title: California

text: In California, , the U.S. Department of Defense had a total of 117,806 active duty servicemembers of which 88,370 were Sailors or Marines, 18,339 were Airmen, and 11,097 were Soldiers, with 61,365 Department of Defense civilian employees. Additionally, there were a total of 57,792 Reservists and Guardsman in California.


title: California

text: In 2010, Los Angeles County was the largest origin of military recruits in the United States by county, with 1,437 individuals enlisting in the military. However, , Californians were relatively under-represented in the military as a proportion to its population.


title: California

text: In 2000, California, had 2,569,340 veterans of United States military service: 504,010 served in World War II, 301,034 in the Korean War, 754,682 during the Vietnam War, and 278,003 during 1990–2000 (including the Persian Gulf War). , there were 1,942,775 veterans living in California, of which 1,457,875 served during a period of armed conflict, and just over four thousand served before World WarII (the largest population of this group of any state).


title: California

text: California's military forces consist of the Army and Air National Guard, the naval and state military reserve (militia), and the California Cadet Corps.


title: California

text: On August 5, 1950, a nuclear-capable United States Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber carrying a nuclear bomb crashed shortly after takeoff from Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base. Brigadier General Robert F. Travis, command pilot of the bomber, was among the dead.


title: California

text: California has an idiosyncratic political culture compared to the rest of the country, and is sometimes regarded as a trendsetter. In socio-cultural mores and national politics, Californians are perceived as more liberal than other Americans, especially those who live in the inland states. In the 2016 United States presidential election, California had the third highest percentage of Democratic votes behind the District of Columbia and Hawaii. In the 2020 United States presidential election, it had the 6th highest behind the District of Columbia, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Hawaii. According to the Cook Political Report, California contains five of the 15 most Democratic congressional districts in the United States.


title: California

text: Among the political idiosyncrasies, California was the second state to recall their state governor (the first state being North Dakota in 1921), the second state to legalize abortion, and the only state to ban marriage for gay couples twice by vote (including Proposition8 in 2008). Voters also passed Proposition 71 in 2004 to fund stem cell research, making California the second state to legalize stem cell research after New Jersey, and Proposition 14 in 2010 to completely change the state's primary election process. California has also experienced disputes over water rights; and a tax revolt, culminating with the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, limiting state property taxes. California voters have rejected affirmative action on multiple occasions, most recently in November 2020.


title: California

text: The state's trend towards the Democratic Party and away from the Republican Party can be seen in state elections. From 1899 to 1939, California had Republican governors. Since 1990, California has generally elected Democratic candidates to federal, state and local offices, including current Governor Gavin Newsom; however, the state has elected Republican Governors, though many of its Republican Governors, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, tend to be considered moderate Republicans and more centrist than the national party.


title: California

text: Several political movements have advocated for Californian independence. The California National Party and the California Freedom Coalition both advocate for Californian independence along the lines of progressivism and civic nationalism. The Yes California movement attempted to organize an independence referendum via ballot initiative for 2019, which was then postponed.


title: California

text: The Democrats also now hold a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature. There are 60 Democrats and 20 Republicans in the Assembly; and 29 Democrats and 11 Republicans in the Senate.


title: California

text: The trend towards the Democratic Party is most obvious in presidential elections. From 1952 through 1988, California was a Republican leaning state, with the party carrying the state's electoral votes in nine of ten elections, with 1964 as the exception. Southern California Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were both elected twice as the 37th and 40th U.S. Presidents, respectively. However, Democrats have won all of California's electoral votes for the last eight elections, starting in 1992.


title: California

text: In the United States House, the Democrats held a 34–19 edge in the CA delegation of the 110th United States Congress in 2007. As the result of gerrymandering, the districts in California were usually dominated by one or the other party, and few districts were considered competitive. In 2008, Californians passed Proposition 20 to empower a 14-member independent citizen commission to redraw districts for both local politicians and Congress. After the 2012 elections, when the new system took effect, Democrats gained four seats and held a 38–15 majority in the delegation. Following the 2018 midterm House elections, Democrats won 46 out of 53 congressional house seats in California, leaving Republicans with seven.


title: California

text: In general, Democratic strength is centered in the populous coastal regions of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the San Francisco Bay Area. Republican strength is still greatest in eastern parts of the state. Orange County had remained largely Republican until the 2016 and 2018 elections, in which a majority of the county's votes were cast for Democratic candidates. One study ranked Berkeley, Oakland, Inglewood and San Francisco in the top 20 most liberal American cities; and Bakersfield, Orange, Escondido, Garden Grove, and Simi Valley in the top 20 most conservative cities.


title: California

text: In February 2021, out of the 25,166,581 people eligible to vote, 22,154,304 people were registered to vote. Of the people registered, the three largest registered groups were Democrats (10,228,144), Republicans (5,347,377), and No Party Preference (5,258,223). Los Angeles County had the largest number of registered Democrats (3,043,535) and Republicans (995,112) of any county in the state.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for servers, and Windows IoT for embedded systems. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The first version of Windows was released on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows is the most popular desktop operating system in the world, with 75% market share , according to StatCounter. However, Windows is not the most used operating system when including both mobile and desktop OSes, due to Android's massive growth.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: , the most recent version of Windows is Windows 11 for consumer PCs and tablets, Windows 11 Enterprise for corporations, and Windows Server 2022 for servers.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several trademarks, each of which denotes a family of Windows operating systems that target a specific sector of the computing industry. As of 2014, the following Windows families were being actively developed:


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The term "Windows" collectively describes any or all of several generations of Microsoft operating system products. These products are generally categorized as follows:


