Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher was the leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990 and was therefore prime minister while her party was in power, from 1979 to 1990.

She was the first female prime minister of Britain, and was in office longer than any prime minister in more than a century. During the Cold War she took a hard line against the Soviet Union and the encroachment of communism, working closely with U.S. president Ronald Reagan. She holds the title of Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire, which means she can sit in the House of Lords.

She was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire in 1925. She studied chemistry at Oxford and did post-graduate work in crystallography. She took the Bar in 1953, specializing in tax law. Under Edward Heath of the Conservative Party, she became Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1970. She espoused the conservative economic ideals of Friedrich von Hayek and worked to control the power of trade unions. Her unbending determination-and conservative politics in a time when Britain was dominated by conservativism-won her the position of prime minister in 1979.

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