title: Winston Churchill

text: Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union on Sunday, 22 June 1941. It was no surprise to Churchill, who had known since early April, from Enigma decrypts at Bletchley Park, that the attack was imminent. He had tried to warn General Secretary Joseph Stalin via the British ambassador to Moscow, Stafford Cripps, but to no avail as Stalin did not trust Churchill. The night before the attack, already intending an address to the nation, Churchill alluded to his hitherto anti-communist views by saying to Colville: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil".


title: Winston Churchill

text: In August 1941, Churchill made his first transatlantic crossing of the war on board and met Roosevelt in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. On 14 August, they issued the joint statement that has become known as the Atlantic Charter. This outlined the goals of both countries for the future of the world and it is seen as the inspiration for the 1942 Declaration by United Nations, itself the basis of the United Nations which was founded in June 1945.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 7–8 December 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was followed by their invasion of Malaya and, on the 8th, Churchill declared war on Japan. Three days later came the joint declaration of war by Germany and Italy against the United States. Churchill went to Washington later in the month to meet Roosevelt for the first Washington Conference (codename "Arcadia"). This was important for "Europe First", the decision to prioritise victory in Europe over victory in the Pacific, taken by Roosevelt while Churchill was still in mid-Atlantic. The Americans agreed with Churchill that Hitler was the main enemy and that the defeat of Germany was key to Allied success. It was also agreed that the first joint Anglo-American strike would be Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa (i.e., Algeria and Morocco). Originally planned for the spring of 1942, it was finally launched in November 1942 when the crucial Second Battle of El Alamein was already underway.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 26 December, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress but, that night, he suffered a mild heart attack which was diagnosed by his physician, Sir Charles Wilson (later Lord Moran), as a coronary deficiency needing several weeks' bed rest. Churchill insisted that he did not need bed rest and, two days later, journeyed on to Ottawa by train where he gave a speech to the Canadian Parliament that included the "some chicken, some neck" line in which he recalled French predictions in 1940 that "Britain alone would have her neck wrung like a chicken". He arrived home in mid-January, having flown from Bermuda to Plymouth in an American flying boat, to find that there was a crisis of confidence in both his coalition government and himself personally, and he decided to face a vote of confidence in the Commons, which he won easily.


title: Winston Churchill

text: While he was away, the Eighth Army, having already relieved the Siege of Tobruk, had pursued Operation Crusader against Rommel's forces in Libya, successfully driving them back to a defensive position at El Agheila in Cyrenaica. On 21 January 1942, however, Rommel launched a surprise counter-attack which drove the Allies back to Gazala.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Elsewhere, recent British success in the Battle of the Atlantic was compromised by the Kriegsmarine's introduction of its M4 4-rotor Enigma, whose signals could not be deciphered by Bletchley Park for nearly a year. In the Far East, the news was much worse with Japanese advances in all theatres, especially at sea and in Malaya. At a press conference in Washington, Churchill had to play down his increasing doubts about the security of Singapore.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill already had grave concerns about the fighting quality of British troops after the defeats in Norway, France, Greece and Crete. Following the fall of Singapore to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, he felt that his misgivings were confirmed and said: "(this is) the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British military history". More bad news had come on 11 February as the Kriegsmarine pulled off its audacious "Channel Dash", a massive blow to British naval prestige. The combined effect of these events was to sink Churchill's morale to its lowest point of the whole war.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Meanwhile, the Japanese had occupied most of Burma by the end of April 1942. Counter-offensives were hampered by the monsoon season and by disordered conditions in Bengal and Bihar, as well as a severe cyclone which devastated the region in October 1942. A combination of factors, including the curtailment of essential rice imports from Burma, poor administration, wartime inflation and a series of large-scale natural disasters such as flooding and crop disease led to the Bengal famine of 1943, in which an estimated 2.1–3.8 million people died. From December 1942 onwards, food shortages had prompted senior officials in India to ask London for grain imports, although the colonial authorities failed to recognise the seriousness of the emerging famine and responded ineptly. Churchill's government was criticised for refusing to approve more imports, a policy it ascribed to an acute wartime shortage of shipping. When the British realised the full extent of the famine in September 1943, Churchill ordered the transportation of 130,000 tons of Iraqi and Australian grain to Bengal and the war cabinet agreed to send 200,000 tons by the end of the year. During the last quarter of 1943, 100,000 tons of rice and 176,000 tons of wheat were imported, compared to averages of 55,000 tons of rice and 54,000 tons of wheat earlier in the year. In October, Churchill wrote to the newly appointed Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, charging him with the responsibility of ending the famine. In February 1944, as preparation for Operation Overlord placed greater demands on Allied shipping, Churchill cabled Wavell saying: "I will certainly help you all I can, but you must not ask the impossible". Grain shipment requests continued to be turned down by the government throughout 1944, and Wavell complained to Churchill in October that "the vital problems of India are being treated by His Majesty's Government with neglect, even sometimes with hostility and contempt". The relative impact of British policies on the death toll of the famine remains a matter of controversy among scholars.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 20 May 1942, the Soviet Foreign Affairs minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, arrived in London and stayed until the 28th before going on to Washington. The purpose of this visit was to sign a treaty of friendship but Molotov wanted it done on the basis of certain territorial concessions regarding Poland and the Baltic countries. Churchill and Eden worked for a compromise and eventually a twenty-year treaty was formalised but with the question of frontiers placed on hold. Molotov was also seeking a Second Front in Europe but all Churchill could do was confirm that preparations were in progress and make no promises on a date.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill felt well pleased with these negotiations and said as much when he contacted Roosevelt on the 27th. The previous day, however, Rommel had launched his counter-offensive, "Operation Venice", to begin the Battle of Gazala. The Allies were ultimately driven out of Libya and suffered a major defeat in the loss of Tobruk on 21 June. Churchill was with Roosevelt when the news of Tobruk reached him. He was shocked by the surrender of 35,000 troops which was, apart from Singapore, "the heaviest blow" he received in the war. The Axis advance was eventually halted at the First Battle of El Alamein in July and the Battle of Alam el Halfa in early September. Both sides were exhausted and in urgent need of reinforcements and supplies.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill had returned to Washington on 17 June. He and Roosevelt agreed on the implementation of "Operation Torch" as the necessary precursor to an invasion of Europe. Roosevelt had appointed General Dwight D. Eisenhower as commanding officer of the European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA). Having received the news from North Africa, Churchill obtained shipment from America to the Eighth Army of 300 Sherman tanks and 100 howitzers. He returned to Britain on 25 June and had to face another motion of no confidence, this time in his central direction of the war, but again he won easily.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In August, despite health concerns, Churchill visited the British forces in North Africa, raising morale in the process, en route to Moscow for his first meeting with Stalin. He was accompanied by Roosevelt's special envoy Averell Harriman. He was in Moscow 12–16 August and had four lengthy meetings with Stalin. Although they got along quite well together on a personal level, there was little chance of any real progress given the state of the war with the Germans still advancing in all theatres. Stalin was desperate for the Allies to open the Second Front in Europe, as Churchill had discussed with Molotov in May, and the answer was the same.


title: Winston Churchill

text: While he was in Cairo in early August, Churchill decided to appoint Field Marshal Alexander as Field Marshal Auchinleck's successor as Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Theatre. Command of the Eighth Army was given to General William Gott but he was shot down and killed while flying to Cairo, only three days later and General Montgomery succeeded him. Churchill returned to Cairo from Moscow on 17 August and could see for himself that the Alexander/Montgomery combination was already having an effect. He returned to England on the 21st, nine days before Rommel launched his final offensive.


title: Winston Churchill

text: As 1942 drew to a close, the tide of war began to turn with Allied victory in the key battles of El Alamein and Stalingrad. Until November, the Allies had always been on the defensive, but from November, the Germans were. Churchill ordered the church bells to be rung throughout Great Britain for the first time since early 1940. On 10 November, knowing that El Alamein was a victory, he delivered one of his most memorable war speeches to the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at the Mansion House in London, in response to the Allied victory at El Alamein: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning".


title: Winston Churchill

text: In January 1943, Churchill met Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference (codename "Symbol"), which lasted ten days. It was also attended by General Charles de Gaulle on behalf of the Free French Forces. Stalin had hoped to attend but declined because of the situation at Stalingrad. Although Churchill expressed doubts on the matter, the so-called Casablanca Declaration committed the Allies to securing "unconditional surrender" by the Axis powers. From Morocco, Churchill went to Cairo, Adana, Cyprus, Cairo again and Algiers for various purposes. He arrived home on 7 February having been out of the country for nearly a month. He addressed the Commons on the 11th and then became seriously ill with pneumonia the following day, necessitating more than one month of rest, recuperation and convalescence – for the latter, he moved to Chequers. He returned to work in London on 15 March.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill made two transatlantic crossings during the year, meeting Roosevelt at both the third Washington Conference (codename "Trident") in May and the first Quebec Conference (codename "Quadrant") in August. In November, Churchill and Roosevelt met Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek at the Cairo Conference (codename "Sextant").


