Britain’s first woman Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, known as the Iron Lady, today passed away following a stroke at the age of 87.
“It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning“,” Lord Bell, her spokesperson said.
Thatcher was Conservative Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990.
Thatcher, born as Margaret Roberts, became the Conservative MP for Finchley, north London in 1959, retiring from the Commons in 1992.
Having been education secretary, she successfully challenged former Prime Minister Edward Heath for her party’s leadership in 1975.
She won general elections in 1979, 1983 and 1987.
Thatcher’s government privatised several state-owned industries. She was also in power when the UK went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982.