Full Name: Margaret Hilda Thatcher (née Roberts); Profession: British Conservative stateswoman, barrister, author, and longest-serving British Prime Minister of the twentieth century; Nationality: British; Born: 13 October 1925; Birthplace: Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, above her father Alfred Roberts’ grocery shop in a small market town in eastern England; Generation: Silent Generation (birth cohort often defined as people born roughly between 1925 and 1945 or 1928 and 1945, who came of age in the post‑World‑War‑II era and are commonly described as traditionalist, cautious, and hard‑working); Chinese Zodiac: Ox (specifically Wood Ox, as people born between 24 January 1925 and 12 February 1926 fall into the Ox year in the traditional 12‑year cycle, with the 1925 lunar year classified as a Wood Ox year); Zodiac Sign: Libra (the Sun is in Libra for birthdays between about 23 September and 22 October, and 13 October falls within this Libra period); Age in 2026: 101 (she would have celebrated her 101st birthday on 13 October 2026, having been born in 1925, although she died in 2013); Marital Status: Married (widowed)—she married businessman and oil executive Denis Thatcher in December 1951, forming a long‑lasting partnership that supporters often described as one of the best‑matched and happiest political marriages, and she remained married to him until his death in 2003; Children: Two children, twins Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher, born in 1953, whom she raised while simultaneously studying for and qualifying at the Bar and building her political career; Description: Margaret Hilda Thatcher, widely known as “Margaret Thatcher” or the “Iron Lady," was a British Conservative politician whose uncompromising leadership style and sweeping economic and social reforms made her one of the most influential and controversial figures in late twentieth‑century world politics; she studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, where she became involved in student Conservative politics, then trained as a barrister specializing in tax law before winning a seat in Parliament for Finchley in 1959, marking the beginning of a parliamentary career that lasted more than three decades; rising through the Conservative Party, she served in opposition and shadow roles and in 1975 defeated Edward Heath to become Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, the first woman to lead a major British political party and a Western parliamentary opposition; in 1979 she led the Conservatives to electoral victory and became the United Kingdom’s first female Prime Minister, holding office from 1979 to 1990 and winning three consecutive general elections, an unprecedented stretch of continuous service for a twentieth‑century British prime minister; her governing philosophy, often called “Thatcherism”, combined monetarist economic policies, deregulation, privatization of state‑owned enterprises, curbs on trade union power, and a strong emphasis on individual responsibility, home ownership, and free‑market competition, reshaping the British economy and society and influencing conservative and neoliberal movements far beyond the United Kingdom; on the international stage she was a staunch Cold War ally of the United States, closely associated with President Ronald Reagan’s hard line against the Soviet Union, and she projected British power through decisions such as authorizing military action in the 1982 Falklands War, which reclaimed the islands after an Argentine invasion and reinforced her image as a determined wartime leader; her tenure also included deep social conflict at home, with policies such as industrial restructuring, mine closures, and the introduction of the Community Charge (poll tax) provoking large‑scale protests and contributing to polarized public opinion, so that she was admired by supporters as a visionary reformer and strong leader yet criticized by opponents for increasing inequality and undermining traditional communities; after leaving office in 1990 following a leadership challenge within her party, she remained an influential public figure, serving as a back‑bench MP until 1992, writing memoirs, delivering speeches, and acting as a symbolic reference point for later conservative politicians who either invoked her legacy or defined themselves against it; personally, she came from a modest, religious, shop‑keeping family, with her parents Alfred and Beatrice Roberts were running a grocery store in Grantham and inculcating in her values of thrift, self‑reliance, and moral seriousness, and she often credited this upbringing and her Methodist background for her emphasis on duty, order, and hard work in both private and public life; Denis Thatcher, whom she described as her "rock," was a constant source of emotional and practical support, and their twins Mark and Carol occasionally became public figures themselves, reinforcing the image of Thatcher as both a family woman and a demanding professional whose household had to adapt to the pressures of high office; internationally she came to symbolize a particular brand of conservative politics characterized by conviction, ideological clarity, and willingness to confront entrenched interests, and her nickname “Iron Lady"—originally coined by a Soviet journalist—was embraced by Thatcher herself as a badge of toughness and resolve; even after her resignation, debates about her record remained intense, with historians and commentators noting that her reforms helped end Britain’s relative economic decline and strengthened its global financial role while also accelerating deindustrialization and widening certain social divides, making her a central reference point in discussions about modern British history and conservative economic policy; Cause of Death: Stroke—She died on 8 April 2013 at the Ritz Hotel in London at age 87 after suffering a stroke, with medical and media reports noting that she had experienced previous strokes and lived with dementia in her later years, and she was accorded a ceremonial funeral with full military honors at St Paul’s Cathedral, attended by Queen Elizabeth II.