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The history of Windows dates back to 1981 when Microsoft started work on a program called "Interface Manager". It was announced in November 1983 (after the Apple Lisa, but before the Macintosh) under the name "Windows", but Windows 1.0 was not released until November 1985. Windows 1.0 was to compete with Apple's operating system, but achieved little popularity. Windows 1.0 is not a complete operating system; rather, it extends MS-DOS. The shell of Windows 1.0 is a program known as the MS-DOS Executive. Components included Calculator, Calendar, Cardfile, Clipboard Viewer, Clock, Control Panel, Notepad, Paint, Reversi, Terminal and Write. Windows 1.0 does not allow overlapping windows. Instead all windows are tiled. Only modal dialog boxes may appear over other windows. Microsoft sold as included Windows Development libraries with the C development environment, which included numerous windows samples.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 2.0 was released in December 1987, and was more popular than its predecessor. It features several improvements to the user interface and memory management. Windows 2.03 changed the OS from tiled windows to overlapping windows. The result of this change led to Apple Computer filing a suit against Microsoft alleging infringement on Apple's copyrights (eventually settled in court in Microsoft's favor in 1993). Windows 2.0 also introduced more sophisticated keyboard shortcuts and could make use of expanded memory.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 2.1 was released in two different versions: Windows/286 and Windows/386. Windows/386 uses the virtual 8086 mode of the Intel 80386 to multitask several DOS programs and the paged memory model to emulate expanded memory using available extended memory. Windows/286, in spite of its name, runs on both Intel 8086 and Intel 80286 processors. It runs in real mode but can make use of the high memory area.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In addition to full Windows-packages, there were runtime-only versions that shipped with early Windows software from third parties and made it possible to run their Windows software on MS-DOS and without the full Windows feature set.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The early versions of Windows are often thought of as graphical shells, mostly because they ran on top of MS-DOS and use it for file system services. However, even the earliest Windows versions already assumed many typical operating system functions; notably, having their own executable file format and providing their own device drivers (timer, graphics, printer, mouse, keyboard and sound). Unlike MS-DOS, Windows allowed users to execute multiple graphical applications at the same time, through cooperative multitasking. Windows implemented an elaborate, segment-based, software virtual memory scheme, which allows it to run applications larger than available memory: code segments and resources are swapped in and thrown away when memory became scarce; data segments moved in memory when a given application had relinquished processor control.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 3.0, released in 1990, improved the design, mostly because of virtual memory and loadable virtual device drivers (VxDs) that allow Windows to share arbitrary devices between multi-tasked DOS applications. Windows 3.0 applications can run in protected mode, which gives them access to several megabytes of memory without the obligation to participate in the software virtual memory scheme. They run inside the same address space, where the segmented memory provides a degree of protection. Windows 3.0 also featured improvements to the user interface. Microsoft rewrote critical operations from C into assembly. Windows 3.0 was the first version of Windows to achieve broad commercial success, selling 2 million copies in the first six months.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 3.1, made generally available on March 1, 1992, featured a facelift. In August 1993, Windows for Workgroups, a special version with integrated peer-to-peer networking features and a version number of 3.11, was released. It was sold along with Windows 3.1. Support for Windows 3.1 ended on December 31, 2001.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 3.2, released 1994, is an updated version of the Chinese version of Windows 3.1. The update was limited to this language version, as it fixed only issues related to the complex writing system of the Chinese language. Windows 3.2 was generally sold by computer manufacturers with a ten-disk version of MS-DOS that also had Simplified Chinese characters in basic output and some translated utilities.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The next major consumer-oriented release of Windows, Windows 95, was released on August 24, 1995. While still remaining MS-DOS-based, Windows 95 introduced support for native 32-bit applications, plug and play hardware, preemptive multitasking, long file names of up to 255 characters, and provided increased stability over its predecessors. Windows 95 also introduced a redesigned, object oriented user interface, replacing the previous Program Manager with the Start menu, taskbar, and Windows Explorer shell. Windows 95 was a major commercial success for Microsoft; Ina Fried of CNET remarked that "by the time Windows 95 was finally ushered off the market in 2001, it had become a fixture on computer desktops around the world." Microsoft published four OEM Service Releases (OSR) of Windows 95, each of which was roughly equivalent to a service pack. The first OSR of Windows 95 was also the first version of Windows to be bundled with Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer. Mainstream support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2000, and extended support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2001.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 95 was followed up with the release of Windows 98 on June 25, 1998, which introduced the Windows Driver Model, support for USB composite devices, support for ACPI, hibernation, and support for multi-monitor configurations. Windows 98 also included integration with Internet Explorer 4 through Active Desktop and other aspects of the Windows Desktop Update (a series of enhancements to the Explorer shell which were also made available for Windows 95). In May 1999, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition, an updated version of Windows 98. Windows 98 SE added Internet Explorer 5.0 and Windows Media Player 6.2 amongst other upgrades. Mainstream support for Windows 98 ended on June 30, 2002, and extended support for Windows 98 ended on July 11, 2006.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: On September 14, 2000, Microsoft released Windows Me (Millennium Edition), the last DOS-based version of Windows. Windows Me incorporated visual interface enhancements from its Windows NT-based counterpart Windows 2000, had faster boot times than previous versions (which however, required the removal of the ability to access a real mode DOS environment, removing compatibility with some older programs), expanded multimedia functionality (including Windows Media Player 7, Windows Movie Maker, and the Windows Image Acquisition framework for retrieving images from scanners and digital cameras), additional system utilities such as System File Protection and System Restore, and updated home networking tools. However, Windows Me was faced with criticism for its speed and instability, along with hardware compatibility issues and its removal of real mode DOS support. "PC World" considered Windows Me to be one of the worst operating systems Microsoft had ever released, and the fourth worst tech product of all time.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In November 1988, a new development team within Microsoft (which included former Digital Equipment Corporation developers Dave Cutler and Mark Lucovsky) began work on a revamped version of IBM and Microsoft's OS/2 operating system known as "NT OS/2". NT OS/2 was intended to be a secure, multi-user operating system with POSIX compatibility and a modular, portable kernel with preemptive multitasking and support for multiple processor architectures. However, following the successful release of Windows 3.0, the NT development team decided to rework the project to use an extended 32-bit port of the Windows API known as Win32 instead of those of OS/2. Win32 maintained a similar structure to the Windows APIs (allowing existing Windows applications to easily be ported to the platform), but also supported the capabilities of the existing NT kernel. Following its approval by Microsoft's staff, development continued on what was now Windows NT, the first 32-bit version of Windows. However, IBM objected to the changes, and ultimately continued OS/2 development on its own.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows NT was the first Windows operating system based on a hybrid kernel. The hybrid kernel was designed as a modified microkernel, influenced by the Mach microkernel developed by Richard Rashid at Carnegie Mellon University, but without meeting all of the criteria of a pure microkernel.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The first release of the resulting operating system, Windows NT 3.1 (named to associate it with Windows 3.1) was released in July 1993, with versions for desktop workstations and servers. Windows NT 3.5 was released in September 1994, focusing on performance improvements and support for Novell's NetWare, and was followed up by Windows NT 3.51 in May 1995, which included additional improvements and support for the PowerPC architecture. Windows NT 4.0 was released in June 1996, introducing the redesigned interface of Windows 95 to the NT series. On February 17, 2000, Microsoft released Windows 2000, a successor to NT 4.0. The Windows NT name was dropped at this point in order to put a greater focus on the Windows brand.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The next major version of Windows NT, Windows XP, was released on October 25, 2001. The introduction of Windows XP aimed to unify the consumer-oriented Windows 9x series with the architecture introduced by Windows NT, a change which Microsoft promised would provide better performance over its DOS-based predecessors. Windows XP would also introduce a redesigned user interface (including an updated Start menu and a "task-oriented" Windows Explorer), streamlined multimedia and networking features, Internet Explorer 6, integration with Microsoft's .NET Passport services, a "compatibility mode" to help provide backwards compatibility with software designed for previous versions of Windows, and Remote Assistance functionality.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: At retail, Windows XP was now marketed in two main editions: the "Home" edition was targeted towards consumers, while the "Professional" edition was targeted towards business environments and power users, and included additional security and networking features. Home and Professional were later accompanied by the "Media Center" edition (designed for home theater PCs, with an emphasis on support for DVD playback, TV tuner cards, DVR functionality, and remote controls), and the "Tablet PC" edition (designed for mobile devices meeting its specifications for a tablet computer, with support for stylus pen input and additional pen-enabled applications). Mainstream support for Windows XP ended on April 14, 2009. Extended support ended on April 8, 2014.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: After Windows 2000, Microsoft also changed its release schedules for server operating systems; the server counterpart of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, was released in April 2003. It was followed in December 2005, by Windows Server 2003 R2.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: After a lengthy development process, Windows Vista was released on November 30, 2006, for volume licensing and January 30, 2007, for consumers. It contained a number of new features, from a redesigned shell and user interface to significant technical changes, with a particular focus on security features. It was available in a number of different editions, and has been subject to some criticism, such as drop of performance, longer boot time, criticism of new UAC, and stricter license agreement. Vista's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 was released in early 2008.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: On July 22, 2009, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 were released as RTM (release to manufacturing) while the former was released to the public 3 months later on October 22, 2009. Unlike its predecessor, Windows Vista, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista was already compatible. Windows 7 has multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows shell with an updated taskbar with revealable jump lists that contain shortcuts to files frequently used with specific applications and shortcuts to tasks within the application, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 8, the successor to Windows 7, was released generally on October 26, 2012. A number of significant changes were made on Windows 8, including the introduction of a user interface based around Microsoft's Metro design language with optimizations for touch-based devices such as tablets and all-in-one PCs. These changes include the Start screen, which uses large tiles that are more convenient for touch interactions and allow for the display of continually updated information, and a new class of apps which are designed primarily for use on touch-based devices. The new Windows version required a minimum resolution of 1024×768 pixels, effectively making it unfit for netbooks with 800×600-pixel screens.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Other changes include increased integration with cloud services and other online platforms (such as social networks and Microsoft's own OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) and Xbox Live services), the Windows Store service for software distribution, and a new variant known as Windows RT for use on devices that utilize the ARM architecture, and a new keyboard shortcut for screenshots. An update to Windows 8, called Windows 8.1, was released on October 17, 2013, and includes features such as new live tile sizes, deeper OneDrive integration, and many other revisions. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have been subject to some criticism, such as removal of the Start menu.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: On September 30, 2014, Microsoft announced Windows 10 as the successor to Windows 8.1. It was released on July 29, 2015, and addresses shortcomings in the user interface first introduced with Windows 8. Changes on PC include the return of the Start Menu, a virtual desktop system, and the ability to run Windows Store apps within windows on the desktop rather than in full-screen mode. Windows 10 is said to be available to update from qualified Windows 7 with SP1, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices from the Get Windows 10 Application (for Windows 7, Windows 8.1) or Windows Update (Windows 7).


