ABSTRACT
Conservative prime minister of Great Britain, Thatcher was the longest serving prime minister of the 20th cen tury and the first woman to hold that position.
The daughter of a successful shopkeeper and local politician, Thatcher was educated at Oxford University. She was elected a Conservative member of Parliament in 1959 and was secretary of state for education in the gov ernment of Edward Heath (1970-74). In 1975 she was elected leader of the Conservative Party. She led her party to victory in 1979 on a platform promising to re duce the role of government and to reverse the nation’s economic decline.
