This Day in History - April 5th

1955: Churchill retires

Sir Winston Churchill retires as British prime minister. A daring soldier and reporter in the Boer War of 1899 to 1902, Churchill subsequently held a number of high ranking government posts during the 1910’s and 1920’s. His political career went somewhat into obscurity during the 1930’s, though during this time Churchill was one of the few British politicians to recognise, from an early date, the threat that the rise of Nazism in Germany posed to Europe. After British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had unsuccessfully tried to appease Hitler, failing to prevent the outbreak of war in Europe, Churchill’s defining moment had finally come, when he was called upon to lead a coalition government in 1940. With Britain standing alone against Adolf Hitler, he rallied the British people to a resolute resistance, and expertly orchestrated Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin into an alliance that defeated the Axis. After a post-war Labour Party victory in 1945, he became leader of the opposition, but in 1951 was again elected prime minister. In 1953, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. After his retirement as prime minister, he remained in Parliament until 1964, the year before his death.

Also On This Day

2001

Perry Wacker, the Dutch lorry driver who transported 58 Chinese illegal immigrants into Britain who died of suffocation in his the lorry, is sentenced to 14 years in jail.

1994

In America, Nirvana front man Kurt Coban dies after taking a cocktail of drugs.

1992

Several hundred thousand people converge on Washington D.C., America to protest in favour of abortion rights for women.

1988

25 hostages are released from a Kuwait Airways plane in Iran, which had been hijacked by Arab terrorists whilst the plane was on its way to Kuwait from Thailand.

1986

In West Germany, a bomb explodes in a Berlin night club regularly attended by U.S. troops, killing two people and injuring hundreds more.

1976

Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes dies aged 70.

1976

James Callaghan starts his first day as the new Prime Minister of Britain.

1970

Count Karl von Spreti, the German ambassador to Guatemala, is killed by left-wing rebels who had kidnapped him.

1969

The Vietnam War: Large demonstrations are held throughout America protesting against the War.

1965

My Fair Lady wins the Oscar for Best Picture.

1951

A court in America sentences Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death for spying for the Soviet Union.

1945

The Second World War: Under the leadership of Marshal Tito, Yugoslavia signs a treaty with the Soviet Union permitting their troops temporary entry into Yugoslavia.

1859

Charles Darwin sends his publishers the first three chapters of Origina of Species.

1614

In America, Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian confederacy, marries English tobacco planter John Rolfe.

1242

The Teutonic Knights are defeated by the Novgorod Feudal Republic (a Russian state) at the Battle of Ice.