title: Winston Churchill

text: The most important conference of the year was soon afterwards (28 November to 1 December) at Tehran (codename "Eureka"), where Churchill and Roosevelt met Stalin in the first of the "Big Three" meetings, preceding those at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945. Roosevelt and Stalin co-operated in persuading Churchill to commit to the opening of a second front in western Europe and it was also agreed that Germany would be divided after the war, but no firm decisions were made about how. On their way back from Tehran, Churchill and Roosevelt held a second Cairo conference with Turkish president İsmet İnönü, but were unable to gain any commitment from Turkey to join the Allies.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill went from Cairo to Tunis, arriving on 10 December, initially as Eisenhower's guest (soon afterwards, Eisenhower took over as Supreme Allied Commander of the new SHAEF just being created in London). While Churchill was in Tunis, he became seriously ill with atrial fibrillation and was forced to remain until after Christmas while a succession of specialists were drafted in to ensure his recovery. Clementine and Colville arrived to keep him company; Colville had just returned to Downing Street after more than two years in the RAF. On 27 December, the party went on to Marrakesh for convalescence. Feeling much better, Churchill flew to Gibraltar on 14 January 1944 and sailed home on the . He was back in London on the morning of 18 January and surprised MPs by attending Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons that afternoon. Since 12 January 1943, when he set off for the Casablanca Conference, Churchill had been abroad or seriously ill for 203 of the 371 days.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In the autumn of 1942, after Churchill's meeting with Stalin in Moscow, he was approached by Eisenhower, commanding the North African Theater of Operations, United States Army (NATOUSA), and his aides on the subject of where the Western Allies should launch their first strike in Europe. According to General Mark Clark, who later commanded the United States Fifth Army in the Italian campaign, the Americans openly admitted that a cross-Channel operation in the near future was "utterly impossible". As an alternative, Churchill recommended "slit(ting) the soft belly of the Mediterranean" and persuaded them to invade first Sicily and then Italy after they had defeated the Afrika Korps in North Africa. After the war, Clark still agreed that Churchill's analysis was correct but he added that, when the Allies landed at Salerno, they found that Italy was "a tough old gut".


title: Winston Churchill

text: The invasion of Sicily began on 9 July and was successfully completed by 17 August. Churchill was then all for driving straight up the Italian mainland with Rome as the main target, but the Americans wanted to withdraw several divisions to England in the build-up of forces for Operation Overlord, now scheduled for the spring of 1944. Churchill was still not keen on "Overlord" as he feared that an Anglo-American army in France might not be a match for the fighting efficiency of the Wehrmacht. He preferred peripheral operations, including a plan called Operation Jupiter for an invasion of northern Norway. Events in Sicily had an unexpected impact in Italy. King Victor Emmanuel sacked Mussolini on 25 July and appointed Marshal Badoglio as Prime Minister. Badoglio opened negotiations with the Allies which resulted in the Armistice of Cassibile on 3 September. In response, the Germans activated Operation Achse and took control of most of Italy. Although he still preferred Italy to Normandy as the Allies' main route into the Third Reich, Churchill was deeply concerned about the strong German resistance at Salerno and, later, after the Allies successfully gained their bridgehead at Anzio but still failed to break the stalemate, he caustically said that instead of "hurling a wildcat onto the shore", the Allied force had become a "stranded whale". The big obstacle was Monte Cassino and it was not until mid-May 1944 when it was finally overcome, enabling the Allies to at last advance on Rome, which was taken on 4 June.


title: Winston Churchill

text: The difficulties in Italy caused Churchill to have a change of heart and mind about Allied strategy to the extent that, when the Anzio stalemate developed soon after his return to England from North Africa, he threw himself into the planning of "Overlord" and set up an ongoing series of meetings with SHAEF and the British Chiefs of Staff over which he regularly presided. These were always attended by either Eisenhower or his chief of staff General Walter Bedell Smith. Churchill was especially taken by the Mulberry project but he was also keen to make the most of Allied air power which, by the beginning of 1944, had become overwhelming. Churchill never fully lost his apprehension about the invasion, however, and underwent great fluctuation of mood as D-Day approached. Jenkins says that he faced potential victory with much less buoyancy than when he defiantly faced the prospect of defeat four years earlier.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill could not ignore the need for post-war reforms covering a broad sweep of areas such as agriculture, education, employment, health, housing and welfare. The Beveridge Report with its five "Giant Evils" was published in November 1942 and assumed great importance amid widespread popular acclaim. Even so, Churchill was not really interested because he was focused on winning the war and saw reform in terms of tidying up afterwards. His attitude was demonstrated in a Sunday evening radio broadcast on 26 March 1944. He was obliged to devote most of it to the subject of reform and showed a distinct lack of interest. In their respective diaries, Colville said Churchill had broadcast "indifferently" and Harold Nicolson said that, to many people, Churchill came across the air as "a worn and petulant old man".


title: Winston Churchill

text: In the end, however, it was the population's demand for reform that decided the 1945 general election. Labour was perceived as the party that would deliver Beveridge. Arthur Greenwood had initiated its preceding social insurance and allied services inquiry in June 1941. Attlee, Bevin and Labour's other coalition ministers through the war were seen to be working towards reform and earned the trust of the electorate.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was determined to be actively involved in the Normandy invasion and hoped to cross the Channel on D-Day itself (6 June 1944) or at least on D-Day+1. His desire caused unnecessary consternation at SHAEF until he was effectively vetoed by the King who told Churchill that, as head of all three services, he (the King) ought to go too. Churchill expected an Allied death toll of 20,000 on D-Day but he was proven to be pessimistic because less than 8,000 died in the whole of June. He made his first visit to Normandy on 12 June to visit Montgomery, whose HQ was then about five miles inland. That evening, as he was returning to London, the first V-1 flying bombs were launched. In a longer visit to Normandy on 22–23 July, Churchill went to Cherbourg and Arromanches where he saw the Mulberry Harbour.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill met Roosevelt at the Second Quebec Conference (codename "Octagon") from 12 to 16 September 1944. Between themselves, they reached agreement on the Morgenthau Plan for the Allied occupation of Germany after the war, the intention of which was not only to demilitarise but also de-industrialise Germany. Eden strongly opposed it and was later able to persuade Churchill to disown it. US Secretary of State Cordell Hull also opposed it and convinced Roosevelt that it was infeasible.


title: Winston Churchill

text: At the fourth Moscow conference (codename "Tolstoy") from 9 to 19 October 1944, Churchill and Eden met Stalin and Molotov. This conference has gained notoriety for the so-called "Percentages agreement" in which Churchill and Stalin effectively agreed the post-war fate of the Balkans. By that time, the Soviet armies were in Rumania and Bulgaria. Churchill suggested a scale of predominance throughout the whole region so as not to, as he put it, "get at cross-purposes in small ways". He wrote down some suggested percentages of influence per country and gave it to Stalin who ticked it. The agreement was that Russia would have 90% control of Romania and 75% control of Bulgaria. The UK and the USA would have 90% control of Greece. Hungary and Yugoslavia would be 50% each. In 1958, five years after the account of this meeting was published (in Churchill's "The Second World War"), Soviet authorities denied that Stalin had accepted such an "imperialist proposal".


title: Winston Churchill

text: From 30 January to 2 February 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt met for their Malta Conference ahead of the second "Big Three" event at Yalta from 4 to 11 February. Yalta had massive implications for the post-war world. There were two predominant issues: the question of setting up the United Nations Organisation after the war, on which much progress was made; and the more vexed question of Poland's post-war status, which Churchill saw as a test case for the future of Eastern Europe. Churchill faced some strong criticism for the Yalta agreement on Poland. For example, 27 Tory MPs voted against him when the matter was debated in the Commons at the end of the month. Jenkins, however, maintains that Churchill did as well as he could have done in very difficult circumstances, not least the fact that Roosevelt was seriously ill and could not provide Churchill with meaningful support.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Another outcome of Yalta was the so-called Operation Keelhaul. The Western Allies agreed to the forcible repatriation of all Soviet citizens in the Allied zones, including prisoners of war, to the Soviet Union and the policy was later extended to all Eastern European refugees, many of whom were anti-Communist. Keelhaul was implemented between 14 August 1946 and 9 May 1947.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On the nights of 13–15 February 1945, some 1,200 British and US bombers attacked the German city of Dresden, which was crowded with wounded and refugees from the Eastern Front. The attacks were part of an area bombing campaign that was initiated by Churchill in January with the intention of shortening the war. Churchill came to regret the bombing because initial reports suggested an excessive number of civilian casualties close to the end of the war, though an independent commission in 2010 confirmed a death toll between 22,700 and 25,000. On 28 March, he decided to restrict area bombing and sent a memorandum to General Ismay for the Chiefs of Staff Committee:


title: Winston Churchill

text: British historian Frederick Taylor has pointed out that the number of Soviet citizens who died from German bombing was roughly equivalent to the number of German citizens who died from Allied raids. Jenkins asks if Churchill was moved more by foreboding than by regret but admits it is easy to criticise with the hindsight of victory. He adds that the area bombing campaign was no more reprehensible than President Truman's use of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki six months later. Andrew Marr, quoting Max Hastings, says that Churchill's memorandum was a "calculated political attempt... to distance himself... from the rising controversy surrounding the area offensive".


