for playing Churchill in TV films.

Which ball sport was Churchill said to be the only one ever to interest him?

Polo, which he played a great deal as a young cavalry officer in India.

Which town elected Churchill to Parliament in 1900, a year after rejecting him at a by-election?

Oldham, which he represented until 1906; bar gaps in 1908 and 1922 to 1924, he then stayed an MP until 1964.

During the 1940 debate over whether to seek peace terms, who proposed using Mussolini as an intermediary?

Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary; Churchill prevailed after a meeting of 25 wider Cabinet ministers backed fighting on.

Churchill's government was criticised for refusing more grain imports during which 1943 famine?

The Bengal famine: the government blamed a shortage of shipping, and historians still debate how far its policies raised the toll.

Which American general, as Supreme Allied Commander, led the D-Day invasion Churchill helped plan?

Dwight D. Eisenhower; Churchill had planned to watch the landings from the cruiser HMS Belfast, but stayed ashore on D-Day.

What was the title of Churchill's only novel, a Ruritanian romance?

Savrola, his only novel; he later wrote that he had 'consistently urged my friends to abstain from reading it'.

As Colonial Secretary in 1921, Churchill helped make Faisal king of which new state?

Iraq: the same Cairo Conference put Faisal's brother Abdullah in charge of Transjordan.

In 1910, an activist whipped Churchill on a train, blaming him for police treatment of which campaigners?

Suffragettes: the attacker, the suffragist Hugh Franklin, was jailed for six weeks.

Which of Churchill's children died of sepsis in August 1921, a loss that haunted him for life?

Marigold, aged two; his mother had died earlier that year, and his last child, Mary, was born in September 1922.

Who topped the poll when Churchill lost his Dundee seat in 1922?

A prohibitionist candidate: Edwin Scrymgeour, who had stood at every Dundee election since 1908, finally won.

Which 1945 summit did Churchill leave to await his election result, only for his successor to take his place?

Potsdam: the new prime minister arrived with Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary to finish the talks.

Which speech impediment did Churchill work to overcome?

A lateral lisp: he drilled phrases packed with the letter s, and in time turned the impediment into an asset.

In a 1930 article Churchill called for the creation of what, making him an early pan-European?

A United States of Europe, though at first he insisted that Britain itself must not join any federal grouping.

Which new constituency did Churchill represent from 1945 until he stood down in 1964?

Woodford: the major parties didn't stand against him in 1945, yet his majority over a lone independent was far smaller than expected.