The Life of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, born on Nov. 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace, the famous palace near Oxford built by the nation for John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, the great soldier. Blenheim, named after Marlborough's grandest victory (1704), meant much to Winston Churchill. In the grounds there he became engaged to his future wife, Clementine Ogilvy Hozier (b. 1885). He later wrote his historical masterpiece, The Life and Times of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, with the archives of Blenheim behind …

…to a retrospective one-man show of his work. On April 9, 1963, he received, by special act of the U.S. Congress, the unprecedented honor of being made an honorary American citizen. When he died in London on Jan. 24, 1965, at the age of 90, he was acclaimed as a citizen of the world, and on January 30 he was given the funeral of a hero. He was buried at Bladon, in the little churchyard near Blenheim Palace, his birthplace.