In foreign affairs, Thatcher cultivated a close political and personal relationship with US president Ronald Reagan, based on a common mistrust of communism, combined with free-market economic ideology. She warmly welcomed the rise of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
In the 1987 general election, Thatcher won an unprecedented third term in office. But controversial policies, including the poll tax and her opposition to any closer integration with Europe, produced divisions within the Conservative Party which led to a leadership challenge.
In her later years in power, the woman who famously said "the lady's not for turning" was criticized for her inflexibility.
In November 1990, she agreed to resign and was succeeded as party leader and prime minister by John Major.
In 1992, Thatcher left the House of Commons. She was appointed a peeress in the House of Lords with the title of Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven and continued giving speeches and lectures across the world.
She also founded the Thatcher Foundation, which aimed to advance the cause of political and economic freedom, particularly in the newly liberated countries of central and eastern Europe. In 1995 she became a member of the Order of the Garter, the highest order of knighthood in England.
An emotional Thatcher left Number 10 Downing Street on November 28, 1990, and went to sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of the U.K. Parliament. As Baroness Thatcher, she continued to attack old enemies for a while, such as the European Union, and to exert a sometimes-divisive influence within the Conservative Party.
After a series of small strokes in March 2002 and the death of her husband, retired oil executive Denis Thatcher, she largely withdrew from public life the following year.
Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, the daughter of a grocer. She went to Oxford University and then became a research chemist, retraining to become a barrister in 1954. In 1951, she married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman, with whom she had two children.
Thatcher's home and early life was in Grantham, born to humble beginnings. Her parents, Alfred and Beatrice Roberts, were Methodists and ran a grocery business, bringing up their two daughters in a flat over the shop.
Margaret Roberts attended a local state school and from there won a place at Oxford, where she studied chemistry at Somerville College (1943-47). Her studies took second place to politics in Thatcher's life.
At Oxford she was elected president of the student Conservative Association and met many prominent politicians, making herself known to the leadership of her party at the time of its defeat by Labour at the General Election of 1945.
