Thatcher Becomes PM: Britain's Iron Lady Rises
Margaret Thatcher became the United Kingdom's first female prime minister on May 4, 1979, after the Conservative Party won 339 seats in the general election, defeating James Callaghan's Labour government which had been weakened by the "Winter of Discontent" strikes. Thatcher governed for eleven and a half years, the longest continuous premiership since Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century. Her economic policies, including privatization of state-owned industries, deregulation of financial markets, and confrontation with trade unions culminating in the 1984-85 miners' strike, fundamentally restructured the British economy. She won the Falklands War in 1982, survived an IRA assassination attempt in 1984, and was eventually forced out by her own party in November 1990.
May 3, 1979
47 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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