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In February 2017, Microsoft announced the migration of its Windows source code repository from Perforce to Git. This migration involved 3.5 million separate files in a 300 gigabyte repository. By May 2017, 90 percent of its engineering team was using Git, in about 8500 commits and 1760 Windows builds per day.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In June 2021, shortly before Microsoft's announcement of Windows 11, Microsoft updated their lifecycle policy pages for Windows 10, revealing that support for their last release of Windows 10 will be October 14, 2025.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: On June 24, 2021, Windows 11 was announced as the successor to Windows 10 during a livestream. The new operating system was designed to be more user-friendly and understandable. It was released on October 5, 2021. Windows 11 is a free upgrade to Windows 10 users who meet the system requirements.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In July 2021, Microsoft announced it will start selling subscriptions to virtualized Windows desktops as part of a new "Windows 365" service in the following month. It is not a standalone version of Windows, but a web service that provides access to Windows 10 and Windows 11 built on top of Azure Virtual Desktop. The new service will allow for cross-platform usage, aiming to make the operating system available for both Apple and Android users. The subscription service will be accessible through any operating system with a web browser. The new service is an attempt at capitalizing on the growing trend, fostered during the COVID-19 pandemic, for businesses to adopt a hybrid remote work environment, in which "employees split their time between the office and home". As the service will be accessible through web browsers, Microsoft will be able to bypass the need to publish the service through Google Play or the Apple App Store.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Multilingual support has been built into Windows since Windows 3.0. The language for both the keyboard and the interface can be changed through the Region and Language Control Panel. Components for all supported input languages, such as Input Method Editors, are automatically installed during Windows installation (in Windows XP and earlier, files for East Asian languages, such as Chinese, and right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic, may need to be installed separately, also from the said Control Panel). Third-party IMEs may also be installed if a user feels that the provided one is insufficient for their needs.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Interface languages for the operating system are free for download, but some languages are limited to certain editions of Windows. Language Interface Packs (LIPs) are redistributable and may be downloaded from Microsoft's Download Center and installed for any edition of Windows (XP or later) they translate most, but not all, of the Windows interface, and require a certain base language (the language which Windows originally shipped with). This is used for most languages in emerging markets. Full Language Packs, which translates the complete operating system, are only available for specific editions of Windows (Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista and 7, and all editions of Windows 8, 8.1 and RT except Single Language). They do not require a specific base language, and are commonly used for more popular languages such as French or Chinese. These languages cannot be downloaded through the Download Center, but available as optional updates through the Windows Update service (except Windows 8).


title: Microsoft Windows

text: The interface language of installed applications is not affected by changes in the Windows interface language. The availability of languages depends on the application developers themselves.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 introduces a new Language Control Panel where both the interface and input languages can be simultaneously changed, and language packs, regardless of type, can be downloaded from a central location. The PC Settings app in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 also includes a counterpart settings page for this. Changing the interface language also changes the language of preinstalled Windows Store apps (such as Mail, Maps and News) and certain other Microsoft-developed apps (such as Remote Desktop). The above limitations for language packs are however still in effect, except that full language packs can be installed for any edition except Single Language, which caters to emerging markets.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows NT included support for several platforms before the x86-based personal computer became dominant in the professional world. Windows NT 4.0 and its predecessors supported PowerPC, DEC Alpha and MIPS R4000 (although some of the platforms implement 64-bit computing, the OS treated them as 32-bit). Windows 2000 dropped support for all platforms, except the third generation x86 (known as IA-32) or newer in 32-bit mode. The client line of Windows NT family still runs on IA-32 but the Windows Server line ceased supporting this platform with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: With the introduction of the Intel Itanium architecture (IA-64), Microsoft released new versions of Windows to support it. Itanium versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 were released at the same time as their mainstream x86 counterparts. Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, released in 2005, is the last Windows client operating systems to support Itanium. Windows Server line continues to support this platform until Windows Server 2012; Windows Server 2008 R2 is the last Windows operating system to support Itanium architecture.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: On April 25, 2005, Microsoft released Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions to support x86-64 (or simply x64), the 64-bit version of x86 architecture. Windows Vista was the first client version of Windows NT to be released simultaneously in IA-32 and x64 editions. x64 is still supported.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: An edition of Windows 8 known as Windows RT was specifically created for computers with ARM architecture and while ARM is still used for Windows smartphones with Windows 10, tablets with Windows RT will not be updated. Starting from Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) and later includes support for ARM-based PCs.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows CE (officially known as "Windows Embedded Compact"), is an edition of Windows that runs on minimalistic computers, like satellite navigation systems and some mobile phones. Windows Embedded Compact is based on its own dedicated kernel, dubbed Windows CE kernel. Microsoft licenses Windows CE to OEMs and device makers. The OEMs and device makers can modify and create their own user interfaces and experiences, while Windows CE provides the technical foundation to do so.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows CE was used in the Dreamcast along with Sega's own proprietary OS for the console. Windows CE was the core from which Windows Mobile was derived. Its successor, Windows Phone 7, was based on components from both Windows CE 6.0 R3 and Windows CE 7.0. Windows Phone 8 however, is based on the same NT-kernel as Windows 8.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows Embedded Compact is not to be confused with Windows XP Embedded or Windows NT 4.0 Embedded, modular editions of Windows based on Windows NT kernel.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Xbox OS is an unofficial name given to the version of Windows that runs on Xbox consoles. From Xbox One onwards it is an implementation with an emphasis on virtualization (using Hyper-V) as it is three operating systems running at once, consisting of the core operating system, a second implemented for games and a more Windows-like environment for applications.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Microsoft updates Xbox One's OS every month, and these updates can be downloaded from the Xbox Live service to the Xbox and subsequently installed, or by using offline recovery images downloaded via a PC. It was originally based on NT 6.2 (Windows 8) kernel, and the latest version runs on an NT 10.0 base. This system is sometimes referred to as "Windows 10 on Xbox One" or "OneCore".


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Xbox One and Xbox Series operating systems also allow limited (due to licensing restrictions and testing resources) backward compatibility with previous generation hardware, and the Xbox 360's system is backwards compatible with the original Xbox.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Up to and including every version before Windows 2000, Microsoft used an in-house version control system named Source Library Manager (SLM). Shortly after Windows 2000 was released, Microsoft switched to a fork of Perforce named Source Depot. This system was used up until 2017 once the system couldn't keep up with the size of Windows. Microsoft had begun to integrate Git into Team Foundation Server in 2013, but Windows continued to rely on Source Depot. The Windows code was divided among 65 different repositories with a kind of virtualization layer to produce unified view of all of the code.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In 2017 Microsoft announced that it would start using Git, an open source version control system created by Linus Torvalds and in May 2017 they reported that has completed migration into the Git repository.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Because of its large, decades-long history, however, the Windows codebase is not especially well suited to the decentralized nature of Linux development that Git was originally created to manage. Each Git repository contains a complete history of all the files, which proved unworkable for Windows developers because cloning the whole repository takes several hours. Microsoft has been working on a new project called the Virtual File System for Git (VFSForGit) to address these challenges.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: For desktop and laptop computers, according to Net Applications and StatCounter, which track the use of operating systems in devices that are active on the Web, Windows was the most used operating-system family in August 2021, with around 91% usage share according to Net Applications and around 76% usage share according to StatCounter.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Including personal computers of all kinds (e.g., desktops, laptops, mobile devices, and game consoles), Windows OSes accounted for 32.67% of usage share in August 2021, compared to Android (highest, at 46.03%), iOS's 13.76%, iPadOS's 2.81%, and macOS's 2.51%, according to Net Applications and 30.73% of usage share in August 2021, compared to Android (highest, at 42.56%), iOS/iPadOS's 16.53%, and macOS's 6.51%, according to StatCounter.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Those statistics do not include servers (including so-called cloud computing, where Microsoft is known not to be a leader, with Linux used more than Windows), as Net Applications and StatCounter use web browsing as a proxy for all use.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Early versions of Windows were designed at a time where malware and networking were less common, and had few built-in security features; they did not provide access privileges to allow a user to prevent other users from accessing their files, and they did not provide memory protection to prevent one process from reading or writing another process's address space or to prevent a process from code or data used by privileged-mode code.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: While the Windows 9x series offered the option of having profiles for multiple users, it had no concept of access privileges, allowing any user to edit others' files. In addition, while it ran separate 32-bit applications in separate address spaces, protecting an application's code and data from being read or written by another application, it did not protect the first megabyte of memory from userland applications for compatibility reasons. This area of memory contains code critical to the functioning of the operating system, and by writing into this area of memory an application can crash or freeze the operating system. This was a source of instability as faulty applications could accidentally write into this region, potentially corrupting important operating system memory, which usually resulted in some form of system error and halt.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows NT was far more secure, implementing access privileges and full memory protection, and, while 32-bit programs meeting the DoD's C2 security rating, yet these advantages were nullified by the fact that, prior to Windows Vista, the default user account created during the setup process was an administrator account; the user, and any program the user launched, had full access to the machine. Though Windows XP did offer an option of turning administrator accounts into limited accounts, the majority of home users did not do so, partially due to the number of programs which required administrator rights to function properly. As a result, most home users still ran as administrator all the time. These architectural flaws, combined with Windows's very high popularity, made Windows a frequent target of computer worm and virus writers.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Furthermore, although Windows NT and its successors are designed for security (including on a network) and multi-user PCs, they were not initially designed with Internet security in mind as much, since, when it was first developed in the early 1990s, Internet use was less prevalent.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In a 2002 strategy memo entitled "Trustworthy computing" sent to every Microsoft employee, Bill Gates declared that security should become Microsoft's highest priority.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Windows Vista introduced a privilege elevation system called User Account Control. When logging in as a standard user, a logon session is created and a token containing only the most basic privileges is assigned. In this way, the new logon session is incapable of making changes that would affect the entire system. When logging in as a user in the Administrators group, two separate tokens are assigned. The first token contains all privileges typically awarded to an administrator, and the second is a restricted token similar to what a standard user would receive. User applications, including the Windows shell, are then started with the restricted token, resulting in a reduced privilege environment even under an Administrator account. When an application requests higher privileges or "Run as administrator" is clicked, UAC will prompt for confirmation and, if consent is given (including administrator credentials if the account requesting the elevation is not a member of the administrators group), start the process using the unrestricted token.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Leaked documents published by WikiLeaks, codenamed Vault 7 and dated from 2013 to 2016, detail the capabilities of the CIA to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare, such as the ability to compromise operating systems such as Windows.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: In August 2019, computer experts reported that the BlueKeep security vulnerability, , that potentially affects older unpatched Windows versions via the program's Remote Desktop Protocol, allowing for the possibility of remote code execution, may now include related flaws, collectively named "DejaBlue", affecting newer Windows versions (i.e., Windows 7 and all recent versions) as well. In addition, experts reported a Microsoft security vulnerability, , based on legacy code involving Microsoft CTF and ctfmon (ctfmon.exe), that affects all Windowsversions from Windows XP to the then most recent Windows 10 versions; a patch to correct the flaw is currently available.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Microsoft releases security patches through its Windows Update service approximately once a month (usually the second Tuesday of the month), although critical updates are made available at shorter intervals when necessary. Versions subsequent to Windows 2000 SP3 and Windows XP implemented automatic download and installation of updates, substantially increasing the number of users installing security updates.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Today, Windows integrates the Windows Defender antivirus, which is seen as one of the best available. Windows also implements Secure Boot, Control Flow Guard, ransomware protection, BitLocker disk encryption, a firewall, and Windows SmartScreen.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: All Windows versions from Windows NT 3 have been based on a file system permission system referred to as AGDLP(Accounts, Global, Domain Local, Permissions) in which file permissions are applied to the file/folder in the form of a 'local group' which then has other 'global groups' as members. These global groups then hold other groups or users depending on different Windows versions used. This system varies from other vendor products such as Linux and NetWare due to the 'static' allocation of permission being applied directly to the file or folder. However using this process of AGLP/AGDLP/AGUDLP allows a small number of static permissions to be applied and allows for easy changes to the account groups without reapplying the file permissions on the files and folders.


