Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first female Prime Minister and one of the most transformative leaders of the 20th century, serving from 1979 to 1990. The grocer's daughter from Grantham studied chemistry at Oxford, became a barrister and tax lawyer, then entered Parliament in 1959. She seized the Conservative Party leadership in 1975, promising to reverse Britain's decline.
Thatcher's economic revolution—'Thatcherism'—combined privatization, deregulation, and confrontation with organized labor. The 1984-85 miners' strike became a defining battle; her victory broke union power. She privatized nationalized industries, sold council housing to tenants, and cut taxes while reducing inflation through monetary policy.
Internationally, Thatcher was Reagan's partner in confronting the Soviet Union and recaptured the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1982. Her opposition to European integration and the poll tax ultimately led to her ouster by her own party. Loved and loathed with equal intensity, Thatcher remains the template for free-market conservatism worldwide.