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 7 May 1945 at the SHAEF headquarters in Reims the Allies accepted Germany's surrender. The next day was Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) when Churchill broadcast to the nation that Germany had surrendered and that a final ceasefire on all fronts in Europe would come into effect at one minute past midnight that night (i.e., on the 9th). Afterwards, Churchill went to Buckingham Palace where he appeared on the balcony with the Royal Family before a huge crowd of celebrating citizens. He went from the palace to Whitehall where he addressed another large crowd: "God bless you all. This is your victory. In our long history, we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best".


title: Winston Churchill

text: At this point he asked Ernest Bevin to come forward and share the applause. Bevin said: "No, Winston, this is your day", and proceeded to conduct the people in the singing of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". In the evening, Churchill made another broadcast to the nation asserting that the defeat of Japan would follow in the coming months (the Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945).


title: Winston Churchill

text: With a general election looming (there had been none for almost a decade), and with the Labour ministers refusing to continue the wartime coalition, Churchill resigned as Prime Minister on 23 May 1945. Later that day, he accepted the King's invitation to form a new government, known officially as the National Government, like the Conservative-dominated coalition of the 1930s, but sometimes called the caretaker ministry. It contained Conservatives, National Liberals and a few non-party figures such as Sir John Anderson and Lord Woolton, but not Labour or Archibald Sinclair's Official Liberals. Although Churchill continued to carry out the functions of Prime Minister, including exchanging messages with the US administration about the upcoming Potsdam Conference, he was not formally reappointed until 28 May.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was Great Britain's representative at the post-war Potsdam Conference when it opened on 17 July and was accompanied at its sessions not only by Eden as Foreign Secretary but also, pending the result of the July general election, by Attlee. They attended nine sessions in nine days before returning to England for their election counts. After the landslide Labour victory, Attlee returned with Bevin as the new Foreign Secretary and there were a further five days of discussion. Potsdam went badly for Churchill. Eden later described his performance as "appalling", saying that he was unprepared and verbose. Churchill upset the Chinese, exasperated the Americans and was easily led by Stalin, whom he was supposed to be resisting.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill mishandled the election campaign by resorting to party politics and trying to denigrate Labour. On 4 June, he committed a serious political gaffe by saying in a radio broadcast that a Labour government would require "some form of Gestapo" to enforce its agenda. It backfired badly and Attlee made political capital by saying in his reply broadcast next day: "The voice we heard last night was that of Mr Churchill, but the mind was that of Lord Beaverbrook". Jenkins says that this broadcast was "the making of Attlee".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Although polling day was 5 July, the results of the election did not become known until 26 July, owing to the need to collect the votes of those serving overseas. Clementine and daughter Mary had been at the count in Woodford, Churchill's new constituency in Essex, and had returned to Downing Street to meet him for lunch. Churchill was unopposed by the major parties in Woodford, but his majority over a sole independent candidate was much less than expected. He now anticipated defeat by Labour and Mary later described the lunch as "an occasion of Stygian gloom". To Clementine's suggestion that election defeat might be "a blessing in disguise", Churchill retorted: "At the moment it seems very effectively disguised".


title: Winston Churchill

text: That afternoon Churchill's doctor Lord Moran (so he later recorded in his book "The Struggle for Survival") commiserated with him on the "ingratitude" of the British public, to which Churchill replied: "I wouldn't call it that. They have had a very hard time". Having lost the election, despite enjoying much personal support amongst the British population, he resigned as Prime Minister that evening and was succeeded by Attlee who formed the first majority Labour government. Many reasons have been given for Churchill's defeat, key among them being that a desire for post-war reform was widespread amongst the population and that the man who had led Britain in war was not seen as the man to lead the nation in peace. Although the Conservative Party was unpopular, many electors appear to have wanted Churchill to continue as Prime Minister whatever the outcome, or to have wrongly believed that this would be possible.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill continued to lead the Conservative Party and, for six years, served as Leader of the Opposition. In 1946, he was in America for nearly three months from early January to late March. It was on this trip that he gave his "Iron Curtain" speech about the USSR and its creation of the Eastern Bloc. Speaking on 5 March 1946 in the company of President Truman at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill declared:


title: Winston Churchill

text: The essence of his view was that, though the Soviet Union did not want war with the western Allies, its entrenched position in Eastern Europe had made it impossible for the three great powers to provide the world with a "triangular leadership". Churchill's desire was much closer collaboration between Britain and America. Within the same speech, he called for "a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States", but he emphasised the need for co-operation within the framework of the United Nations Charter.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was an early proponent of pan-Europeanism, having called for a "United States of Europe" in a 1930 article. He supported the creations of the Council of Europe in 1949 and the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, but his support was always with the firm proviso that Britain must not actually join any federal grouping.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Having lived in Ireland as a child, Churchill always opposed its partition. As a minister in 1913 and again in 1921, he suggested that Ulster should be part of a united Ireland, but with a degree of autonomy from an independent Irish government. He was always opposed on this by Ulster Unionists. While he was Leader of the Opposition, he told John W. Dulanty and Frederick Boland, successive Irish ambassadors to London, that he still hoped for reunification.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Labour won the 1950 general election, but with a much-reduced majority. Churchill continued to serve as Leader of the Opposition.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Despite losing the popular vote to Labour, the Conservatives won an overall majority of 17 seats in the October 1951 general election and Churchill again became Prime Minister, remaining in office until his resignation on 5 April 1955. Eden, his eventual successor, was restored to Foreign Affairs, the portfolio with which Churchill was preoccupied throughout his tenure. Future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was appointed Minister of Housing and Local Government with a manifesto commitment to build 300,000 new houses per annum, Churchill's only real domestic concern. He achieved the target and, in October 1954, was promoted to Minister of Defence.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was nearly 77 when he took office and was not in good health following several minor strokes. By December, George VI had become concerned about Churchill's decline and intended asking him to stand down in favour of Eden, but the King had his own serious health issues and died on 6 February without making the request. Churchill developed a close friendship with Elizabeth II and, in the spring of 1953, he accepted the Order of the Garter at her request. He was knighted as Sir Winston on 24 April 1953. It was widely expected that he would retire after the Queen's Coronation in June 1953 but, after Eden became seriously ill, Churchill increased his own responsibilities by taking over at the Foreign Office. Eden was incapacitated until the end of the year and was never completely well again.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On the evening of 23 June 1953, Churchill suffered a serious stroke and became partially paralysed down one side. Had Eden been well, Churchill's premiership would most likely have been over. The matter was kept secret and Churchill went home to Chartwell to recuperate. He had fully recovered by November. He retired as Prime Minister in April 1955 and was succeeded by Eden.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill feared a global conflagration and firmly believed that the only way to preserve peace and freedom was to build on a solid foundation of friendship and co-operation between Britain and America. He made four official transatlantic visits from January 1952 to July 1954.


title: Winston Churchill

text: He enjoyed a good relationship with Truman but difficulties arose over the planned European Defence Community (EDC), by which Truman hoped to reduce America's military presence in West Germany; Churchill was sceptical about the EDC. Churchill wanted US military support of British interests in Egypt and the Middle East, but that was refused. While Truman expected British military involvement in Korea, he viewed any US commitment to the Middle East as maintaining British imperialism. The Americans recognised that the British Empire was in terminal decline and had welcomed the Attlee government's policy of decolonisation. Churchill believed that Britain's position as a world power depended on the empire's continued existence.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill had been obliged to recognise Colonel Nasser's revolutionary government of Egypt, which took power in 1952. Much to Churchill's private dismay, agreement was reached in October 1954 on the phased evacuation of British troops from their Suez base. In addition, Britain agreed to terminate its rule in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by 1956, though this was in return for Nasser's abandonment of Egyptian claims over the region. Elsewhere, the Malayan Emergency, a guerrilla war fought by Communist fighters against Commonwealth forces, had begun in 1948 and continued past Malayan independence (1957) until 1960. Churchill's government maintained the military response to the crisis and adopted a similar strategy for the Mau Mau Uprising in British Kenya (1952–1960).


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was uneasy about the election of Eisenhower as Truman's successor. After Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Churchill sought a summit meeting with the Soviets but Eisenhower refused out of fear that the Soviets would use it for propaganda. By July of that year, Churchill was deeply regretting that the Democrats had not been returned. He told Colville that Eisenhower as president was "both weak and stupid". Churchill believed that Eisenhower did not fully comprehend the danger posed by the H-bomb and he greatly distrusted Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. Churchill hosted Eisenhower to no avail at the Three-Powers Bermuda Conference (with French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel being the third participant) in December 1953; they met again in June/July 1954 at the White House. In the end, it was the Soviets who proposed a four-power summit, but it did not meet until 18 July 1955, three months after Churchill had retired.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Elizabeth II offered to create Churchill Duke of London, but this was declined as a result of the objections of his son Randolph, who would have inherited the title on his father's death. Although publicly supportive, Churchill was privately scathing about Eden's handling of the Suez Crisis and Clementine believed that many of his visits to the United States in the following years were attempts to help repair Anglo-American relations. After leaving the premiership, Churchill remained an MP until he stood down at the 1964 general election. Apart from 1922 to 1924, he had been an MP since October 1900 and had represented five constituencies.


title: Winston Churchill

text: By the time of the 1959 general election, however, he seldom attended the House of Commons. Despite the Conservative landslide in 1959, his own majority in Woodford fell by more than a thousand. He spent most of his retirement at Chartwell or at his London home in Hyde Park Gate, and became a habitué of high society at La Pausa on the French Riviera.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In June 1962, when he was 87, Churchill had a fall in Monte Carlo and broke his hip. He was flown home to a London hospital where he remained for three weeks. Jenkins says that Churchill was never the same after this accident and his last two years were something of a twilight period. In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy, acting under authorisation granted by an Act of Congress, proclaimed him an honorary citizen of the United States, but he was unable to attend the White House ceremony. There has been speculation that he became very depressed in his final years but this has been emphatically denied by his personal secretary Anthony Montague Browne, who was with him for his last ten years. Montague Browne wrote that he never heard Churchill refer to depression and certainly did not suffer from it.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill suffered his final stroke on 12 January 1965 and died twelve days later on the 24th, the seventieth anniversary of his father's death. Like the Duke of Wellington in 1852 and William Gladstone in 1898, Churchill was given a state funeral. Planning for this had begun in 1953 under the code-name of "Operation Hope Not" and a detailed plan had been produced by 1958. His coffin lay in state at Westminster Hall for three days and the funeral ceremony was at St Paul's Cathedral on 30 January. Afterwards, the coffin was taken by boat along the River Thames to Waterloo Station and from there by a special train to the family plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon, near his birthplace at Blenheim Palace.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Worldwide, numerous memorials have been dedicated to Churchill. His statue in Parliament Square was unveiled by his widow Clementine in 1973 and is one of only twelve in the square, all of prominent political figures, including Churchill's friend Lloyd George and his India policy nemesis Gandhi. Elsewhere in London, the wartime Cabinet War Rooms have been renamed the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. Churchill College, Cambridge, was established as a national memorial to Churchill. An indication of Churchill's high esteem in the UK is the result of the 2002 BBC poll, attracting 447,423 votes, in which he was voted the greatest Briton of all time, his nearest rival being Isambard Kingdom Brunel some 56,000 votes behind.


