EUROPA 1980 – Famous People - Netherlands 23.9.1980

Queen Wilhelmina (1880-1962). Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria (31 August 1880 – 28 November 1962) was Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 until her abdication in 1948. Wilhelmina was the only child of King William III and his second wife Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont. She became heir presumptive to the Dutch throne, after her half brother and great uncle had died, when she was 4 years old. She became queen when her father died, when she was 10 years old. As she was still a minor, her mother served as regent until Wilhelmina became 18 years old. In 1901, she married Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin with whom she had a daughter Juliana.

She reigned for nearly 58 years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World War I and World War II, the economic crisis of 1933, and the decline of the Netherlands as a major colonial power. Outside the Netherlands she is primarily remembered for her role in World War II, in which she proved to be a great inspiration to the Dutch resistance.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG OM CH TD PC DL FRS RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a non-academic historian, a writer (as Winston S. Churchill), and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his overall, lifetime body of work. In 1963, he was the first of only eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

Churchill suffered a serious stroke in 1953 and retired as Prime Minister in 1955, although he remained a Member of Parliament until 1964. Upon his death aged ninety in 1965, Elizabeth II granted him the honour of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of world statesmen in history.

Named the Greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 poll, Churchill is widely regarded as being among the most influential people in British history, consistently ranking well in opinion polls of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. His highly complex legacy continues to stimulate intense debate amongst writers and historians.