Milestones in the life of Margaret Thatcher

Love her or loathe her, one thing’s beyond dispute: Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain.
The Iron Lady, who ruled for 11 remarkable years, imposed her will on a fractious, rundown nation — breaking the unions, triumphing in a far-off war, and selling off state industries at a record pace. She left behind a leaner government and more prosperous nation by the time a mutiny ousted her from No. 10 Downing St.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on Oct. 13, 1925. She learned the values of thrift, discipline, and industry as the dutiful daughter of Alfred Roberts, a grocer and Methodist lay preacher who eventually became the mayor of Grantham, a modest-sized town in Lincolnshire 110 miles north of London.

Pictured: A health shop that now occupies the building where Margaret Thatcher was born in Grantham.

Thatcher excelled at school and won a scholarship to Oxford University. She majored in chemistry and was first female president of the Oxford University Conservative Association. After graduating, in 1947, Thatcher spent four years working as a research chemist.

Pictured: Margaret Roberts worked as a research chemist.

Thatcher ran for Parliament in 1950 and ’51 in a solidly Labor district. She lost both times, but drew the attention of Conservative Party leaders. She earned nationwide publicity as the youngest female candidate in the country, despite her loss at the polls.

Pictured: Margaret Thatcher, then Roberts, the Conservative candidate for Dartford, Kent.

She interrupted her political career to marry Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman 10 years her senior, in December 1951.

Pictured: Margaret Thatcher got a kiss from her husband Denis in London in 1975.

Margaret Thatcher first won election to Parliament in 1959, representing Finchley in north London. She climbed the Conservative Party ladder quickly, joining the Cabinet as education secretary in 1970.

Pictured: Margaret Thatcher, then secretary of state for education and science, in the government of Edward Heath in London.

In that post, she earned the unwanted nickname ‘‘Thatcher the milk snatcher’’ because of her reduction of school milk programs. It was a taste of battles to come.

Pictured: A bottle of milk was left outside the home of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in central London, on April 8.

It was heady stuff for a woman who had little training in foreign affairs when she triumphed over a weak field of indecisive Conservative Party candidates to take over the party leadership in 1975 and ultimately run as the party’s candidate for prime minister.

Pictured: Then Conservative Member of Parliament Margaret Thatcher, in her Chelsea home kitchen in 1975.

Lady Thatcher led her party to victory in May 1979, gaining a 43-seat majority in Parliament.

Pictured: Prime Minister Thatcher waved as she arrived to take office at No. 10 Downing St. in London in 1979.

When Argentina’s military junta seized the remote Falklands Islands from Britain in 1982, Thatcher did not hesitate, even though her senior military advisers said it might not be feasible to reclaim the islands. When diplomacy failed, she dispatched a military task force that accomplished her goal, despite the naysayers.

Pictured: A line of British soldiers in camouflage advanced during the Falklands War.

The relatively quick triumph of British forces revived Thatcher’s political fortunes, which had been faltering along with the British economy. She won an overwhelming victory in 1983, tripling her majority in the House of Commons.

Pictured: Margaret Thatcher left the Castle Lane, Westminster, London polling station with her husband, Denis, after casting their votes in the general election in 1983.

She trusted her gut instinct, famously concluding early on that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev represented a clear break in the Soviet tradition of autocratic rulers. She pronounced that the West could ‘‘do business’’ with him, a position that influenced President Reagan’s vital dealings with Gorbachev in the twilight of the Soviet era.

Pictured: Gorbachev talked to Thatcher during their joint press conference in Moscow.

Like her close friend and political ally Ronald Reagan, Thatcher seemed motivated by an unshakable belief that free markets would build a better country than reliance on a strong, central government. Another thing she shared with the American president: a tendency to reduce problems to their basics, choose a path, and follow it to the end, no matter what the opposition. She formed a deep attachment to the man she called ‘‘Ronnie’’ — some spoke of it as a schoolgirl crush.

Pictured: Reagan and Thatcher posed for photographers on the patio outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C.

Thatcher was the West’s most outspoken opponent of imposing economic sanctions on South Africa’s minority government to end apartheid. She contended such sanctions cost jobs, including in Britain, hurt South Africa’s black majority most and harden white resistance to change.

Pictured: South-African Prime-Minister Pieter Willem Botha met with Thatcher in London in 1984.

In 1986, Britain’s Cabinet unanimously supported her resistance to such sanctions. As a result, protests ensued and many accused her of supporting the apartheid regime.

Pictured: South African anti-apartheid leader and African National Congress member Nelson Mandela shook hands with tThatcher on the steps of No. 10 Downing St.

Success in the Falklands War set the stage for a pivotal fight with the National Union of Miners, which began a 51-week strike in March 1984 to oppose the government’s plans to close a number of mines. The miners battled police on picket lines but couldn’t beat Thatcher, and returned to work without gaining any concessions.

Pictured: Police took action as violence flared with miners at Daw Mill colliery in Warwickshire, Britain.

Thatcher survived an audacious 1984 assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army that nearly succeeded. The IRA detonated a bomb in her hotel in Brighton during a party conference, killing and injuring senior government figures, but leaving the prime minister and her husband unharmed.

Pictured: Thatcher gave the final address of the Conservative Convention in Brighton in 1988.

Thatcher won a third term in another landslide in 1987.

Pictured: Thatcher waved to supporters from Conservative Party headquarters in London after claiming victory in Britain’s general election.

She trampled over cautionary advice from her own ministers in 1989 and 1990 by imposing a hugely controversial ‘‘community charge’’ tax that was quickly dubbed a ‘‘poll tax’’ by opponents. It was designed to move Britain away from a property tax and instead imposed a flat rate tax on every adult except for retirees and people who were registered unemployed.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in London and other cities, leading to some of the worst riots in the British capital for more than a century.

Pictured: Demonstrators broke shop windows in London at the end of the biggest protest to date against the poll tax, Britain’s new system of local taxation.

The shocking sight of Trafalgar Square turned into a smoldering battleground on March 31, 1990, helped convince many Conservative figures that Thatcher had stayed too long.

Pictured: Protesters at a demonstration against the poll tax, Brixton, London.

Eight months after the riots, Thatcher was gone, struggling to hold back tears as she left Downing Street after being ousted by her own party. It was a bitter end for Thatcher’s active political career — her family said she felt a keen sense of betrayal even years later.

Pictured: Thatcher spoke to reporters as she left No. 10 Downing St. for Buckingham Palace where she resigned as prime minister to Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1992, she was appointed in the House of Lords, taking the title Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.

Pictured: Baroness Margaret Thatcher at the State Opening of Parliament in London.

Thatcher wrote several best-selling memoirs after leaving office and was a frequent speaker on the international circuit before she suffered several small strokes that in 2002 led her to curtail her lucrative public speaking career.

She suffered from dementia in her final years, and her public appearances became increasingly rare. British media reported that Thatcher had been staying at the Ritz — where she died on April 8— because her Belgravia home did not have an elevator and she was having difficulty getting around.

Thatcher is survived by her two children, Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher, and her two grandchildren.

Pictured: Margaret Thatcher with her son, Mark, and her daughter, Carol.