title: Winston Churchill

text: He is one of only eight people to be granted honorary citizenship of the United States; others include Lafayette, Raoul Wallenberg and Mother Teresa. The United States Navy honoured him in 1999 by naming a new as the . Other memorials in North America include the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, where he made the 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech; Churchill Square in central Edmonton, Alberta; and the Winston Churchill Range, a mountain range northwest of Lake Louise, also in Alberta, which was renamed after Churchill in 1956.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill Archives Centre on the campus of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge houses Churchill's personal papers and is open to the public.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was a prolific writer. His output included a novel, two biographies, three volumes of memoirs, several histories, and numerous press articles. Two of his most famous works, published after his first premiership brought his international fame to new heights, were his twelve-volume memoir, "The Second World War", and the four-volume "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples". In recognition of his "mastery of historical and biographical description" and oratorial output, Churchill received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.


title: Winston Churchill

text: He used either "Winston S. Churchill" or "Winston Spencer Churchill" as his pen name to avoid confusion with the American novelist of the same name, with whom he struck up a friendly correspondence. For many years, he relied heavily upon his press articles to assuage his financial worries: in 1937, for example, he wrote 64 published articles and some of his contracts were quite lucrative.


title: Winston Churchill

text: As well as writing, Churchill became an accomplished amateur artist after his resignation from the Admiralty in 1915. Using the pseudonym "Charles Morin", he continued this hobby throughout his life and completed hundreds of paintings, many of which are on show in the studio at Chartwell as well as in private collections.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was an amateur bricklayer, constructing buildings and garden walls at Chartwell. To further this hobby, he joined the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers but was expelled after he revived his membership of the Conservative Party. He also bred butterflies at Chartwell, keeping them in a converted summerhouse each year until the weather was right for their release. He was well known for his love of animals and always had several pets, mainly cats but also dogs, pigs, lambs, bantams, goats and fox cubs among others. Churchill has often been quoted as saying that "cats look down on us and dogs look up to us, but pigs treat us as equals", or words to that effect, but the International Churchill Society believe he has mostly been misquoted.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Roy Jenkins concludes his biography of Churchill by comparing him favourably with W. E. Gladstone and summarising:


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill always self-confidently believed himself to be "a man of destiny". Because of this, he lacked restraint and could be reckless. His self-belief manifested itself in terms of his "affinity with war" of which, according to Sebastian Haffner, he exhibited "a profound and innate understanding". Churchill considered himself a military genius but that made him vulnerable to failure and Paul Addison says Gallipoli was "the greatest blow his self-image was ever to sustain". Jenkins points out, however, that although Churchill was excited and exhilarated by war, he was never indifferent to the suffering it causes.


title: Winston Churchill

text: As a politician, Churchill was perceived by some observers to have been largely motivated by personal ambition rather than political principle. During his early parliamentary career, he was often deliberately provocative and argumentative to an unusual degree; and his barbed rhetorical style earned him many enemies in parliament. On the other hand, he was deemed to be an honest politician who displayed particular loyalty to his family and close friends. He was, according to Jenkins, "singularly lacking in inhibition or concealment". Robert Rhodes James said he "lacked any capacity for intrigue and was refreshingly innocent and straightforward".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill's approach to politics generated widespread "mistrust and dislike", largely on account of his two party defections. His biographers have variously categorised him, in terms of political ideology, as "fundamentally conservative", "(always) liberal in outlook", and "never circumscribed by party affiliation". Jenkins says that Churchill's self-belief was "far stronger than any class or tribal loyalty". Whether Churchill was a conservative or a liberal, he was nearly always opposed to socialism because of its propensity for state planning and his belief in free markets. The exception was during his wartime coalition when he was completely reliant upon the support of his Labour colleagues. Although the Labour leaders were willing to join his coalition, Churchill had long been regarded as an enemy of the working class. His response to the Rhondda Valley unrest and his anti-socialist rhetoric brought condemnation from socialists. They saw him as a reactionary who represented imperialism, militarism, and the interests of the upper classes in the class war. His role in opposing the General Strike earned the enmity of many strikers and most members of the Labour movement. Paradoxically, Churchill was supportive of trade unionism, which he saw as the "antithesis of socialism".


title: Winston Churchill

text: On the other hand, his detractors did not take Churchill's domestic reforms into account, for he was in many respects a radical and a reformer, but always with the intention of preserving the existing social structure, never of challenging it. He could not empathise with the poor, so he sympathised with them instead, displaying what Addison calls the attitude of a "benevolent paternalist". Jenkins, himself a senior Labour minister, remarked that Churchill had "a substantial record as a social reformer" for his work in the early years of his ministerial career. Similarly, Rhodes James thought that, as a social reformer, Churchill's achievements were "considerable". This, said Rhodes James, had been achieved because Churchill as a minister had "three outstanding qualities. He worked hard; he put his proposals efficiently through the Cabinet and Parliament; he carried his Department with him. These ministerial merits are not as common as might be thought".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Assessments of Churchill's legacy are largely based on his leadership of the British people in the Second World War. Even so, his personal views on empire and race continue to stir debate. Churchill was a staunch imperialist and monarchist, and he consistently exhibited a "romanticised view" of both the British Empire and the reigning monarch, especially of Elizabeth II during his last term as premier.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill has been described as a "liberal imperialist" who saw British imperialism as a form of altruism that benefited its subject peoples because "by conquering and dominating other peoples, the British were also elevating and protecting them". Martin Gilbert asserted that Churchill held a hierarchical perspective of race, seeing racial characteristics as signs of the maturity of a society. Churchill's views on race were driven by his imperialist mindset and outlook. He advocated against black or indigenous self-rule in Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, the Americas and India, believing that the British Empire promoted and maintained the welfare of those who lived in the colonies; he insisted that "our responsibility to the native races remains a real one". In 1906, Churchill stated that "We will endeavour... to advance the principle of equal rights of civilized men irrespective of colour".


title: Winston Churchill

text: According to Addison, Churchill was opposed to immigration from the Commonwealth. Addison makes the point that Churchill opposed anti-Semitism (as in 1904, when he was fiercely critical of the proposed Aliens Bill) and argues that he would never have tried "to stoke up racial animosity against immigrants, or to persecute minorities". Churchill supported Zionism, but believed that communism was the product of an international Jewish conspiracy. In 1920, in an article in the "Illustrated Sunday Herald", Churchill wrote that a group of "international" Jews supported a Bolshevist "world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality". Although this belief was not unique among British politicians of the time, few had the stature of Churchill, and the article was criticised by the "Jewish Chronicle" at the time.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill made a number of disparaging remarks about non-white ethnicities throughout his life, including a series of racist comments and jokes about Indian nationalists made to colleagues during the inter-war period and his wartime premiership. Historian Philip Murphy partly attributes the strength of this vitriol to an "almost childish desire to shock" his inner circle. Churchill's response to the Bengal famine was criticised by some contemporaries as slow (see ), a controversy later increased by the publication of private remarks made to Secretary for India Leo Amery, in which Churchill allegedly said that aid would be inadequate because "Indians [were] breeding like rabbits". Philip Murphy says that, following the independence of India in 1947, Churchill adopted a more pragmatic stance towards empire, although he continued to use imperial rhetoric. During his second term as prime minister, he was seen as a moderating influence on Britain's suppression of armed insurgencies against colonial rule in Malaya and Kenya; he argued that ruthless policies contradicted British values and international opinion.


title: Winston Churchill

text: While the biographies by Addison, Gilbert, Jenkins and Rhodes James are among the most acclaimed works about Churchill, he has been the subject of numerous others. Writing in 2012–13 for the International Churchill Society, Professor David Freeman counted 62 in total, excluding non-English books, to the end of the 20th century.


title: Winston Churchill

text: At a public ceremony in Westminster Hall on 30 November 1954, Churchill's 80th birthday, the joint Houses of Parliament presented him with a full-length portrait of himself, which had been painted by Graham Sutherland. Churchill and Clementine reportedly hated it and, later, she had it destroyed.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill has been widely depicted on stage and screen. Notable screen biographical films include "Young Winston" (1972), directed by Richard Attenborough and featuring Simon Ward in the title role with Anne Bancroft and Robert Shaw as his parents; "" (1981; co-written by Martin Gilbert), starring Robert Hardy as Churchill and Siân Phillips as Clementine; "The Gathering Storm" (2002), starring Albert Finney as Churchill and Vanessa Redgrave as Clementine; "Into the Storm" (2009), starring Brendan Gleeson as Churchill and Janet McTeer as Clementine; "Darkest Hour" (2017), starring Gary Oldman as Churchill. John Lithgow played Churchill in "The Crown" (2016–2019). Finney, Gleeson, Oldman and Lithgow all won major awards for their performances as Churchill.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill married Clementine Hozier in September 1908. They remained married for 57 years. Churchill was aware of the strain that his political career placed on his marriage, and, according to Colville, he had a brief affair in the 1930s with Doris Castlerosse, although this is discounted by Andrew Roberts.


