Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, who lived from 1925 to 2013, served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, making her the longest serving British prime minister of the twentieth century and the first woman to hold the office. As prime minister she implemented a program of policies that became known as Thatcherism, emphasizing greater individual economic liberty, the privatization of state owned companies and industries, and a sustained reduction in the power and influence of trade unions, a program that marked a major realignment of British economic policy after decades of postwar consensus. A Soviet journalist gave her the nickname the Iron Lady in response to her uncompromising anti-communist rhetoric, a label that became closely associated with her forceful public style and political resolve. Britain's victory in the 1982 Falklands War against Argentina significantly boosted her popularity, and she went on to win landslide re-election victories in 1983 and 1987, but the deeply unpopular community charge, commonly known as the poll tax, contributed heavily to the collapse of support that forced her resignation in November 1990. Her transformative and still contested impact on British economics, society and foreign policy continues to shape political debate in the United Kingdom decades after she left office.