Daughter of a grocer, Thatcher, often claimed to be an ordinary housewife at heart, but she was the first celebrity politician groomed for the TV age. She was one of the few leaders who did not believe in popularity.
But in the end it was her strident Euro-scepticism that resulted not only in her downfall but the ousting of the Conservative Party. Thatcher was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990.
It isn't an overstatement to say that almost every aspect of life was affected by the policies of the Thatcher government during her years in power, as the economic and social fabric of Britain changed.
Throughout the 1980s, Thatcher dominated political life in the UK and Thatcherism became the shorthand for a series of political initiatives all over the world. Thatcherism claims to promote low inflation, the small state and free markets through tight control of the money supply, privatisation and constraints on the labour movement.
Her legacy was such that few politicians have exercised such dominance during their term in office and few politicians have attracted such strength of feeling, both for and against.
Thatcher's popularity received its biggest boost in April 1982 with her decisive response to the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands.
Thatcher is remembered within Britain mostly for her role in revolutionizing the fading economy in a process that caused huge social change, and for the successful retaking of the Falkland Islands, the British South Atlantic territory invaded by Argentina in 1982—after which she declared "We have ceased to be a nation in retreat."
In Europe, she is remembered as a prickly leader who thrived on confrontation, but who ultimately agreed to foster some of the European Union's most significant developments, such as the creation of a single EU market.
