Sir Winston Churchill

Born two months premature at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. His mother, Jennie Jerome, is American. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, is a prominent Conservative politician who will flame out young. Winston barely knows him.

Captured by Boer forces in South Africa after an armored train is ambushed. He escapes a month later by climbing over a prison wall in Pretoria, hiding in a coal truck, and making his way 300 miles to Portuguese East Africa. He comes home a celebrity.

The Gallipoli campaign, which he championed as First Lord of the Admiralty, turns into a catastrophe. Over 44,000 Allied soldiers die. Churchill is demoted to the least important cabinet post. He resigns, joins the army, and commands a battalion in the trenches of the Western Front. He is 40. His political career appears finished.

Hit by a car crossing Fifth Avenue in New York. He looked the wrong way. The impact fractures ribs and causes severe internal bleeding. He nearly dies. He writes about the accident for the Daily Mail, turns it into a paid article, and uses the hospital stay to lecture on the experience of being hit by a car at 35 miles per hour.

Becomes Prime Minister. Neville Chamberlain has resigned after losing the confidence of Parliament. Churchill takes office on the same day Germany invades France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Three days later he tells the House of Commons: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

Delivers his "Finest Hour" speech after the fall of France. Britain stands alone. The RAF has 700 fighters. The Luftwaffe has 2,600 aircraft. "If the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: This was their finest hour."

Loses the general election in a landslide to Clement Attlee's Labour Party. The war in Europe ended two months earlier. The British public wants a welfare state, not a war leader. Churchill is stunned. His wife Clementine tells him it may be "a blessing in disguise." He replies: "At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised."

Dies at his London home at age 90. He had told his doctor years earlier: "I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter." His state funeral draws 350 million television viewers. Dockers on the Thames lower their crane jibs as the barge carrying his coffin passes. He is buried in a village churchyard in Bladon, near where he was born.