Curated category
World War II political leaders
- Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency four times, the only person in American history to serve more than two terms.
- Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill was born on the 30th of November 1874 inside Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home his family had held for generations in Oxfordshire.
- Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin signed his articles "K. Stalin", an alias drawn from the Russian word for steel, translated as "Man of Steel." The man who chose it was born…
- Neville ChamberlainNeville Chamberlain stepped off a plane at Heston Aerodrome on the 30th of September 1938 and waved a single sheet of paper at the waiting crowd.
- Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Himmler was reluctant to open his mouth. A British doctor in Lüneburg leaned in to examine it on the 23rd of May 1945, and the prisoner jerked his…
- Mohammad Reza PahlaviMohammad Reza Pahlavi was born on the 26th of October 1919 in Tehran, the eldest son of a Brigadier-General who had not yet become king.
- Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was born on the 20th of April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary near the German border. He died by suicide on the 30th of April…
- Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini was named after a Mexican president. His father, a blacksmith and a socialist, chose the name Benito for the liberal Mexican leader Benito…
- Alexei KosyginAlexei Kosygin spent the last night of his life alone in a Moscow hospital, stripped of his government protection, his communications, and the luxury goods…
- Chiang Kai-shekChiang Kai-shek was born on the 31st of October 1887, in Xikou, a small town in Fenghua, Zhejiang, about 30 kilometers west of central Ningbo.
- Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman became the 33rd president of the United States not by winning an election, but by walking into a room where Eleanor Roosevelt told him her…
- Vyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav Molotov was the only person in the twentieth century to have shaken hands with Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Franklin D.
- Charles de GaulleCharles de Gaulle was born on the 22nd of November 1890 in Lille, the third of five children in a devoutly Catholic, conservative, and monarchist household.
- Clement AttleeClement Attlee walked into Buckingham Palace on the 26th of July 1945 to be appointed Prime Minister. King George VI stood waiting.
- Carol II of RomaniaCarol II of Romania left his country on the 6th of September 1940 with a train loaded with 30 truckloads of his personal fortune.
- Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl WavellArchibald Wavell lost his left eye at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, and he spent the next three decades commanding armies across some of the most…
- Joachim von RibbentropJoachim von Ribbentrop was born on the 30th of April 1893 and hanged on the 16th of October 1946, and in the years between those two dates he rose from…
- Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco was shot in the abdomen in 1916, aged 23, during an assault on Moroccan positions at El Biutz, in the hills near Ceuta.
- Ion AntonescuIon Antonescu was executed by a military firing squad on the 1st of June 1946, at a site outside Jilava called Valea Piersicilor, the Valley of the Peach…
- Mamoru ShigemitsuMamoru Shigemitsu walked with a cane and an artificial right leg to the deck of a battleship on the 2nd of September 1945 and signed the document that ended…
- HirohitoHirohito reigned over Japan for 63 years, from 1926 until his death in 1989, the longest reign of any emperor in Japanese history.
- Josip Broz TitoJosip Broz, known to the world as Tito, once wrote a letter that read: "Stalin. Stop sending assassins to murder me. We have already caught five, one with a…
- Lutz Graf Schwerin von KrosigkLutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk holds a strange and troubling distinction: he was the finance minister of Germany from 1932 all the way to 1945, outlasting…
- Hideki TojoHideki Tojo was awakened at 5:00 a.m. on the 8th of December 1941 and told that Japanese planes had struck the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
- İsmet İnönüİsmet İnönü stood inside a railroad car near Adana in January 1943, face to face with Winston Churchill. Turkey had spent years balancing between the Allies…
- 14th Dalai LamaTenzin Gyatso was born Lhamo Thondup on the 6th of July 1935, in a small farming hamlet called Taktser, on what the Dalai Lama himself has called the "real…