Margaret Thatcher (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of 20th century. Known as the Iron Lady, leading Great Britain from 1979 to 1990 was a champion of free-market policies and adversary of the Soviet Union. Thatcher was an outsider in the old boys' club and beat the unthinkable as a grocer's daughter to lead the Conservatives, the party of Churchill and William Pitt.

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on Oct. 13, 1925 in Grantham, England. She attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied chemistry, and later, in 1953, qualified as barrister was, specialized in tax issues.

When Thatcher was elected to Britain's House of Commons in 1959, she was its youngest female member. In 1970, when the Conservatives took power, she was made Britain's secretary of state for education and science. In 1975, she was chosen to lead the Conservatives, and she became the prime minister in 1979.

Thatcher had significant health problems in her later years, suffering from several small strokes. She died on April 8, 2013 at the age 87.