title: Microsoft Windows

text: Owing to the operating system's popularity, a number of applications have been released that aim to provide compatibility with Windows applications, either as a compatibility layer for another operating system, or as a standalone system that can run software written for Windows out of the box. These include:


title: Winston Churchill

text: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary, championing prison reform and workers' social security. As First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign but, after it proved a disaster, he was demoted to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He resigned in November 1915 and joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front for six months. In 1917, he returned to government under David Lloyd George and served successively as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, and Secretary of State for the Colonies, overseeing the Anglo-Irish Treaty and British foreign policy in the Middle East. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure and depressing the UK economy.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Out of government during his so-called "wilderness years" in the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat of militarism in Nazi Germany. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. In May 1940, he became Prime Minister, succeeding Neville Chamberlain. Churchill formed a national government and oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against the Axis powers, resulting in victory in 1945. After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an "iron curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. Between his terms as Prime Minister, he authored several books recounting his experience during the war for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. He lost the 1950 election, but was returned to office in 1951. His second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, especially Anglo-American relations and the preservation of what remained of the British Empire with India now no longer part of it. Domestically, his government emphasised housebuilding and completed the development of a nuclear weapon (begun by his predecessor). In declining health, Churchill resigned as Prime Minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he was given a state funeral.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the Anglosphere, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending Europe's liberal democracy against the spread of fascism. On the other hand, he has been criticised for some wartime events and also for his imperialist views.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 at his family's ancestral home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. On his father's side, he was a member of the British aristocracy as a direct descendant of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, representing the Conservative Party, had been elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Woodstock in 1873. His mother, Jennie, was a daughter of Leonard Jerome, a wealthy American businessman.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In 1876, Churchill's paternal grandfather, John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, was appointed Viceroy of Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom. Randolph became his private secretary and the family relocated to Dublin. Winston's brother, Jack, was born there in 1880. Throughout much of the 1880s, Randolph and Jennie were effectively estranged, and the brothers were mostly cared for by their nanny, Elizabeth Everest. When she died in 1895, Churchill wrote that "she had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I had lived".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill began boarding at St George's School in Ascot, Berkshire, at age seven but was not academic and his behaviour was poor. In 1884 he transferred to Brunswick School in Hove, where his academic performance improved. In April 1888, aged 13, he narrowly passed the entrance exam for Harrow School. His father wanted him to prepare for a military career and so his last three years at Harrow were in the army form. After two unsuccessful attempts to gain admittance to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, he succeeded on his third. He was accepted as a cadet in the cavalry, starting in September 1893. His father died in January 1895, a month after Churchill graduated from Sandhurst.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In February 1895, Churchill was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars regiment of the British Army, based at Aldershot. Eager to witness military action, he used his mother's influence to get himself posted to a war zone. In the autumn of 1895, he and his friend Reggie Barnes, then a subaltern, went to Cuba to observe the war of independence and became involved in skirmishes after joining Spanish troops attempting to suppress independence fighters. Churchill sent reports about the conflict to the "Daily Graphic" in London. He proceeded to New York City and, in admiration of the United States, wrote to his mother about "what an extraordinary people the Americans are!". With the Hussars, he went to Bombay in October 1896. Based in Bangalore, he was in India for 19 months, visiting Calcutta three times and joining expeditions to Hyderabad and the North West Frontier.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In India, Churchill began a self-education project, reading a range of authors including Plato, Edward Gibbon, Charles Darwin and Thomas Babington Macaulay. The books were sent to him by his mother, with whom he shared frequent correspondence when abroad. In order to learn about politics, he also asked his mother to send him copies of "The Annual Register", the political almanac. In one 1898 letter to her, he referred to his religious beliefs, saying: "I do not accept the Christian or any other form of religious belief". Churchill had been christened in the Church of England but, as he related later, he underwent a virulently anti-Christian phase in his youth, and as an adult was an agnostic. In another letter to one of his cousins, he referred to religion as "a delicious narcotic" and expressed a preference for Protestantism over Roman Catholicism because he felt it "a step nearer Reason".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Interested in British parliamentary affairs, he declared himself "a Liberal in all but name", adding that he could never endorse the Liberal Party's support for Irish home rule. Instead, he allied himself to the Tory democracy wing of the Conservative Party and on a visit home, gave his first public speech for the party's Primrose League at Claverton Down, near Bath. Mixing reformist and conservative perspectives, he supported the promotion of secular, non-denominational education while opposing women's suffrage.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill volunteered to join Bindon Blood's Malakand Field Force in its campaign against Mohmand rebels in the Swat Valley of north-west India. Blood accepted him on condition that he was assigned as a journalist, the beginning of Churchill's writing career. He returned to Bangalore in October 1897 and there wrote his first book, "The Story of the Malakand Field Force", which received positive reviews. He also wrote his only work of fiction, "Savrola", a Ruritanian romance. To keep himself fully occupied, Churchill embraced writing as what Roy Jenkins calls his "whole habit", especially through his political career when he was out of office. Writing was his main safeguard against recurring depression, which he referred to as his "black dog".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Using his contacts in London, Churchill got himself attached to General Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan as a 21st Lancers subaltern while, additionally, working as a journalist for "The Morning Post". After fighting in the Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898, the 21st Lancers were stood down. In October, Churchill returned to England and began writing "The River War", an account of the campaign which was published in November 1899; it was at this time that he decided to leave the army. He was critical of Kitchener's actions during the war, particularly the latter's unmerciful treatment of enemy wounded and his desecration of Muhammad Ahmad's tomb in Omdurman.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 2 December 1898, Churchill embarked for India to settle his military business and complete his resignation from the 4th Hussars. He spent a lot of his time there playing polo, the only ball sport in which he was ever interested. Having left the Hussars, he sailed from Bombay on 20 March 1899, determined to launch a career in politics.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Seeking a parliamentary career, Churchill spoke at Conservative meetings and was selected as one of the party's two parliamentary candidates for the June 1899 by-election in Oldham, Lancashire. While campaigning in Oldham, Churchill referred to himself as "a Conservative and a Tory Democrat". Although the Oldham seats had previously been held by the Conservatives, the result was a narrow Liberal victory.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Anticipating the outbreak of the Second Boer War between Britain and the Boer Republics, Churchill sailed to South Africa as a journalist for the "Morning Post" under the editorship of James Nicol Dunn. In October, he travelled to the conflict zone near Ladysmith, then besieged by Boer troops, before heading for Colenso. After his train was derailed by Boer artillery shelling, he was captured as a prisoner of war (POW) and interned in a Boer POW camp in Pretoria. In December, Churchill escaped from the prison and evaded his captors by stowing away aboard freight trains and hiding in a mine. He eventually made it to safety in Portuguese East Africa. His escape attracted much publicity.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In January 1900, he briefly rejoined the army as a lieutenant in the South African Light Horse regiment, joining Redvers Buller's fight to relieve the Siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria. He was among the first British troops into both places. He and his cousin, the 9th Duke of Marlborough, demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer prison camp guards. Throughout the war, he had publicly chastised anti-Boer prejudices, calling for them to be treated with "generosity and tolerance", and after the war he urged the British to be magnanimous in victory. In July, having resigned his lieutenancy, he returned to Britain. His "Morning Post" despatches had been published as "London to Ladysmith via Pretoria" and had sold well.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill rented a flat in London's Mayfair, using it as his base for the next six years. He stood again as one of the Conservative candidates at Oldham in the October 1900 general election, securing a narrow victory to become a Member of Parliament at age 25. In the same month, he published "Ian Hamilton's March", a book about his South African experiences, which became the focus of a lecture tour in November through Britain, America and Canada. Members of Parliament were unpaid and the tour was a financial necessity. In America, Churchill met Mark Twain, President McKinley and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt; he did not get on well with Roosevelt. Later, in spring 1901, he gave more lectures in Paris, Madrid and Gibraltar.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In February 1901, Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons, where his maiden speech gained widespread press coverage. He associated with a group of Conservatives known as the Hughligans, but he was critical of the Conservative government on various issues, especially increases in army funding. He believed that additional military expenditure should go to the navy. This upset the Conservative front bench but was supported by Liberals, with whom he increasingly socialised, particularly Liberal Imperialists like H. H. Asquith. In this context, Churchill later wrote that he "drifted steadily to the left" of parliamentary politics. He privately considered "the gradual creation by an evolutionary process of a Democratic or Progressive wing to the Conservative Party", or alternately a "Central Party" to unite the Conservatives and Liberals.


