Churchill resigns. Sir Winston Churchill, the English statesman who led Great Britain and the Allies during World War II, resigns as prime minister. Churchill, a valiant fighter in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, had held various government and military positions and in 1940 was called to lead a coalition government. When Great Britain found itself alone in the face of Hitler, Churchill incited the British people to a strenuous resistance and skillfully orchestrated the alliance between Roosevelt and Stalin that ultimately overthrew the Axis powers. In 1945, Labour won the postwar elections, and Churchill became leader of the opposition, only to be re-elected prime minister in 1951. In 1953, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He served as a Member of Parliament until 1964 and died the following year.
