Churchill failed the Sandhurst entrance exam twice before a long military career
Winston Churchill was a poor pupil who needed three attempts to get into the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. As a young cavalry officer he wangled his way to Cuba, India and Sudan, writing up the fighting for newspapers. He went on to lead Britain through the Second World War and win a Nobel Prize for literature.
Churchill was born in 1874 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, a descendant of the first Duke of Marlborough, to the Conservative politician Lord Randolph Churchill and his American wife Jennie Jerome. His parents were largely estranged through the 1880s, and he and his brother Jack were raised by their nanny, Elizabeth Everest, whom he later described as his closest friend throughout his first twenty years. Sent to boarding school at seven, he behaved badly and did poorly, improving only after moving to a school in Hove.
Commissioned into the 4th Hussars in 1895, he used his mother's connections to reach a war zone, observing Spain's fight against Cuban independence fighters and filing reports to a London paper. He then spent 19 months in India and saw action in the Mahdist War in Sudan and the Second Boer War, building fame as a war correspondent and author.
Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he crossed to the Liberals in 1904 and, under Asquith, championed prison reform and social insurance for workers. As First Lord of the Admiralty he oversaw the disastrous naval attack on the Dardanelles in 1915, was demoted, resigned, and served six months on the Western Front. Back in government, as chancellor in 1925 he returned sterling to the gold standard, a move that depressed the economy.
Through the 1930s, out of office, he pressed for rearmament against Nazi Germany. He became prime minister in May 1940 and led a national government to victory in 1945, only to lose that year's election. In opposition he warned of an iron curtain across Europe. He returned to office from 1951 to 1955, focusing on the alliance with America and on house building, and sat in Parliament until 1964. Historians rank him among Britain's greatest prime ministers, though his imperialism, remarks on race and wartime area bombing draw criticism. He received a state funeral in 1965.
Source: Winston Churchill
