33. Admiral Horace Nelson

• born in 1758, son of Edmund Nelson [clergyman] + Catherine Nelson

• Battle of Trafalgar 1805

  • British Royal Navy against the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815)

  • England expects that every man will do his duty

  • HMS Victory

  • The battle was the most decisive British naval victory of the war. Twenty-seven British ships of the line led by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard HMS Victory defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line under French Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve off the south-west coast of Spain, just west of Cape Trafalgar. The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single British vessel being lost. Using revolutionary new tactics that he had devised, the Nelson's fleet engaged the enemy and was in the process of achieving his greatest triumph when he was shot by a French marine. The bullet entered his left shoulder and pierced the lung, before lodging against his spine. Four hours later, the admiral died, just as his fleet was completing the victory.

• Battle of Copenhagen 1801:

  • the signal for Nelson to withdraw

  • at the battle of Copenhagen, ignoring Admiral Parker’s signal to retreat, holding his telescope up to his blind eye, and proceeding to victory against the Danish Fleet

34. Baroness Margaret Thatcher

• Father’s influence:

  • she was the eyes of Stalin and the voice of Marilyn Monroe [François Mitterrand]

  • born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire

  • the daughter of Alfred Roberts, a grocer, and his wife, Beatrice

  • her father, a Methodist lay preacher

• Political career:

  • first stood for Parliament in the 1950 election

  • married businessman Denis Thatcher in 1951

  • twins Mark and Carol were born in 1953

  • elected as Conservative MP for Finchley in 1959

  • named education secretary by Ted Heath in 1970

  • 1975 – defeated; very high inflation rates, unemployment

  • 1979 – became Prime Minister

  • free milk  increasing teachers’ salary

• Monetary policies

  • introduced a radical budget of tax and spending cuts – to fight inflation

  • people were able to buy shares in the former state-owned business

  • riots – pressure on Margaret

• Falklands War

  • 1981 – 25% approval rating

  • 1982 – the economy began to recover

• Thatcherism – free marches and a small state. The Iron Lady

  • conservative Prime Minister from 1979 until 1990

  • the peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of the cast man

  • published books:

    • Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World - dedicated to Ronald Reagan

    • Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography – last book, 9 April

• died 8 April 2013

• [!] Mrs Thatcher had an intense dislike of insects and a near phobia of snakes.

• [!] According to an interview she gave in 1975, Mrs Thatcher’s favourite colour was turquoise.

• [!] The first person to describe Margaret Thatcher as the “Iron Lady” was Soviet journalist Yuri Gavrilov in the Red Star army newspaper in 1976.