title: Winston Churchill

text: The Churchills' first child, Diana, was born in July 1909; the second, Randolph, in May 1911. Their third, Sarah, was born in October 1914, and their fourth, Marigold, in November 1918. Marigold died in August 1921, from sepsis of the throat, and she was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. Although her remains were re-located to Bladon churchyard in 2019 to join the rest of her family, her cenotaph still stands at Kensal Green. On 15 September 1922, the Churchills' last child, Mary, was born. Later that month, the Churchills bought Chartwell, which would be their home until Winston's death in 1965. According to Jenkins, Churchill was an "enthusiastic and loving father" but one who expected too much of his children.


title: Amber Heard

text: Amber Laura Heard (born April 22, 1986) is an American actress. She had her first leading role in the horror film "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" (2006), and went on to star in films such as "The Ward" (2010) and "Drive Angry" (2011). She has also had supporting roles in films including "Pineapple Express" (2008), "Never Back Down" (2008), "The Joneses" (2009), "Machete Kills" (2013), "Magic Mike XXL" (2015), and "The Danish Girl" (2015). Heard is part of the DC Extended Universe franchise, playing Mera in "Justice League" (2017), "Aquaman" (2018), and the forthcoming "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" (2023). She has also acted in television series such as "Hidden Palms" (2007) and "The Stand" (2020).


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard is an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ambassador on women's rights and was a Human Rights Champion for the Stand Up for Human Rights campaign by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard married actor Johnny Depp in 2015. The dissolution of the marriage in May 2016 garnered widespread media attention when Heard filed a restraining order against Depp in which she alleged domestic violence. Depp would later file a defamation lawsuit against British tabloid newspaper "The Sun" over their coverage of Heard's domestic abuse allegations, and another against Heard herself for an op-ed published in her name in the "Washington Post" alleging "sexual violence" and "domestic abuse". While Depp lost the former lawsuit, the latter, over which Heard filed a countersuit over statements by Depp's lawyer, became the subject of a widely-publicized trial, which concluded with a jury finding both Heard and Depp liable for false and defamatory statements and left Heard in $8.35 million debt to Depp. Heard received widespread backlash over her allegations and the subsequent court cases, particularly on social media. After appealing the verdict in the latter lawsuit, Heard ultimately settled with Depp, with his lawyers stating Depp would be paid $1 million.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard was born in Austin, Texas, the middle child of three daughters of internet researcher Patricia Paige ("née" Parsons; 1956–2020) and construction company owner David Clinton Heard (born 1950). The family lived outside Austin. Heard's father trained horses in his free time, and she grew up riding horses, hunting, and fishing with him. She also participated in beauty pageants, although as an adult she has said that she could no longer "support the objectification". Raised Catholic, Heard began identifying as an atheist at the age of sixteen after her best friend died in a car crash. The following year, no longer comfortable in "conservative, God-fearin' Texas", Heard dropped out of her Catholic high school to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles. She eventually earned a diploma through a home-study course.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard's earliest acting work included appearances in two music videos, Kenny Chesney's "There Goes My Life" and Eisley's "I Wasn't Prepared", and small supporting roles in the television series "Jack & Bobby" (2004), "The Mountain" (2004), and "The O.C." (2005). She made her film debut in a minor role in the sports drama "Friday Night Lights" (2004), followed by brief supporting roles in films "Drop Dead Sexy" (2005), "North Country" (2005), "Side FX" (2005), "Price to Pay" (2006), "Alpha Dog" (2006), and "Spin" (2007), and a guest-starring spot in an episode of the police procedural crime drama television series "Criminal Minds". Heard received her first leading role in the unconventional slasher film "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane", which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, but was not released in Europe until 2008 and in the US until 2013 due to distribution problems.


title: Amber Heard

text: In 2007, Heard played the love interest of the main character in The CW's teen drama "Hidden Palms", which the network aired to replace summer reruns of other series aimed at teenage audiences. The series premiered in the US in May 2007 to mixed reviews and poor ratings, leading the CW to air only eight of the planned 12 episodes before canceling it. The same year, Heard also appeared in the short movie "Day 73 with Sarah", in the teen drama "Remember the Daze", and in an episode of the Showtime series "Californication".


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard gained mainstream recognition in 2008 with supporting roles in the Judd Apatow-produced stoner comedy "Pineapple Express" and the martial arts drama "Never Back Down", both of which were box office successes. She also appeared as part of an ensemble cast in an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel "The Informers" (2008), but the film was a critical failure. The following year, Heard starred in "The Joneses" (2009) opposite David Duchovny and Demi Moore; "Variety" wrote that Heard "more or less steals the show" from Moore. Outside a brief appearance in the box office hit "Zombieland" (2009), Heard's other films during this time were either independent films that received only limited theatrical release"ExTerminators" (2009), "The River Why" (2010), "And Soon the Darkness" (2010)or critically panned horror films"The Stepfather" (2009), "The Ward".


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard's first film release in 2011 was "Drive Angry", a supernatural action thriller in which she was paired with Nicolas Cage. The film received mainly bad reviews and underperformed commercially, but film critic Roger Ebert wrote that she "does everything that can possibly be done" with her character, a waitress who becomes entangled in an undead man's mission to save his daughter from a cult. In early 2011, Heard also appeared on the British television program "Top Gear" as a star in a reasonably priced car coming 33rd of 41 on their Cee'd leaderboard. Heard next starred in NBC's "The Playboy Club", a crime drama series about the original Playboy Club in 1960s Chicago. After poor reviews and ratings as well as protests from both feminists and conservative groups, the series was canceled after only three episodes had aired. Heard's third role of 2011 was as the love interest of the main character, played by Johnny Depp, in the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation "The Rum Diary" (2011). The film was a commercial failure, grossing $30 million on a $45 million budget, and received mixed reviews. Heard's part was said to be underdeveloped. In 2011, Heard appeared in an advertisement campaign for the fashion brand Guess.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard next starred in the thriller "Paranoia" (2013), the exploitation film "Machete Kills" (2013) and the satire "Syrup" (2013), none of which were critical or commercial successes. The year also saw the US limited release of "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane". Although the film's reviews were overall mixed to negative, Heard's performance was deemed her "most definitive to date" by the "Los Angeles Times" and "psychologically interesting" by "The Washington Post". In 2014, Heard appeared in a supporting role in the commercially successful action-thriller "3 Days to Kill".


title: Amber Heard

text: In 2015, Heard had a prominent supporting role in the comedy-drama "Magic Mike XXL", playing the love interest of the film's protagonist, Channing Tatum. Like its predecessor, the film was a large box office success. Heard also had a small supporting role in Tom Hooper's period drama "The Danish Girl" (2015), and a starring role opposite James Franco and Ed Harris in the independent crime thriller "The Adderall Diaries" (2015). IndieWire stated that although Heard was "miscast" in "The Adderrall Diaries", she "displays much potential and has succeeded in a bid to be taken more seriously". Her fourth role in 2015 was opposite Christopher Walken in the television film "One More Time", which aired on Starz. For her role as a struggling singer-songwriter, she took singing lessons and learned to play piano and guitar. The "Los Angeles Times" called her performance "superb" and "The Film Stage" stated that Heard did an "admirable job". The actress also appeared in a November 2015 episode of the American automotive reality series "Overhaulin'", in which her Mustang received a makeover. It also featured the cast pranking Heard at the behest of Depp.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard played the female lead in "London Fields", an adaptation of Martin Amis's novel about a clairvoyant femme fatale who knows she will be murdered. It premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. Shortly after the screening, the film was pulled from release due to disagreements between its director and producers, and due to litigation. Heard was sued for $10 million for allegedly breaching performance and promotional obligations. The actress countersued, claiming the producers had violated a nudity rider in her contract. In September 2018, a settlement was reached, and the film was finally released. It received highly negative reviews, and Heard later stated that "it was one of the most difficult movies to film and it has proven to continue to be difficult ... I can't say I did [the character] justice". Jane Mulkerrins of "The Daily Telegraph" wrote that Heard provided "a decent enough turn as the enigmatic [Nicola Six]" that still could not save the adaptation, while Peter Sobczynski of "RogerEbert.com" said that she "just does not project the kind of mystery and allure" that the character requires. In 2019, Heard's performance in the film received a nomination for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress.


title: Amber Heard

text: In 2017, Heard appeared as part of an ensemble cast in Lake Bell's indie comedy "I Do... Until I Don't" and joined the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) cast as Mera, a princess of an Atlantean kingdom, in the superhero film "Justice League". She reprised the role the following year in "Aquaman", which co-starred Jason Momoa and marked Heard's first major role in a studio film. She cited Mera's trait of being "a strong, independent, self-possessed superhero in her own right" as one of the reasons for her attraction to the role, who rejects being called Aquawoman instead of by her own name. "Aquaman" received mixed reviews. It was a commercial success, grossing over $1 billion. The "Chicago Tribune"s Michael Phillips and "The Independent"s Geoffrey Macnab respectively noted that Heard "lends a blasé air of early '50s B-movie cheese" and that she "camps it up entertainingly" as Mera. That same year, Heard was appointed global ambassador for cosmetics brand L'Oréal Paris.


