Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who twice was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery, also known as L. S. Amery, was a British Conservative politician and journalist. During his career, he was known for his interest in military preparedness, British India and the British Empire and for his opposition to appeasement. After his retirement and death, he was perhaps best known for the remarks he made in the House of Commons on 7 May 1940 during the Norway Debate.
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was a Pakistani Bengali barrister and politician. In Bangladesh, Suhrawardy is remembered as a pioneer of Bengali civil rights movements, later turned into Bangladesh independence movement, and the mentor of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He is also remembered for his performance as the Minister for Civil Supply during the Bengal famine of 1943. In India, he is seen as a controversial figure; indirectly responsible for the 1946 Calcutta Killings.
During the Second World War (1939–1945), India was a part of the British Empire. British India officially declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939. India, as a part of the Allied Nations, sent over two and a half million soldiers to fight under British command against the Axis powers. India was also used as the base for American operations in support of China in the China Burma India Theater.
Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II.
The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in the Bengal province of British India during World War II. An estimated 0.8–3.8 million people died, in the Bengal region, from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions and lack of health care. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and catastrophically disrupted the social fabric. Eventually, families disintegrated; men sold their small farms and left home to look for work or to join the British Indian Army, and women and children became homeless migrants, often travelling to Calcutta or other large cities in search of organised relief.
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule and later a province of India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the governor of Bengal was concurrently the governor-general of India and Calcutta was the capital of India until 1911.
Famine had been a recurrent feature of life in the South Asian subcontinent countries of India and Bangladesh, most notoriously under British rule. Famines in India resulted in millions of deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Famines in British India were severe enough to have a substantial impact on the long-term population growth of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Khan Bahadur Qazi Azizul Haque was a Bengali inventor and police officer in British India, notable for his work with Edward Henry and Hem Chandra Bose in developing the Henry Classification System of fingerprints, which is still in use. Haque provided the mathematical basis for the system.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large, peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, during the annual Baishakhi fair to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of pro-independence activists Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. In response to the public gathering, the temporary brigadier general R. E. H. Dyer surrounded the people with his Gurkha and Sikh infantry regiments of the British Indian Army. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, Dyer ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted. Estimates of those killed vary from 379 to 1,500 or more people; over 1,200 others were injured, of whom 192 sustained serious injuries. Britain has never formally apologised for the massacre but expressed "deep regret" in 2019.
The Second World War is a history of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill. Churchill labelled the "moral of the work" as follows: "In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill".
Adolph Friedrich Lindemann was a British engineer, businessman, and amateur astronomer of German origin. He was involved in the Transatlantic telegraph cable project.
The timeline of major famines in India during British rule covers major famines on the Indian subcontinent from 1765 to 1947. The famines included here occurred both in the princely states, British India and Indian territories independent of British rule such as the Maratha Empire.
Madhusree Mukerjee is an Indian-American physicist, writer, editor, and journalist. She is the author of The Land of Naked People: Encounters with Stone Age Islanders (2003) and Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II (2010). She is a contributor to the People's Archive of Rural India and a senior editor with Scientific American.
Ian Melville Stephens was a British journalist who was the editor of the Indian newspaper The Statesman in Kolkata, West Bengal, from 1942 to 1951. He became known for his independent reporting during British rule in India, and in particular for his decision to publish graphic photographs, in August 1943, of the Bengal famine of 1943, which claimed between 1.5 and 3 million lives. The publication of the images, along with Stephens' editorials, helped to bring the famine to an end by persuading the British government to supply adequate relief to the victims.
The UK-US relations in World War II comprised an extensive and highly complex relationships, in terms of diplomacy, military action, financing, and supplies. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt formed close personal ties, that operated apart from their respective diplomatic and military organizations.
The Bengal famine of 1943-44 was a major famine in the Bengal province in British India during World War II. An estimated 2.1 million, out of a population of 60.3 million, died from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions, and lack of health care. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and social fabric.
Throughout his life, Winston Churchill made numerous controversial statements on race, which some writers have described as racist. It is furthermore suggested that his personal views influenced important decisions he made throughout his political career, particularly relating to the British Empire, of which he was a staunch advocate and defender. In the 21st century, his views on race and empire became among the most discussed aspects of his legacy. Some academics, such as Kehinde Andrews, go so far as to suggest Churchill was "the perfect embodiment of white supremacy", while others like historian Andrew Roberts, say that Churchill could certainly be accused of paternalism, but not race-hatred.
The Famine Inquiry Commission, also known as the Woodhead Commission, was appointed by the Government of British India in 1944 to investigate the 1943 Bengal famine. Controversially, it declined to blame the British government and emphasised the natural, rather than man-made, causes of the famine.
Winston Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty on 3 September 1939, the day that the United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany. He succeeded Neville Chamberlain as prime minister on 10 May 1940 and held the post until 26 July 1945. Out of office during the 1930s, Churchill had taken the lead in calling for British re-armament to counter the growing threat of militarism in Nazi Germany. As prime minister, he oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against the Axis powers. Regarded as the most important of the Allied leaders during the first half of the Second World War, Historians have long held Churchill in high regard as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending Europe's liberal democracy against the spread of fascism. For his wartime leadership and for his efforts in overseeing the war effort, he has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the top three greatest British prime ministers, often as the greatest prime minister in British history.