title: Winston Churchill

text: By 1903, there was real division between Churchill and the Conservatives, largely because he opposed their promotion of economic protectionism. As a free trader, he took part in the foundation of the Free Food League. Churchill sensed that the animosity of many party members would prevent him from gaining a Cabinet position under a Conservative government. The Liberal Party was then attracting growing support, and so his defection in 1904 may also have been influenced by personal ambition. He increasingly voted with the Liberals against the government. For example, he opposed an increase in military expenditure; he supported a Liberal bill to restore legal rights to trade unions; and he opposed the introduction of tariffs on goods imported into the British Empire, describing himself as a "sober admirer" of the principles of free trade. Arthur Balfour's government announced protectionist legislation in October 1903. Two months later, incensed by Churchill's criticism of the government, the Oldham Conservative Association informed him that it would not support his candidature at the next general election.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In May 1904, Churchill opposed the government's proposed Aliens Bill, designed to curb Jewish migration into Britain. He stated that the bill would "appeal to insular prejudice against foreigners, to racial prejudice against Jews, and to labour prejudice against competition" and expressed himself in favour of "the old tolerant and generous practice of free entry and asylum to which this country has so long adhered and from which it has so greatly gained". On 31 May 1904, he crossed the floor, defecting from the Conservatives to sit as a member of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons.


title: Winston Churchill

text: As a Liberal, Churchill attacked government policy and gained a reputation as a radical under the influences of John Morley and David Lloyd George. In December 1905, Balfour resigned as Prime Minister and King Edward VII invited the Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman to take his place. Hoping to secure a working majority in the House of Commons, Campbell-Bannerman called a general election in January 1906, which the Liberals won. Churchill won the Manchester North West seat. In the same month, his biography of his father was published; he received an advance payment of £8,000. It was generally well received. It was also at this time that the first biography of Churchill himself, written by the Liberal Alexander MacCallum Scott, was published.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In the new government, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonial Office, a junior ministerial position that he had requested. He worked beneath the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, and took Edward Marsh as his secretary; Marsh remained Churchill's secretary for 25 years. Churchill's first task was helping to draft a constitution for the Transvaal; and he helped oversee the formation of a government in the Orange Free State. In dealing with southern Africa, he sought to ensure equality between the British and the Boers. He also announced a gradual phasing out of the use of Chinese indentured labourers in South Africa; he and the government decided that a sudden ban would cause too much upset in the colony and might damage the economy. He expressed concerns about the relations between European settlers and the black African population; after the Zulu launched their Bambatha Rebellion in Natal, Churchill complained about the "disgusting butchery of the natives" by Europeans.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Asquith succeeded the terminally ill Campbell-Bannerman on 8 April 1908 and, four days later, Churchill was appointed President of the Board of Trade, succeeding Lloyd George who became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Aged 33, Churchill was the youngest Cabinet member since 1866. Newly appointed Cabinet ministers were legally obliged to seek re-election at a by-election and on 24 April, Churchill lost the Manchester North West by-election to the Conservative candidate by 429 votes. On 9 May, the Liberals stood him in the safe seat of Dundee, where he won comfortably.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In private life, Churchill proposed marriage to Clementine Hozier; they were married on 12 September 1908 at St Margaret's, Westminster and honeymooned in Baveno, Venice, and Veverí Castle in Moravia. They lived at 33 Eccleston Square, London, and their first daughter, Diana, was born in July 1909. Churchill and Clementine were married for over 56 years until his death. The success of his marriage was important to Churchill's career as Clementine's unbroken affection provided him with a secure and happy background.


title: Winston Churchill

text: One of Churchill's first tasks as a minister was to arbitrate in an industrial dispute among ship-workers and employers on the River Tyne. He afterwards established a Standing Court of Arbitration to deal with future industrial disputes, establishing a reputation as a conciliator. In Cabinet, he worked with Lloyd George to champion social reform. He promoted what he called a "network of State intervention and regulation" akin to that in Germany.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Continuing Lloyd George's work, Churchill introduced the Mines Eight Hours Bill, which legally prohibited miners from working more than an eight-hour day. He introduced the Trade Boards Bill, creating Trade Boards which could prosecute exploitative employers. Passing with a large majority, it established the principle of a minimum wage and the right of workers to have meal breaks. In May 1909, he proposed the Labour Exchanges Bill to establish over 200 Labour Exchanges through which the unemployed would be assisted in finding employment. He also promoted the idea of an unemployment insurance scheme, which would be part-funded by the state.


title: Winston Churchill

text: To ensure funding for their reforms, Lloyd George and Churchill denounced Reginald McKenna's policy of naval expansion, refusing to believe that war with Germany was inevitable. As Chancellor, Lloyd George presented his "People's Budget" on 29 April 1909, calling it a war budget to eliminate poverty. With Churchill as his closest ally, Lloyd George proposed unprecedented taxes on the rich to fund the Liberal welfare programmes. The budget was vetoed by the Conservative peers who dominated the House of Lords. His social reforms under threat, Churchill became president of the Budget League, and warned that upper-class obstruction could anger working-class Britons and lead to class war. The government called the January 1910 general election, which resulted in a narrow Liberal victory; Churchill retained his seat at Dundee. After the election, he proposed the abolition of the House of Lords in a cabinet memorandum, suggesting that it be succeeded either by a unicameral system or by a new, smaller second chamber that lacked an in-built advantage for the Conservatives. In April, the Lords relented and the People's Budget passed into law. Churchill continued to campaign against the House of Lords and assisted passage of the Parliament Act 1911 which reduced and restricted its powers.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In February 1910, Churchill was promoted to Home Secretary, giving him control over the police and prison services; he implemented a prison reform programme. Measures included a distinction between criminal and political prisoners, with prison rules for the latter being relaxed. There were educational innovations like the establishment of libraries for prisoners, and a requirement for each prison to stage entertainments four times a year. The rules on solitary confinement were relaxed somewhat, and Churchill proposed the abolition of automatic imprisonment of those who failed to pay fines. Imprisonment of people aged between 16 and 21 was abolished except for the most serious offences. Churchill commuted 21 of the 43 capital sentences passed while he was Home Secretary.