title: Amber Heard

text: In 2019, Heard had supporting roles in the independent dramas "Her Smell" and "Gully". Her only project released in 2020 was "The Stand", a miniseries based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. She played Nadine Cross, a school teacher who is among the few survivors of an apocalyptic plague. It premiered on CBS All Access in December 2020, with the series finale airing in February 2021. In 2021, Heard reprised her role as Mera in the superhero film "Zack Snyder's Justice League", a director's cut of the 2017 film, for which she had also filmed new scenes.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard is set to star in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" (2023), a sequel to "Aquaman". An online petition to remove Heard from the film began following her ex-husband Depp's loss in his UK libel case and his replacement in the "Fantastic Beasts" films in 2020. The petition "alleges that Heard lied about her accusations against Depp and is herself 'a known and proven domestic abuser'". Heard described the campaign as "paid rumors and paid campaigns on social media", and the film's co-producer, Peter Safran, confirmed that Heard would appear in the sequel. By the start of the 2022 "Depp v. Heard" trial in the US, the petition had reached 2 million signatures. In her testimony, Heard stated that she "'fought really hard to stay in the movie' but that 'they didn't want to include me in the film' and only shot a 'very pared-down version' of her part". DC Films president Walter Hamada, who testified for Depp, stated that they had considered recasting Mera but that it was due to concerns over Heard's chemistry with Momoa rather than the abuse allegations. Hamada also said that the role's reduced capacity in the sequel was because the film had always intended to focus on the relationship between Momoa and Patrick Wilson's characters. Heard is also attached to appear in Conor Allyn's forthcoming period drama, "In the Fire".


title: Amber Heard

text: In 2012, Heard worked with Amnesty International on a bilingual campaign to raise awareness of American immigration policy at the Mexico-United States border.


title: Amber Heard

text: In August 2016, Heard pledged to donate her $7 million divorce settlement with Johnny Depp to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). Later that year in November 2016, she issued a statement defending this pledge against allegations from TMZdespite the fact that Depp had not yet finished paying the $7 million dollars to herthat she had not yet made the donations as she had pledged. Depp finished paying the full $7 million divorce settlement to Heard by October 2018. By then, CHLA had already recognized Heard as one of their donors by officially including her in their "Honor Roll of Donors" list for the fiscal year 2017. In the following year in 2019, they likewise included her in their donors list for the fiscal year 2018.


title: Amber Heard

text: In January 2021, the "Daily Mail" reported an allegation made by Depp's lawyers that Heard had yet to complete her donations.


title: Amber Heard

text: In response to this claim, Heard's lawyer stated that Heard intends to "eventually fulfill her pledge" in full but has "been delayed in that goal because Mr. Depp filed a lawsuit against her, and consequently, she has been forced to spend millions of dollars." Subsequently, media outlets reported on past statements by Heard. During an appearance in the Dutch television talk show RTL Late Night in October 2018, Heard said she "donated" $7 million to the ACLU and CHLA. In her February 2020 testimony in the "Depp v News Group Newspapers Ltd" case in the UK, Heard stated that she had "donated" the "entire amount" of her divorce settlement to charity.


title: Amber Heard

text: In the "Depp v. Heard" trial in 2022, the corporate designee of CHLA testified that as of 2021, Heard had paid $250,000 to them. In a December 2021 testimony previously used in the trial, the ACLU's chief operating officer testified that the organization expected the pledged money to come in over a 10-year period and that Heard had made no contributions since 2018. To that time, the ACLU had received a total of $1.3 million between 2016 and 2018, of which $350,000 was directly from Heard, $500,000 from a donor advised fund believed to be of Elon Musk, $350,000 from another donor advised fund and $100,000 directly from Depp as part of the settlement. In 2019, the ACLU learned that Heard was "having financial problems and could not fulfill the remainder of the pledge." Heard testified that defending the case had cost her more than $6 million in legal fees. She also testified that the donation by Musk on her behalf did not count towards the final $3.5 million that she had pledged to donate and that she plans to resume her donations when she can.


title: Amber Heard

text: In November 2016, Heard was filmed for a public service announcement (PSA) on domestic violence for the #GirlGaze Project. In the PSA, she spoke about the importance of women helping each other and reminded those women affected by violence against women (VAW) that they are not alone while also encouraging them to "speak up." She also highlighted the importance of taking responsibility for how VAW is dealt with and talked about "in the media and in our culture" with the aim of making it easier for survivors to come forward and to stand up for themselves. She echoed similar sentiments in a letter addressed to "[her] silent sisters everywhere" and published in the December 2016 issue of "Porter" magazine. In the letter, she wrote, among other things, that "No matter how terrible or terrifying surviving trauma may be, unfortunately it can pale in comparison to what follows" and that "It isn’t easy to raise your voice, to stand up for yourself and your truth and to do it ‘alone’." Furthermore, she assured "every woman who is suffering in silence" that "you are not alone" and that "You may not see us, but we are there. Your sisters are everywhere... and we are with you."


title: Amber Heard

text: In an interview for The Economist's Pride and Prejudice event in March 2017 in which Heard discussed her position as an openly and activist "sexually fluid" woman, she highlighted the underrepresentation of LGBTQ characters in the Hollywood film industry (henceforth referred to as "Hollywood"). Furthermore, Heard talked about the importance of more gay men coming out in Hollywood because, she explained, this would go a long way towards making the industry more LGBTQ-inclusive. Later that same year in August, Heard produced a short video for "The Economist" in which she spoke about the gender pay gap in Hollywood and the underrepresentation of women in the industry.


title: Amber Heard

text: In April 2018, Heard joined the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) on a multi-specialty medical mission to the Al-Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan as a Goodwill Ambassador. While there, she met a 12-year-old girl named Weam who had thalassemia and needed expensive life-sustaining drugs and blood transfusions. She henceforth partnered with SAMS to help raise needed funds to aid Weam and 12 other children in the camp with thalassemia afford the costs of their treatments and to raise awareness about SAMS' humanitarian medical activities in Jordan.


title: Amber Heard

text: In the same year, Heard accepted an invitation from ACLU to become an ACLU Artist Ambassador in the capacity of which she aided ACLU's efforts in their activism for justice in gender issues. She also accepted ACLU's invitation to work with them on an op-ed to highlight sexual assault and domestic violence issues. The result of this collaboration was the op-ed that was first published by "The Washington Post" in her name on December 18, 2018 and that was republished by ACLU on December 27, 2018. It is this op-ed for which Depp sued her in late February/early March 2019 alleging that it had defamed him.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard was one of the speakers at the United Nations's 9th Annual Social Good Summit in September 2018. In her talk, she spoke about her history of volunteer and activist work starting from her childhood school days to her more contemporary work with SAMS. She also highlighted the centrality of humans and of human connections in human activities and passionately spoke about the significance of fairness and justice as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ahead of the 70th anniversary for the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Heard gave a speech, in October 2018, for the HagueTalks event 'Imagine the World We Want'. Later that same year in a week in November, Heard travelled to Mexico and visited several programs by Smile Train. In her visits, she met with several children with cleft lips and palate that Smile Train was providing medical assistance to and also met with the children's families and the doctors that were offering the assistance to the children.


title: Amber Heard

text: In February 2019, Heard joined SAMS on a medical mission to Lebanon targeting Syrian refugee women living in poverty and in need of medical care. While on the mission, she visited several informal settlements in Beka'a Valley including Al-Omaria. She also partnered with SAMS to help raise funds to establish psychosocial programs, to increase access to educational programs, and to provide vocational training, all to mostly widowed women and orphaned children in these settlements.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard was a Human Rights Champion for the Stand Up for Human Rights campaign by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In May 2019, she gave a speech in support of the SHIELD Act on Capitol Hill, discussing her experience of having had her private nude photos hacked and distributed online without her consent during the 2014 celebrity nude photo leak. In November 2019, Heard wrote an op-ed in "The New York Times" in which she contested that, "revenge porn is the wrong name" as "the perpetrator disclosed the images" even though "the victim did not consent to the disclosure." Heard further argued that, "Because the patchwork of state laws fails to truly protect intimate privacy, it is vital that Congress pass legislation that does."


title: Amber Heard

text: Prior to the 2020 United States presidential election, Heard appeared in an election ad created by artist Marilyn Minter in support of Planned Parenthood, and participated in the VoteRiders #IDCheck Challenge on social media.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard publicly came out in 2010, but has stated, "I don't label myself one way or another – I have had successful relationships with men and now a woman. I love who I love; it's the person that matters."


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard was in a relationship with photographer Tasya van Ree from 2008 to 2012. Heard had her last name legally changed to van Ree during the relationship and reverted to her birth name in 2014. In 2009, Heard was arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, Washington state after allegedly hitting van Ree. Heard appeared the next day in King County District Court, Seattle but was not charged. The arrest was made public in 2016 during Heard's divorce proceedings from actor Johnny Depp. A statement was then issued by Heard's publicist in which van Ree said that Heard had been "wrongfully" accused and that the incident had been "misinterpreted and over-sensationalized", while also recalling "hints of misogynistic attitudes toward us which later appeared to be homophobic when they found out we were domestic partners and not just 'friends'" and adding that Heard and her "shared 5 wonderful years together and remain close to this day." The female officer who conducted the arrest—herself a lesbian—subsequently posted on Facebook to say, "I am so not homophobic or misogynistic! The arrest was made because an assault occurred (I witnessed it)."


