#ChurchillsDay

Why Winston Churchill Has His Own American Holiday

National Winston Churchill Day falls on April 9th, and what makes it unusual is that it honors a British citizen on the American calendar. The date marks April 9, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation making Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States. Churchill was only the second person in history to receive that distinction - the Marquis de Lafayette was the first, awarded posthumously in 2002 (though technically approved by Congress earlier). As of 2026, only eight people have ever been made honorary U.S. citizens.

Churchill himself was too frail to attend the White House ceremony. His son Randolph and grandson Winston accepted on his behalf. Kennedy said in his remarks that Churchill had “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” It was one of the most quotable things ever said about a man who was himself one of the most quotable figures in modern history.

The Early Years Nobody Talks About

Churchill’s path to becoming the defining leader of the 20th century was anything but smooth. Born in 1874 at Blenheim Palace, he was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and Jennie Jerome, an American socialite from Brooklyn. That American mother is part of why the honorary citizenship felt fitting - Churchill literally had American blood.

He was a mediocre student at Harrow, finishing near the bottom of his class. He failed the entrance exam for the Royal Military College at Sandhurst twice before passing on his third attempt in 1893. His father considered him a disappointment and died when Winston was just 20.

What Churchill did have was relentless ambition and a gift for writing. He worked as a war correspondent in Cuba, India, Sudan, and South Africa in his twenties, and his dispatches were vivid enough to make him famous back home. During the Boer War in 1899, he was captured, escaped from a prison camp in Pretoria, traveled 300 miles through hostile territory, and made it to safety. The escape made him a national celebrity and launched his political career.

The Wilderness Years and the War

Churchill entered Parliament in 1900 at age 25. Over the next four decades, he held nearly every major cabinet position: Home Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State for War. But he also suffered devastating setbacks. The Gallipoli campaign of 1915, which he championed as First Lord of the Admiralty, was a catastrophic failure that killed over 100,000 Allied troops. It nearly ended his career.

Through the 1930s, Churchill was largely sidelined from power - what he later called his “wilderness years.” He spent the decade warning about Adolf Hitler and German rearmament while most of the British establishment pursued appeasement. When Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1938 waving his “peace for our time” agreement, Churchill called it “a total and unmitigated defeat.”

He was proven right within a year. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, and by May 1940, Chamberlain had resigned. Churchill became Prime Minister at age 65, just as France was falling and Britain stood essentially alone against Nazi Germany. His first speech to Parliament as PM included the famous line: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”

The speeches from that summer of 1940 - “We shall fight on the beaches,” “Their finest hour,” “Never in the field of human conflict” - are considered some of the most important oratory in the English language. They did not win the war by themselves, but they kept British morale from collapsing during the Blitz, when German bombs fell on London for 57 consecutive nights.

After the War and the Legacy

In one of history’s great ironies, Churchill was voted out of office in July 1945, just two months after victory in Europe. The British public wanted a Labour government to build a welfare state, and they got one under Clement Attlee. Churchill returned as Prime Minister from 1951 to 1955, but his second term was quieter and marked by declining health.

His post-war years were filled with writing. Churchill published a six-volume history of the Second World War and a four-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 - not for fiction, but for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory.” He is one of very few political leaders to win a Nobel in Literature.

Churchill was also a serious painter, producing over 500 canvases during his lifetime. He took it up in 1915 during the depression that followed the Gallipoli disaster. Painting became his primary method of managing what he called his “black dog” - chronic depression that followed him throughout his life. His paintings have sold at auction for over $2.5 million.

He died on January 24, 1965, exactly 70 years to the day after his father. He was 90 years old. His state funeral was the largest in British history up to that point, with representatives from 112 nations attending. As his coffin was carried down the Thames on a barge, the cranes along the docks dipped in salute - a gesture organized by the dock workers themselves.

Churchill Quotes Worth Knowing

Churchill produced quotable lines the way other people produce small talk. Some of the most famous: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

He was also famous for his wit in debate. When Lady Astor reportedly told him, “If you were my husband, I’d put poison in your coffee,” Churchill allegedly replied, “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.” (Historians debate whether this exchange actually happened, but it has become inseparable from his legend.)

Related Hashtags

April 9th shares the calendar with several other observances. Check out #NameYourselfDay for something lighter, and #NationalFormerPOWDay for another history-focused hashtag on the same date. For more leadership-themed content, browse #EncourageAYoungWriterDay and #CinnamonCrescentDay.