Thatcher suffered from dementia in her final years, and her public appearances became increasingly rare. She is survived by her two children, Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher, and her grandchildren.
She was dubbed 'The Iron Lady' by the Russians after she made a speech containing a scathing attack on the Soviet Union. The name stuck, and indeed every aspect of her proved as solid as her elemental moniker would suggest.
After the Conservatives were defeated in 1974, Thatcher challenged Edward Heath for the leadership of the party and, to the surprise of many, won. In the 1979 general election, the Conservatives came to power and Thatcher became prime minister.
Adopting the persona of a housewife-politician who knew what inflation meant to ordinary families, she challenged the power of the trade unions whose almost constant industrial action peaked in the so-called "winter of discontent" in 1979.
She was an advocate of privatising state-owned industries and utilities, reforming trade unions, lowering taxes and reducing social expenditure across the board.
Thatcher's policies succeeded in reducing inflation, but unemployment dramatically increased during her years in power. her term was also punctuated by several recessions.
Victory in the Falklands War in 1982 and a divided opposition helped Thatcher win a landslide victory in the 1983 general election. In 1984, she narrowly escaped death when the IRA planted a bomb at the Conservative party conference in Brighton.
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