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard was one of the victims of the 2014 celebrity nude photo leak, in which "more than 50 of [her] personal photos were stolen and released to the public" with Heard later both speaking and writing against such breaches of privacy.


title: Amber Heard

text: Following her divorce from Johnny Depp, Heard dated tech entrepreneur and Tesla CEO and shareholder Elon Musk for a year, until early 2018. She later had a relationship with actress and cinematographer Bianca Butti from January 2020 to December 2021.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard first met actor Johnny Depp in 2009 when she was cast in "The Rum Diary" opposite him. According to reports, the couple began dating in 2012 and were married in a civil ceremony in February 2015.


title: Amber Heard

text: In April 2015, Heard and Depp breached Australia's biosecurity laws when they failed to declare in customs the two dogs accompanying them when they flew into Queensland, where Depp was working on a film. In May 2015, the dogs were flown out of the country hours before a euthanasia deadline. Later in July of the same year, only Heard was charged for this breach in the laws.


title: Amber Heard

text: By December 2015 the case had been adjourned four times with Heard having instructed her lawyers to enter not guilty pleas and stating that she was "looking forward" to fighting the charges. In the court case in April 2016, Heard pleaded guilty to falsifying quarantine documents, stating that she had made a mistake due to sleep deprivation. While criminal charges were dropped, she was placed on a A$1,000 (US$) one-month good behaviour bond for producing a false document; Heard and Depp released a video apologizing for their behavior and urging others to adhere to biosecurity laws.


title: Amber Heard

text: Heard filed for divorce from Depp in May 2016 and obtained a temporary restraining order against him, releasing a statement saying that, "During the entirety of our relationship, Johnny has been verbally and physically abusive to me. I endured excessive emotional, verbal and physical abuse from Johnny, which has included angry, hostile, humiliating and threatening assaults to me whenever I questioned his authority or disagreed with him." In response Depp's council said that, "Amber is attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse", and that, "He is unable to attend the hearing on this matter and has not heard Amber's specific allegations against him. He nonetheless has every intention of staying away from Amber and will stipulate to mutual stay-away and personal conduct orders."


title: Amber Heard

text: A ruling on the scale of the settlement was achieved in August 2016, and Heard pledged to donate the proceeds equally between the ACLU and CHLA. Heard dropped her request for a continued restraining order, and they issued a joint statement saying that their "relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm". The final terms of the settlement were agreed in January 2017 with Depp being required to complete the payment of $7 million to Heard by February 2018, contribute $500,000 towards Heard's attorneys fees, and to give Heard custody of their two dogs, a horse and two cars. Depp was to retain all his real estate assets and 42 vehicles; no spousal support would be paid by either party. In her 2022 testimony, Heard stated that because they had no pre-nuptial agreement, she would have been entitled to half of Depp's earnings of $65 million during the marriage had she requested it.


title: Amber Heard

text: In June 2018, Depp brought a libel lawsuit in the United Kingdom against News Group Newspapers (NGN), the company publishing "The Sun", which had labeled him a "wife beater" in an April 2018 article. Heard was a key witness for NGN during the highly publicized trial in July 2020.


title: Amber Heard

text: In November 2020, the presiding judge found that Depp had lost his claim and that "the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms. Heard by Mr. Depp [12 out of the 14] have been proved to the civil standard". The court rejected Depp's claim of a hoax, and accepted that the allegations Heard had made against Depp had damaged her career and activism. Depp's appeal to overturn the verdict was rejected in March 2021.


title: Amber Heard

text: In February 2019, Depp sued Heard for defamation over a December 2018 op-ed for "The Washington Post". In the lawsuit, Depp alleged that the op-ed contained three defamatory statements, the first of which was a headline:


title: Amber Heard

text: Depp also alleged that Heard had been the one who abused him, and that her allegations constituted a hoax against him.


title: Amber Heard

text: In August 2020, Heard filed a counterclaim against Depp, alleging that he had coordinated "a harassment campaign via Twitter and [by] orchestrating online petitions to get her fired from "Aquaman" and L'Oréal." Ultimately, Heard's counterclaim went to trial over three allegations that Depp had defamed her through statements made by his then-lawyer, Adam Waldman, published in the "Daily Mail" in April 2020, where Waldman stated:


title: Amber Heard

text: The Depp-Heard trial took place in Fairfax County, Virginia between April 11 and June 1, 2022. The verdict was that for Depp's lawsuit, the jury found that all three statements from Heard's op-ed were false, defamed Depp, and were made with actual malice, so the jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages from Heard. The punitive damages were reduced to $350,000 due to a limit imposed by Virginia state law. For Heard's counterclaim, the jury found that Waldman's first and third statements to the "Daily Mail" had not been proven to be defamatory, while finding that Waldman's second statement to the "Daily Mail" was false, defamatory and made with actual malice. As a result, Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages and zero in punitive damages from Depp.


title: Amber Heard

text: Over the course of the trial, online public sentiment was seen as highly negative towards Heard, there was a perception that she was less than truthful in her testimony which was mocked widely. Heard said she was "harassed, humiliated, threatened every single day" and described online criticism of her testimony as "agonizing". After the trial, Heard said she did not "blame" the jury for the verdict, because Depp was a "fantastic actor" and "people feel they know him". An interviewer hypothesised that the jury had not believed Heard's testimony and evidence, Heard questioned how the jury could believe her after "listening to three-and-a-half weeks of testimony about how I was a non-credible person".


title: Amber Heard

text: The day after the verdict was read, Heard's lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, told interviewers that Heard could not afford to pay the damages owed to Depp and would appeal the verdict. A month later, one of Heard's insurance providers, New York Marine, sued Heard in federal court, wanting to avoid paying up to $1 million for her legal defense fees in the Virginia case, arguing that the "jury's factual findings establish that Heard's liability is caused by the willful act(s) of Heard", hence New York Marine is "not liable" for the loss.


title: Amber Heard

text: After Heard appealed the verdict, Heard in December 2022 settled the case against Depp, publicly stating that even if her appeal succeeds, she "simply cannot go through" a retrial, while maintaining that the settlement was "not an act of concession"; meanwhile Depp's lawyers stated that the "jury's unanimous decision and the resulting judgement in Mr. Depp's favor against Ms. Heard remain fully in place", and that the settlement would result in $1 million being paid to Depp, which "Depp is pledging and will donate to charities.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer, file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The Pirate Bay has sparked controversies and discussion about legal aspects of file sharing, copyright, and civil liberties and has become a platform for political initiatives against established intellectual property laws as well as a central figure in an anti-copyright movement. The website has faced several shutdowns and domain seizures, switching to a series of new web addresses to continue operating.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In April 2009, the website's founders (Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm) were found guilty in the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden for assisting in copyright infringement and were sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine. In some countries, Internet service providers (ISPs) have been ordered to block access to the website. Subsequently, proxy websites have been providing access to it. Founders Svartholm, Neij, and Sunde were all released by 2015 after having served shortened sentences.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The Pirate Bay was established in September 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organisation Piratbyrån (); it has been run as a separate organisation since October 2004. The Pirate Bay was first run by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, who are known by their nicknames "anakata" and "TiAMO", respectively. They have both been accused of "assisting in making copyrighted content available" by the Motion Picture Association of America. On 31 May 2006, the website's servers in Stockholm were raided and taken away by Swedish police, leading to three days of downtime. The Pirate Bay claims to be a non-profit entity based in the Seychelles; however, this is disputed.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The Pirate Bay has been involved in a number of lawsuits, both as plaintiff and as defendant. On 17 April 2009, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström were found guilty of assistance to copyright infringement and sentenced to one year in prison and payment of a fine of 30 million Swedish kronor (approximately U$4.2 million, £2.8 million sterling, or €3.1 million), after a trial of nine days. The defendants appealed the verdict and accused the judge of giving in to political pressure. On 26 November 2010, a Swedish appeals court upheld the verdict, decreasing the original prison terms but increasing the fine to 46 million kronor. On 17 May 2010, because of an injunction against their bandwidth provider, the site was taken offline. Access to the website was later restored with a message making fun of the injunction on their front page. On 23 June 2010, the group Piratbyrån disbanded due to the death of Ibi Kopimi Botani, a prominent member and co-founder of the group.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The Pirate Bay was hosted for several years by PRQ, a Sweden-based company, owned by creators of TPB Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij. PRQ is said to provide "highly secure, no-questions-asked hosting services to its customers". From May 2011, Serious Tubes Networks started providing network connectivity to The Pirate Bay. On 23 January 2012, The Pirate Bay added the new category "Physibles". These are 3D files described as "data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical" using a 3D printer. In May 2012, as part of Google's newly inaugurated "Transparency Report", the company reported over 6,000 formal requests to remove Pirate Bay links from the Google Search index; those requests covered over 80,500 URLs, with the five copyright holders having the most requests consisting of: Froytal Services LLC, Bang Bros, Takedown Piracy LLC, Amateur Teen Kingdom, and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). On 10 August 2013, The Pirate Bay announced the release of PirateBrowser, a free web browser used to circumvent internet censorship. The site was the most visited torrent directory on the World Wide Web from 2003 until November 2014, when KickassTorrents had more visitors according to Alexa. On 8 December 2014, Google removed most of the Google Play apps from its app store that have "The Pirate Bay" in the title.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: On 9 December 2014, The Pirate Bay was raided by the Swedish police, who seized servers, computers, and other equipment. Several other torrent related sites including EZTV, Zoink, Torrage and the Istole tracker were also shut down in addition to The Pirate Bay's forum Suprbay.org. On the second day after the raid EZTV was reported to be showing "signs of life" with uploads to ExtraTorrent and KickassTorrents and supporting proxy sites like eztv-proxy.net via the main website's backend IP addresses. Several copies of The Pirate Bay went online during the next several days, most notably oldpiratebay.org, created by isoHunt.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: On 19 May 2015, the .se domain of The Pirate Bay was ordered to be seized following a ruling by a Swedish court. The site reacted by adding six new domains in its place. The judgment was appealed on 26 May 2015. On 12 May 2016, the appeal was