title: Winston Churchill

text: One of the major domestic issues in Britain was women's suffrage. Churchill supported giving women the vote, but he would only back a bill to that effect if it had majority support from the (male) electorate. His proposed solution was a referendum on the issue, but this found no favour with Asquith and women's suffrage remained unresolved until 1918. Many suffragettes believed that Churchill was a committed opponent of women's suffrage, and targeted his meetings for protest. In November 1910, the suffragist Hugh Franklin attacked Churchill with a whip; Franklin was arrested and imprisoned for six weeks.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In the summer of 1910, Churchill had to deal with the Tonypandy Riot, in which coal miners in the Rhondda Valley violently protested against their working conditions. The Chief Constable of Glamorgan requested troops to help police quell the rioting. Churchill, learning that the troops were already travelling, allowed them to go as far as Swindon and Cardiff, but blocked their deployment; he was concerned that the use of troops could lead to bloodshed. Instead he sent 270 London police, who were not equipped with firearms, to assist their Welsh counterparts. As the riots continued, he offered the protesters an interview with the government's chief industrial arbitrator, which they accepted. Privately, Churchill regarded both the mine owners and striking miners as being "very unreasonable". "The Times" and other media outlets accused him of being too soft on the rioters; in contrast, many in the Labour Party, which was linked to the trade unions, regarded him as having been too heavy-handed. In consequence of the latter, Churchill incurred the long-term suspicion of the labour movement.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Asquith called a general election in December 1910 and the Liberals were re-elected with Churchill secure in Dundee. In January 1911, Churchill became involved in the Siege of Sidney Street; three Latvian burglars had killed several police officers and hidden in a house in London's East End, which was surrounded by police. Churchill stood with the police though he did not direct their operation. After the house caught fire, he told the fire brigade not to proceed into the house because of the threat posed by the armed men. Afterwards, two of the burglars were found dead. Although he faced criticism for his decision, he stated that he "thought it better to let the house burn down rather than spend good British lives in rescuing those ferocious rascals".


title: Winston Churchill

text: In March 1911, Churchill introduced the second reading of the Coal Mines Bill in parliament. When implemented, it imposed stricter safety standards at coal mines. He also formulated the Shops Bill to improve the working conditions of shop workers; it faced opposition from shop owners and only passed into law in a much emasculated form. In April, Lloyd George introduced the first health and unemployment insurance legislation, the National Insurance Act 1911; Churchill had been instrumental in drafting it. In May, Clementine gave birth to their second child, Randolph, named after Churchill's father. In response to escalating civil strife in 1911, Churchill sent troops into Liverpool to quell protesting dockers and rallied against a national railway strike.


title: Winston Churchill

text: During the Agadir Crisis of April 1911, when there was a threat of war between France and Germany, Churchill suggested an alliance with France and Russia to safeguard the independence of Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands to counter possible German expansionism. The Agadir Crisis had a profound effect on Churchill and he altered his views about the need for naval expansion.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In October 1911, Asquith appointed Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty, and he took up official residence at Admiralty House. He created a naval war staff and, over the next two and a half years, focused on naval preparation, visiting naval stations and dockyards, seeking to improve morale, and scrutinising German naval developments. After the German government passed its 1912 Naval Law to increase warship production, Churchill vowed that Britain would do the same and that for every new battleship built by the Germans, Britain would build two. He invited Germany to engage in a mutual de-escalation of naval building projects, but this was refused.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill pushed for higher pay and greater recreational facilities for naval staff, an increase in the building of submarines, and a renewed focus on the Royal Naval Air Service, encouraging them to experiment with how aircraft could be used for military purposes. He coined the term "seaplane" and ordered 100 to be constructed. Some Liberals objected to his levels of naval expenditure; in December 1913 he threatened to resign if his proposal for four new battleships in 1914–15 was rejected. In June 1914, he convinced the House of Commons to authorise the government purchase of a 51 percent share in the profits of oil produced by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, to secure continued oil access for the Royal Navy.


title: Winston Churchill

text: The central issue in Britain at the time was Irish Home Rule and, in 1912, Asquith's government introduced the Home Rule Bill. Churchill supported it and urged Ulster Unionists to accept it as he opposed the partition of Ireland. Concerning the possibility of the Partition of Ireland, Churchill stated: "Whatever Ulster's right may be, she cannot stand in the way of the whole of the rest of Ireland. Half a province cannot impose a permanent veto on the nation. Half a province cannot obstruct forever the reconciliation between the British and Irish democracies". Speaking in the House of Commons on 16 February 1922, Churchill said: "What Irishmen all over the world most desire is not hostility against this country, but the unity of their own".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Later, following a Cabinet decision, he boosted the naval presence in Ireland to deal with any Unionist uprising. Seeking a compromise, Churchill suggested that Ireland remain part of a federal United Kingdom but this angered Liberals and Irish nationalists.


title: Winston Churchill

text: As First Lord, Churchill was tasked with overseeing Britain's naval effort when the First World War began in August 1914. In the same month, the navy transported 120,000 British troops to France and began a blockade of Germany's North Sea ports. Churchill sent submarines to the Baltic Sea to assist the Russian Navy and he sent the Marine Brigade to Ostend, forcing a reallocation of German troops. In September, Churchill assumed full responsibility for Britain's aerial defence. On 7 October, Clementine gave birth to their third child, Sarah. In October, Churchill visited Antwerp to observe Belgian defences against the besieging Germans and promised British reinforcements for the city. Soon afterwards, however, Antwerp fell to the Germans and Churchill was criticised in the press. He maintained that his actions had prolonged resistance and enabled the Allies to secure Calais and Dunkirk. In November, Asquith called a War Council, consisting of himself, Lloyd George, Edward Grey, Kitchener, and Churchill. Churchill put forward some proposals including the development of the tank, and offered to finance its creation with Admiralty funds.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was interested in the Middle Eastern theatre and wanted to relieve Turkish pressure on the Russians in the Caucasus by staging attacks against Turkey in the Dardanelles. He hoped that, if successful, the British could even seize Constantinople. Approval was given and, in March 1915, an Anglo-French task force attempted a naval bombardment of Turkish defences in the Dardanelles. In April, the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, including the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), began its assault at Gallipoli. Both campaigns failed and Churchill was held by many MPs, particularly Conservatives, to be personally responsible.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In May, Asquith agreed under parliamentary pressure to form an all-party coalition government, but the Conservatives' one condition of entry was that Churchill must be removed from the Admiralty. Churchill pleaded his case with both Asquith and Conservative leader Bonar Law, but had to accept demotion and became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 25 November 1915, Churchill resigned from the government, although he remained an MP. Asquith rejected his request to be appointed Governor-General of British East Africa.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill decided to join the Army and was attached to the 2nd Grenadier Guards, on the Western Front. In January 1916, he was temporarily promoted to lieutenant-colonel and given command of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. After a period of training, the battalion was moved to a sector of the Belgian Front near Ploegsteert. For over three months, they faced continual shelling although no German offensive. Churchill narrowly escaped death when, during a visit by his staff officer cousin the 9th Duke of Marlborough, a large piece of shrapnel fell between them. In May, the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers were merged into the 15th Division. Churchill did not request a new command, instead securing permission to leave active service. His temporary promotion ended on 16 May, when he returned to the rank of major.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Back in the House of Commons, Churchill spoke out on war issues, calling for conscription to be extended to the Irish, greater recognition of soldiers' bravery, and for the introduction of steel helmets for troops. He was frustrated at being out of office as a backbencher, but he was repeatedly blamed for Gallipoli, mainly by the pro-Conservative press. Churchill argued his case before the Dardanelles Commission, whose published report placed no blame on him personally for the campaign's failure.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In October 1916, Asquith resigned as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Lloyd George who, in May 1917, sent Churchill to inspect the French war effort. In July, Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions. He quickly negotiated an end to a strike in munitions factories along the Clyde and increased munitions production. He ended a second strike, in June 1918, by threatening to conscript strikers into the army. In the House of Commons, Churchill voted in support of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which gave some British women the right to vote. In November 1918, four days after the Armistice, Churchill's fourth child, Marigold, was born.


