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Margaret Thatcher, Britain's 'Iron Lady' Prime Minister, Dead at 87
By DAVID WRIGHT | ABC News – 1 hour 17 minutes ago
Margaret Thatcher, the first woman ever to serve as prime minister of Great
Britain and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century
has died at age 87.
"It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their
mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning,"
Lord Timothy Bell said today. "A further statement will be made later."
Thatcher had significant health problems in her later years, suffering
several small strokes and, according to her daughter, struggling with
dementia.
In Dec. 2012, she was underwent an operation to remove a bladder growth,
longtime adviser Tim Bell told The Associated Press.
But during her long career on the political stage, Thatcher was known as the
Iron Lady. She led Great Britain as Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, a
champion of free-market policies and adversary of the Soviet Union.
PHOTOS: Margaret Thatcher Through The Years
Many considered her Britain's Ronald Reagan. In fact, Reagan and Thatcher
were political soul mates. Reagan called her the "best man in England" and
she called him "the second most important man in my life." The two shared a
hatred of communism and a passion for small government. What America knew as
"Reaganomics" is still called "Thatcherism" in Britain.
Like Reagan, Thatcher was an outsider in the old boys' club. Just as it was
unlikely for an actor to lead the Republicans, the party of Lincoln, it was
unthinkable that a grocer's daughter could lead the Conservatives, the party
of Churchill and William Pitt -- that is, until Thatcher. She led the
Conservatives from 1975 to 1990, the only woman ever to do so.
Personal Life
Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on Oct. 13, 1925 in Grantham,
England. She attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied
chemistry, and later, in 1953, qualified as a barrister, specializing in tax
issues.
She married Denis Thatcher on Dec. 13, 1951, and their marriage lasted for
nearly 52 years until his death in June 2003. The couple had twins, Mark and
Carol, in 1953.
When Thatcher was elected to Britain's House of Commons in 1959, she was its
youngest female member. In 1970, when the Conservatives took power, she was
made Britain's secretary of state for education and science. In 1975, she
was chosen to lead the Conservatives, and she became the prime minister in
1979.
WATCH: May 4, 1979: Margaret Thatcher Becomes Prime Minister
Her policies were controversial. She took on the nation's labor unions,
forcing coal miners to return to work after a year on strike.
"We should back the workers and not the shirkers," she said in May 1978.
She pushed for privatization, lower taxes, and deregulation. And she sought
to keep Britain from surrendering any of its sovereignty to the European
Union.
FULL COVERAGE: Margaret Thatcher
Thatcher's admirers say she rejuvenated Britain's faltering economy. Her
critics say the rich got richer and the poor were left behind.
In the inner cities, Thatcherism brought a violent backlash. There were
calls from her own party to change course. But Thatcher resisted.
"You turn if you want to," she said in October 1980. "The lady's not for
turning."
She had courage in abundance. In 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland
Islands, she took Britain to war -- and won.
In 1984, she narrowly escaped being killed when the IRA bombed her hotel
during a party conference. The morning after, she convened the conference on
schedule -- undaunted.
She recognized Mikhail Gorbachev as a man who could help to end the Cold War
, commenting famously, "I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."
Ronald Reagan thought so, too. Together, Thatcher and Reagan savored victory
in the Cold War as their proudest achievement. But while Alzheimer's forced
Reagan to retire from public life, Thatcher kept on long after leaving
Downing Street.
She became Baroness Thatcher, a symbolic leader for a party that struggled
to find a worthy successor.
By the time of President Reagan's funeral in 2004, Lady Thatcher had already
suffered several strokes. She was a silent witness at her friend's farewell
, but she had the foresight to record a eulogy for Reagan several months
earlier.
"As the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset,
and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think -- in the words of Bunyan --
that 'all the trumpets sounded on the other side," she said. |