title: The Pirate Bay

text: dismissed and the Court ruled the domains be turned over to the Swedish state. The site returned to using its original .org domain in May 2016. In August 2016, the US government shut down KickassTorrents, which resulted in The Pirate Bay becoming once again the most visited BitTorrent website.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The Pirate Bay allows users to search for Magnet links. These are used to reference resources available for download via peer-to-peer networks which, when opened in a BitTorrent client, begin downloading the desired content. (Originally, The Pirate Bay allowed users to download BitTorrent files (torrents), small files that contain metadata necessary to download the data files from other users). The torrents are organised into categories: "Audio", "Video", "Applications", "Games", "Porn" and "Other". Registration requires an email address and is free; registered users may upload their own torrents and comment on torrents. According to a study of newly uploaded files during 2013 by TorrentFreak, 44% of uploads were television shows and movies, porn was in second place with 35% of uploads, and audio made up 9% of uploads. Registration for new users was closed in May 2019 following problems with the uploading of malware torrents.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The website features a browse function that enables users to see what is available in broad categories like Audio, Video, and Games, as well as sub-categories like Audio books, High-res Movies, and Comics. Since January 2012, it also features a "Physibles" category for 3D-printable objects. The contents of these categories can be sorted by file name, the number of seeders or leechers, the date posted, etc.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: Piratbyrån described The Pirate Bay as a long-running project of performance art. Normally, the front page of The Pirate Bay featured a drawing of a pirate ship with the logo of the 1980s anti-copyright infringement campaign, "Home Taping Is Killing Music", on its sails instead of the Jolly Roger symbol usually associated with pirate ships.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: Initially, The Pirate Bay's four Linux servers ran a custom web server called Hypercube. An old version is open-source. On 1 June 2005, The Pirate Bay updated its website in an effort to reduce bandwidth usage, which was reported to be at 2 HTTP requests per millisecond on each of the four web servers, as well as to create a more user friendly interface for the front-end of the website. The website now runs Lighttpd and PHP on its dynamic front ends, MySQL at the database back end, Sphinx on the two search systems, memcached for caching SQL queries and PHP-sessions and Varnish in front of Lighttpd for caching static content. , The Pirate Bay consisted of 31 dedicated servers including nine dynamic web fronts, a database, two search engines, and eight BitTorrent trackers.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: On 7 December 2007, The Pirate Bay finished the move from Hypercube to Opentracker as its BitTorrent tracking software, also enabling the use of the UDP tracker protocol for which Hypercube lacked support. This allowed UDP multicast to be used to synchronise the multiple servers with each other much faster than before. Opentracker is free software.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In June 2008, The Pirate Bay announced that their servers would support SSL encryption in response to Sweden's new wiretapping law. On 19 January 2009, The Pirate Bay launched IPv6 support for their tracker system, using an IPv6-only version of Opentracker. On 17 November 2009, The Pirate Bay shut off its tracker service permanently, stating that centralised trackers are no longer needed since distributed hash tables (DHT), peer exchange (PEX), and magnet links allow peers to find each other and content in a decentralised way.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: On 20 February 2012, The Pirate Bay announced in a Facebook post that after 29 February the site would no longer offer torrent files, and would instead offer only magnet links. The site commented: "Not having torrents will be a bit cheaper for us but it will also make it harder for our common enemies to stop us." The site added that torrents being shared by fewer than ten people will retain their torrent files, to ensure compatibility with older software that may not support magnet links.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In April 2007, a rumour was confirmed on the Swedish talk show "Bert" that The Pirate Bay had received financial support from right-wing entrepreneur Carl Lundström. This caused some consternation since Lundström, an heir to the Wasabröd fortune, is known for financing several far-right political parties and movements like Sverigedemokraterna and Bevara Sverige Svenskt ("Keep Sweden Swedish"). During the talk show, Piratbyrån spokesman Tobias Andersson acknowledged that "without Lundström's support, Pirate Bay would not have been able to start" and stated that most of the money went towards acquiring servers and bandwidth.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: From 2004 until 2006, The Pirate Bay had a "Donate" link to a donations page which listed several payment methods, stated that funds supported only the tracker, and offered time-limited benefits to donors such as no advertisements and "VIP" status. After that, the link was removed from the home page, and the donations page only recommended donating "to your local pro-piracy group" for a time, after which it redirected to the site's main page. "Billboard" claimed that the site in 2009 "appeals for donations to keep its service running". In 2006, Petter Nilsson, a candidate on the Swedish political reality show "Toppkandidaterna" ("The Top Candidates"), donated 35,000 Swedish kronor (US$4,925.83) to The Pirate Bay, which they used to buy new servers.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In 2007, the site ran a fund intended to buy Sealand, a platform with debated micronation status. In 2009, the convicted principals of TPB requested that users stop trying to donate money for their fines, because they refused to pay them. In 2013, The Pirate Bay published its Bitcoin address on the site front page for donations, as well as Litecoin.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The site links to an online store selling site-related merchandise, first noted in 2006 in "Svenska Dagbladet".


title: The Pirate Bay

text: Since 2006, the website has received financing through advertisements on result pages. According to speculations by "Svenska Dagbladet", the advertisements generate about 600,000 kronor ($84,000) per month. In an investigation in 2006, the police concluded that The Pirate Bay brings in 1.2 million kronor ($169,000) per year from advertisements. The prosecution estimated in the 2009 trial from emails and screenshots that the advertisements pay over 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) a year, but the indictment used the estimate from the police investigation. The lawyers of the site's administrators counted the 2006 revenue closer to 725,000 kronor ($102,000). The verdict of the first trial, however, quoted the estimate from the preliminary investigation.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: , IFPI claims that the website is extremely profitable, and that The Pirate Bay is more engaged in making profit than supporting people's rights. The website has insisted that these allegations are not true, stating, "It's not free to operate a Web Site on this scale", and, "If we were making lots of money I, Svartholm, wouldn't be working late at the office tonight, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere, working on my tan." In response to claims of annual revenue exceeding $3 million made by the IFPI, the site's spokesman Peter Sunde argues that the website's high bandwidth, power, and hardware costs eliminate the potential for profit. The Pirate Bay, he says, may ultimately be operating at a loss. In the 2009 trial, the defence estimated the site's yearly expenses to be 800,000 kronor ($110,000).


title: The Pirate Bay

text: There have been unintentional advertisers. In 2007, an online ad agency placed Wal-Mart "The Simpsons" DVD ads "along with search results that included downloads of the series". In 2012, banner ads for Canada's Department of Finance Economic Action Plan were placed atop search results, as part of a larger "media buy", but were pulled "quickly".


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In 2017, The Pirate Bay embedded scripts on its website that would consume resources on visitors' computers in order to mine the Monero cryptocurrency. Visitors were initially not informed that these scripts had been added. After negative feedback, the operators published an announcement stating that it was a test to see if it could replace advertisements. The mining script appeared and disappeared from the website repeatedly over the following months through 2018.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: According to the site's usage policy, it reserves the right to charge commercial policy violators "a basic fee of €5,000 plus bandwidth and other costs that may arise due to the violation". Co-founder Peter Sunde accused Swedish book publishers, who scraped the site for information about copyrighted books, of violating the usage policy, and asserted TPB's copyright on its database.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: The team behind The Pirate Bay has worked on several websites and software projects of varying degrees of permanence.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In July, "within hours after Ingmar Bergman's death", BergmanBits.com was launched, listing torrents for the director's films, online until mid-2008. In August, The Pirate Bay relaunched the BitTorrent website Suprnova.org to perform the same functions as The Pirate Bay, with different torrent trackers, but the site languished; the domain was returned to its original owner in August 2010, and it now redirects to TorrentFreak.tv.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: Suprbay.org was introduced in August as the official forum for ThePirateBay.org and the various sites connected to it. Users can request reseeding of torrents, or report malware within torrent files or illegal material on ThePirateBay.org.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: "BOiNK" was announced in October 2007 in response to the raid on Oink's Pink Palace, a music-oriented BitTorrent website. A month later Sunde cancelled "BOiNK", citing the many new music websites created since the downfall of OiNK.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: A Mac dashboard widget was released in December, listing "top 10 stuff currently on TPB, either per category or the full list". "SlopsBox", a disposable email address anti-spam service, also appeared in December, and was reviewed in 2009.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In 2008, "Baywords" was launched as a free blogging service that lets users of the site blog about anything as long as it does not break any Swedish laws. In December, The Pirate Bay resurrected ShareReactor as a combined eD2k and BitTorrent site. The same month, the "Vio" mobile video converter was released, designed to convert video files for playback on mobile devices such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, many Nokia and Windows Mobile devices.


title: The Pirate Bay

text: In 2009, "Pastebay", a note sharing service similar to Pastebin, was made available to the public as of 23 March. "The Video Bay" video streaming/sharing site was announced in June to be "The YouTube Killer", with content viewable in HTML 5-capable browsers. The site was in an "Extreme Beta" phase; a message on the homepage instructed the user "don't expect anything to work at all". "The Video Bay" was never completed and as of 28 April 2013, "The Video Bay" is inaccessible.