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Churchill was perhaps the most famous British Prime Minister. Churchill also excelled as a Nobel Prize recipient, a historian, an artist, and war reporter. His determination and heroics are the characteristics that were prevalent in WWII. He played a major role in setting up the D-Day Invasion. During the Invasion, he chose to walk up and down the streets during raids, inspected coastal fortresses, and injured enemies. After the war, Churchill served for Prime Minister for a second time from 1951-1955. In 1963 Congress made him an honorary U.S. citizen. On January 24, 1965 Sir Winston Churchill died after suffering a stroke nine days earlier.
Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope, and he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Innaguaral Address: "the only thing we have to fear is, fear itself." The President was elected to his first term in office November 1932. He would continue to serve an unprecedented four terms in office. The most any American President has ever served. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed the organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war. Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend on relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled. As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Ga. he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Stalin was the infamous dictator of the USSR from 1929-1953 who used fear to rule. His communist rule was contagious during his reign, spreading to a total 11 countries before his death. His most notable achievement was the way he transformed the Soviet Union into an industrial and military powerhouse. His overall character invited many people to dislike him, even his friends. He exhibited no remorse for his actions of brutality, but continued to betray his allies and his people. He had Soviet history rewritten in some cases to make himself appear far greater in past events. In 1953, Stalin died and his body was placed next to Lenin's in Red Square in Moscow.
An opponent of appeasement, Reynaud became a strong supporter of the military ideas of Charles de Gaulle. When Edouard Daladier was ousted in March of 1940, Reynaud became the country's new Prime Minister. A week later he met Neville Chamberlain in London and the men signed a joint declaration that the two countries would not sign a separate peace with Adolf Hitler. When the German army invaded France in May of 1940, Reynaud responded by appointing Charles de Gaulle to replace Edouard Daladier as Minister of War. Reynaud escasped to Vichy France but Henri-Philippe Petain ordered his arrest. Along with Leon Blum and Edouard Daladier he was tried in February 1942 for betraying his country. He was eventually handed over to the Germans who held him prisoner until 1945. Reynaud was reelected to the Camber of Deputies in 1946. Three years later the 71 year old Reynaud remarried and went on to father three children. Paul Reynaud died on September 21, 1966.
Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese political and military leader who assumed the leadership of the Kuomintang after the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925. He commanded the Northern Expedition to unify China against the warlords and emerged victorious in 1928 as the overall leader of the Republic of China. Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which Chiang's stature within China weakened but his international prominence grew. During the Chinese Civil War (1926-1949), Chiang attempted to eradicate the Chinese Communists but ultimately failed, forcing his government to retreat to Taiwan, where he continued serving as the President of the Republic of China and Director-General of the Kuomintang for the remainder of his life. In 1976, 26 years after he fled to Taiwan, he died in Taipei from a heart attack, he was 74.
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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Paul Reynaud
Chiang Kai-shek