title: Winston Churchill

text: With the war over, Lloyd George called a general election with voting on Saturday, 14 December 1918. During the election campaign, Churchill called for the nationalisation of the railways, a control on monopolies, tax reform, and the creation of a League of Nations to prevent future wars. He was returned as MP for Dundee and, although the Conservatives won a majority, Lloyd George was retained as Prime Minister. In January 1919, Lloyd George moved Churchill to the War Office as both Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was responsible for demobilising the British Army, although he convinced Lloyd George to keep a million men conscripted for the British Army of the Rhine. Churchill was one of the few government figures who opposed harsh measures against the defeated Germany, and he cautioned against demobilising the German Army, warning that they may be needed as a bulwark against threats from the newly established Soviet Russia. He was an outspoken opponent of Vladimir Lenin's new Communist Party government in Russia. He initially supported the use of British troops to assist the anti-Communist White forces in the Russian Civil War, but soon recognised the desire of the British people to bring them home. After the Soviets won the civil war, Churchill proposed a "cordon sanitaire" around the country.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In the Irish War of Independence, he supported the use of the para-military Black and Tans to combat Irish revolutionaries. After British troops in Iraq clashed with Kurdish rebels, Churchill authorised two squadrons to the area, proposing that they be equipped with mustard gas to be used to "inflict punishment upon recalcitrant natives without inflicting grave injury upon them", although this was never implemented. More broadly, he saw the occupation of Iraq as a drain on Britain and proposed, unsuccessfully, that the government should hand control of central and northern Iraq back to Turkey.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill became Secretary of State for the Colonies in February 1921. The following month, the first exhibit of his paintings was held; it took place in Paris, with Churchill exhibiting under a pseudonym. In May, his mother died; followed in August by his two-year-old daughter Marigold who succumbed to septicaemia. Marigold's death devastated her parents and Churchill was haunted by the tragedy for the rest of his life.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was involved in negotiations with Sinn Féin leaders and helped draft the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Elsewhere, he was responsible for reducing the cost of occupying the Middle East, and was involved in the installations of Faisal I of Iraq and his brother Abdullah I of Jordan. Churchill travelled to Mandatory Palestine where, as a supporter of Zionism, he refused an Arab Palestinian petition to prohibit Jewish migration to Palestine. He did allow some temporary restrictions following the 1921 Jaffa riots.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In September 1922, the Chanak Crisis erupted as Turkish forces threatened to occupy the Dardanelles neutral zone, which was policed by the British army based in Chanak (now Çanakkale). Churchill and Lloyd George favoured military resistance to any Turkish advance but the majority Conservatives in the coalition government opposed it. A political debacle ensued which resulted in the Conservative withdrawal from the government, precipitating the November 1922 general election.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Also in September, Churchill's fifth and last child, Mary, was born, and in the same month he purchased Chartwell, in Kent, which became his family home for the rest of his lifetime. In October 1922, he underwent an operation for appendicitis. While he was in hospital, Lloyd George's coalition was dissolved. In the general election, Churchill lost his Dundee seat to Edwin Scrymgeour, a prohibitionist candidate. Later, he wrote that he was "without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix". Still, he could be satisfied with his elevation as one of 50 Companions of Honour, as named in Lloyd George's 1922 Dissolution Honours list.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill spent much of the next six months at the Villa Rêve d'Or near Cannes, where he devoted himself to painting and writing his memoirs. He wrote an autobiographical history of the war, "The World Crisis". The first volume was published in April 1923 and the rest over the next ten years.


title: Winston Churchill

text: After the 1923 general election was called, seven Liberal associations asked Churchill to stand as their candidate, and he selected Leicester West, but he did not win the seat. A Labour government led by Ramsay MacDonald took power. Churchill had hoped they would be defeated by a Conservative-Liberal coalition. He strongly opposed the MacDonald government's decision to loan money to Soviet Russia and feared the signing of an Anglo-Soviet Treaty.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 19 March 1924, alienated by Liberal support for Labour, Churchill stood as an independent anti-socialist candidate in the Westminster Abbey by-election but was defeated. In May, he addressed a Conservative meeting in Liverpool and declared that there was no longer a place for the Liberal Party in British politics. He said that Liberals must back the Conservatives to stop Labour and ensure "the successful defeat of socialism". In July, he agreed with Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin that he would be selected as a Conservative candidate in the next general election, which was held on 29 October. Churchill stood at Epping, but he described himself as a "Constitutionalist". The Conservatives were victorious and Baldwin formed the new government. Although Churchill had no background in finance or economics, Baldwin appointed him as Chancellor of the Exchequer.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Becoming Chancellor on 6 November 1924, Churchill formally rejoined the Conservative Party. As Chancellor, he intended to pursue his free trade principles in the form of "laissez-faire" economics, as under the Liberal social reforms. In April 1925, he controversially albeit reluctantly restored the gold standard in his first budget at its 1914 parity against the advice of some leading economists including John Maynard Keynes. The return to gold is held to have caused deflation and resultant unemployment with a devastating impact on the coal industry. Churchill presented five budgets in all to April 1929. Among his measures were reduction of the state pension age from 70 to 65; immediate provision of widow's pensions; reduction of military expenditure; income tax reductions and imposition of taxes on luxury items.


title: Winston Churchill

text: During the General Strike of 1926, Churchill edited the "British Gazette", the government's anti-strike propaganda newspaper. After the strike ended, he acted as an intermediary between striking miners and their employers. He later called for the introduction of a legally binding minimum wage. In early 1927, Churchill visited Rome where he met Mussolini, whom he praised for his stand against Leninism.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In the 1929 general election, Churchill retained his Epping seat but the Conservatives were defeated and MacDonald formed his second Labour government. Out of office, Churchill was prone to depression (his "black dog") as he sensed his political talents being wasted and time passing him by – in all such times, writing provided the antidote. He began work on "", a four-volume biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. It was by this time that he had developed a reputation for being a heavy drinker of alcoholic beverages, although Jenkins believes that was often exaggerated.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Hoping that the Labour government could be ousted, he gained Baldwin's approval to work towards establishing a Conservative-Liberal coalition, although many Liberals were reluctant. In October 1930, after his return from a trip to North America, Churchill published his autobiography, "My Early Life", which sold well and was translated into multiple languages.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In January 1931, Churchill resigned from the Conservative Shadow Cabinet because Baldwin supported the decision of the Labour government to grant Dominion status to India. Churchill believed that enhanced home rule status would hasten calls for full independence. He was particularly opposed to Mohandas Gandhi, whom he considered "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir". His views enraged Labour and Liberal opinion although he was supported by many grassroot Conservatives.


title: Winston Churchill

text: The October 1931 general election was a landslide victory for the Conservatives Churchill nearly doubled his majority in Epping, but he was not given a ministerial position. The Commons debated Dominion Status for India on 3 December and Churchill insisted on dividing the House, but this backfired as only 43 MPs supported him. He embarked on a lecture tour of North America, hoping to recoup financial losses sustained in the Wall Street Crash. On 13 December, he was crossing Fifth Avenue in New York City when he was knocked down by a car, suffering a head wound from which he developed neuritis. To further his convalescence, he and Clementine took ship to Nassau for three weeks but Churchill became depressed there about his financial and political losses. He returned to America in late January 1932 and completed most of his lectures before arriving home on 18 March.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Having worked on "Marlborough" for much of 1932, Churchill in late August decided to visit his ancestor's battlefields. Staying at the Regina Hotel in Munich, he met Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend of Hitler, who was then rising in prominence. Hanfstaengl tried to arrange a meeting between Churchill and Hitler, but Hitler was unenthusiastic: "What on earth would I talk to him about?" he asked. After Churchill raised concerns about Hitler's anti-Semitism, Hitler did not come to the hotel that day or the next. Hitler allegedly told Hanfstaengl that Churchill was not in office and was of no consequence. Soon after visiting Blenheim, Churchill was afflicted with paratyphoid fever and spent two weeks at a sanatorium in Salzburg. He returned to Chartwell on 25 September, still working on "Marlborough". Two days later, he collapsed while walking in the grounds after a recurrence of paratyphoid which caused an ulcer to haemorrhage. He was taken to a London nursing home and remained there until late October.


title: Winston Churchill

text: After Hitler came to power on 30 January 1933, Churchill was quick to recognise the menace of such a regime and expressed alarm that the British government had reduced air force spending and warned that Germany would soon overtake Britain in air force production. Armed with official data provided clandestinely by two senior civil servants, Desmond Morton and Ralph Wigram, Churchill was able to speak with authority about what was happening in Germany, especially the development of the Luftwaffe. He told the people of his concerns in a radio broadcast in November 1934, having earlier denounced the intolerance and militarism of Nazism in the House of Commons. While Churchill regarded Mussolini's regime as a bulwark against the perceived threat of communist revolution, he opposed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, despite describing the country as a primitive, uncivilised nation. Writing about the Spanish Civil War, he referred to Franco's army as the "anti-red movement", but later became critical of Franco. Two of his nephews, Esmond and Giles Romilly, fought as volunteers in the International Brigades in defence of the legitimate Republican government.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Between October 1933 and September 1938, the four volumes of "Marlborough: His Life and Times" were published and sold well. In December 1934, the India Bill entered Parliament and was passed in February 1935. Churchill and 83 other Conservative MPs voted against it. In June 1935, MacDonald resigned and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Baldwin. Baldwin then led the Conservatives to victory in the 1935 general election; Churchill retained his seat with an increased majority but was again left out of the government.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In January 1936, Edward VIII succeeded his father, George V, as monarch. His desire to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, caused the abdication crisis. Churchill supported Edward and clashed with Baldwin on the issue. Afterwards, although Churchill immediately pledged loyalty to George VI, he wrote that the abdication was "premature and probably quite unnecessary".


title: Winston Churchill

text: In May 1937, Baldwin resigned and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Neville Chamberlain. At first, Churchill welcomed Chamberlain's appointment but, in February 1938, matters came to a head after Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigned over Chamberlain's appeasement of Mussolini, a policy which Chamberlain was extending towards Hitler.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In 1938, Churchill warned the government against appeasement and called for collective action to deter German aggression. In March, the "Evening Standard" ceased publication of his fortnightly articles, but the "Daily Telegraph" published them instead. Following the German annexation of Austria, Churchill spoke in the House of Commons, declaring that "the gravity of the events[…] cannot be exaggerated". He began calling for a mutual defence pact among European states threatened by German expansionism, arguing that this was the only way to halt Hitler. This was to no avail as, in September, Germany mobilised to invade the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Churchill visited Chamberlain at Downing Street and urged him to tell Germany that Britain would declare war if the Germans invaded Czechoslovak territory; Chamberlain was not willing to do this. On 30 September, Chamberlain signed up to the Munich Agreement, agreeing to allow German annexation of the Sudetenland. Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 October, Churchill called the agreement "a total and unmitigated defeat". Following the final dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Churchill and his supporters called for the foundation of a national coalition. His popularity increased and people began to agitate for his return to office.


