Margaret Thatcher (* October 13, 1925, Grantham, Lincolnshire, England — died April 8, 2013, London), British Conservative Party politician and prime minister (1979–90), Europe’s first woman prime minister and only one in the 20th century to win three consecutive terms. She accelerated the evolution of the British economy from statism to market-oriented liberalism and became, by personality as much as achievement, the most renowned British political leader since Winston Churchill.