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany, Chamberlain reappointed Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty and he joined Chamberlain's war cabinet. Churchill later claimed that the Board of the Admiralty sent a signal to the Fleet: "Winston is back". As First Lord, Churchill was one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called "Phoney War", when the only significant action by British forces was at sea. Churchill was ebullient after the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December 1939 and afterwards welcomed home the crews, congratulating them on "a brilliant sea fight" and saying that their actions in a cold, dark winter had "warmed the cockles of the British heart". On 16 February 1940, Churchill personally ordered Captain Philip Vian of the destroyer to board the German supply ship in Norwegian waters freeing 299 captured British merchant seamen who had been captured by the . These actions, supplemented by his speeches, considerably enhanced Churchill's reputation.


title: Winston Churchill

text: He was concerned about German naval activity in the Baltic Sea and initially wanted to send a naval force there but this was soon changed to a plan, codenamed "Operation Wilfred", to mine Norwegian waters and stop iron ore shipments from Narvik to Germany. There were disagreements about mining, both in the war cabinet and with the French government. As a result, "Wilfred" was delayed until 8 April 1940, the day before the German invasion of Norway was launched.


title: Winston Churchill

text: After the Allies failed to prevent the German occupation of Norway, the Commons held an open debate from 7 to 9 May on the government's conduct of the war. This has come to be known as the Norway Debate and is renowned as one of the most significant events in parliamentary history. On the second day (Wednesday, 8 May), the Labour opposition called for a division which was in effect a vote of no confidence in Chamberlain's government. There was considerable support for Churchill on both sides of the House but, as a member of the government, he was obliged to speak on its behalf. He was called upon to wind up the debate, which placed him in the difficult position of having to defend the government without damaging his own prestige. Although the government won the vote, its majority was drastically reduced amid calls for a national government to be formed.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In the early hours of 10 May, German forces invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands as a prelude to their assault on France. Since the division vote, Chamberlain had been trying to form a coalition but Labour declared on the Friday afternoon that they would not serve under his leadership, although they would accept another Conservative. The only two candidates were Churchill and Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary. The matter had already been discussed at a meeting on the 9th between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill, and David Margesson, the government Chief Whip. Halifax admitted that he could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords and so Chamberlain advised the King to send for Churchill, who became Prime Minister. Churchill later wrote of feeling a profound sense of relief in that he now had authority over the whole scene. He believed himself to be walking with destiny and that his life so far had been "a preparation for this hour and for this trial".


title: Winston Churchill

text: In May, Churchill was still generally unpopular with many Conservatives and probably most of the Labour Party. Chamberlain remained Conservative Party leader until October when ill health forced his resignation. By that time, Churchill had won the doubters over and his succession as party leader was a formality.


title: Winston Churchill

text: He began his premiership by forming a five-man war cabinet which included Chamberlain as Lord President of the Council, Labour leader Clement Attlee as Lord Privy Seal (later as Deputy Prime Minister), Halifax as Foreign Secretary and Labour's Arthur Greenwood as a minister without portfolio. In practice, these five were augmented by the service chiefs and ministers who attended the majority of meetings. The cabinet changed in size and membership as the war progressed, one of the key appointments being the leading trades unionist Ernest Bevin as Minister of Labour and National Service. In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, Churchill created and assumed the additional position of Minister of Defence, making him the most powerful wartime Prime Minister in British history. He drafted outside experts into government to fulfil vital functions, especially on the Home Front. These included personal friends like Lord Beaverbrook and Frederick Lindemann, who became the government's scientific advisor.


title: Winston Churchill

text: At the end of May, with the British Expeditionary Force in retreat to Dunkirk and the Fall of France seemingly imminent, Halifax proposed that the government should explore the possibility of a negotiated peace settlement using the still-neutral Mussolini as an intermediary. There were several high-level meetings from 26 to 28 May, including two with the French premier Paul Reynaud. Churchill's resolve was to fight on, even if France capitulated, but his position remained precarious until Chamberlain resolved to support him. Churchill had the full support of the two Labour members but knew he could not survive as Prime Minister if both Chamberlain and Halifax were against him. In the end, by gaining the support of his outer cabinet, Churchill outmanoeuvred Halifax and won Chamberlain over. Churchill believed that the only option was to fight on and his use of rhetoric hardened public opinion against a peaceful resolution and prepared the British people for a long war – Jenkins says Churchill's speeches were "an inspiration for the nation, and a catharsis for Churchill himself".


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill succeeded as an orator despite being handicapped from childhood with a speech impediment. He had a lateral lisp and was unable to pronounce the letter "s", verbalising it with a slur. He worked hard on his pronunciation by repeating phrases designed to cure his problem with the sibilant "s". He was ultimately successful and was eventually able to say: "My impediment is no hindrance". In time, he turned the impediment into an asset and could use it to great effect, as when he called Hitler a "Nar-zee" (rhymes with "khazi"; emphasis on the "z"), rather than a Nazi ("ts").


title: Winston Churchill

text: His first speech as Prime Minister, delivered to the Commons on 13 May was the "blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech. It was little more than a short statement but, Jenkins says, "it included phrases which have reverberated down the decades". Churchill made it plain to the nation that a long, hard road lay ahead and that victory was the final goal:


title: Winston Churchill

text: Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of 338,226 Allied servicemen from Dunkirk, ended on Tuesday, 4 June when the French rearguard surrendered. The total was far in excess of expectations and it gave rise to a popular view that Dunkirk had been a miracle, and even a victory. Churchill himself referred to "a miracle of deliverance" in his "we shall fight on the beaches" speech to the Commons that afternoon, though he shortly reminded everyone that: "We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations". The speech ended on a note of defiance coupled with a clear appeal to the United States:


title: Winston Churchill

text: Germany initiated "Fall Rot" the following day and Italy entered the war on the 10th. The Wehrmacht occupied Paris on the 14th and completed their conquest of France on 25 June. It was now inevitable that Hitler would attack and probably try to invade Great Britain. Faced with this, Churchill addressed the Commons on 18 June and delivered one of his most famous speeches, ending with this peroration:


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill was determined to fight back and ordered the commencement of the Western Desert campaign on 11 June, an immediate response to the Italian declaration of war. This went well at first while the Italian army was the sole opposition and Operation Compass was a noted success. In early 1941, however, Mussolini requested German support and Hitler sent the Afrika Korps to Tripoli under the command of "Generalleutnant" Erwin Rommel, who arrived not long after Churchill had halted "Compass" so that he could reassign forces to Greece where the Balkans campaign was entering a critical phase.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In other initiatives through June and July 1940, Churchill ordered the formation of both the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Commandos. The SOE was ordered to promote and execute subversive activity in Nazi-occupied Europe while the Commandos were charged with raids on specific military targets there. Hugh Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, took political responsibility for the SOE and recorded in his diary that Churchill told him: "And now go and set Europe ablaze".


title: Winston Churchill

text: On 20 August 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain, Churchill addressed the Commons to outline the war situation. In the middle of this speech, he made a statement that created a famous nickname for the RAF fighter pilots involved in the battle:


title: Winston Churchill

text: The Luftwaffe altered its strategy from 7 September 1940 and began the Blitz, which was especially intensive through October and November. Churchill's morale during the Blitz was generally high and he told his private secretary John Colville in November that he thought the threat of invasion was past. He was confident that Great Britain could hold its own, given the increase in output, but was realistic about its chances of actually winning the war without American intervention.


title: Winston Churchill

text: In September 1940, the British and American governments concluded the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, by which fifty American destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy in exchange for free US base rights in Bermuda, the Caribbean and Newfoundland. An added advantage for Britain was that its military assets in those bases could be redeployed elsewhere.


title: Winston Churchill

text: Churchill's good relations with United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped secure vital food, oil and munitions via the North Atlantic shipping routes. It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940. Upon re-election, Roosevelt set about implementing a new method of providing necessities to Great Britain without the need for monetary payment. He persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the US. The policy was known as Lend-Lease and it was formally enacted on 11 March 1941.