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Former NASA astronaut and Navy veteran Scott Kelly apologized Sunday after facing backlash for a tweet praising Winston Churchill. “One of the greatest leaders of modern times, Sir Winston Churchill said, ‘in victory, magnanimity.’ I guess those days are over,” Mr. Kelly, a veteran of four space flights, tweeted to his 5.76 million followers Sunday afternoon. Seven hours later, Mr. Kelly apologized for the quote, saying he would work on educating himself on Churchill’s purported misdeeds. "Did not mean to offend by quoting Churchill. My apologies. I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views which I...

Scott Kelly is a NASA astronaut.  That says a lot about him right there.  To be selected as an astronaut, you must be the best of the best – smart, fearless, and psychologically sound. So why does Kelly sound like an idiot here? Washington Examiner: Scott Kelly, a retired American astronaut with multiple space flights under his belt, apologized Sunday after quoting Winston Churchill and calling the 20th century British prime minister "one of the greatest leaders of modern times." "Did not mean to offend by quoting Churchill.  My apologies.  I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views which I...

Scott Kelly, a retired American astronaut with multiple space flights under his belt, apologized Sunday after quoting Winston Churchill and calling the 20th century British prime minister "one of the greatest leaders of modern times." "Did not mean to offend by quoting Churchill. My apologies. I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views which I do not support. My point was we need to come together as one nation. We are all Americans. That should transcend partisan politics," Kelly wrote on Twitter in the evening.

Some journalists on Tuesday fact-checked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) after he posted a tweet that cites a fake quote from former United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill. "Some insights are timeless," Abbott tweeted, referencing a picture that quotes Churchill saying, "The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists." There is no proof that Churchill ever made such a comment. Responding to the quote, The Atlantic's David Frum joked that a phrase often used by President Trump could also be attributed to the nation's first president: "In the deathless words of George Washington, 'Collusion is not a crime.'" "'The...

The Kremlin has in recent years advanced a narrative that Russia must not be ashamed of its Soviet past. President Vladimir Putin has used his nearly two decades in power to talk up achievements during World War II as a rallying cry to unite the nation. In recent years, there have been efforts in Russia to transform Stalin’s image from that of a bloody dictator to a ‘great personality.’ A poll by the independent Levada Center found only 9 percent of Russians blamed Stalin’s leadership for the war casualties, according to a survey published Wednesday. That is a a rapidly...

Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, Moscow, April 19, 2018 On April 13, UK Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow said that “the Russian state has a record in state-sponsored assassinations including in the UK.” It is not the first Russophobic statement made by a UK official...but it’s not the main point... Maybe the UK Ambassador does not know his own country’s history, role and involvement in processes that took place in other countries over the past centuries... Let’s start with modern history...Britain was one of the most ruthless metropolises in terms of the repressive actions it took in its...

David Olusoga has claimed Winston Churchill was a war criminal. And David Olusoga, who co-presents the BBC’s new Civilisations series, said those who criticised tributes to various historical figures should not be derided as “snowflakes”. Mr Olusoga made his sensational claims during a speech to the Oxfordshire Literary Festival. Suggesting that "almost all historical figures did good and bad", Mr Olusoga said academics were entering a period of ‘history wars’ in which accepted versions of Britain’s past are being challenged. He explained: “So while I’m personally glad that Churchill overcame Halifax in early 1940 and it was Churchill who faced...

March 5th is the anniversary of Winston Churchill's epoch-making "iron curtain" speech in 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri - the most famous acknowledgement of the existence of a "Cold War" between Russia and the West, which put an end to the alliance that defeated the Nazis in World War II. The Cold War, which would often became quite hot in places like Korea and Vietnam - and damn near led to a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 - continued for 45 years until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. "From Stettin in...

Here's a wonderful series on Churchill which fans of Winston will appreciate. It covers his efforts to awake the British public in the twenties.

The Yalta Conference wrapped up. American President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill and Soviet leader Stalin came to agreement on several important issues regarding the outcome of the War. The leaders agreed that the unconditional surrender of German would be the way the war ended. Germany and Berlin would be divided into four occupation zones after the war ended. There would be international trials of German war criminals. In addition the Soviets agreed to declare war on Japan within three months after the war in Europe ended. They would join the UN. The Soviets would also retain possession of that...

The Labour activist who led anti-Winston Churchill chants at a cafe dedicated to the wartime prime minister is a 24-year-old student and devout Jeremy Corbyn supporter. Halimo Hussein is a politics student at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London and stormed the Blighty UK cafe with eight other activists on Saturday.

Whatever you think about Donald Trump, his main achievement has been to utterly discombobulate his enemies, especially the mainstream media in America. If sometimes we think that the BBC dresses a little too far to the Left, try watching the Washington press pack in full flow. They believe it is their constitutional duty to destroy the democratically elected President by any means possible. He's been accused of racism, sexism and colluding with the Russians to steal the presidential election, which bizarrely they also claim he never wanted to win in the first place. Go figure. Like our own die-hard Remainers,...

I plan to see it a third time. The other day I went to see DARKEST HOUR, the movie about Winston Churchill’s heroics in the spring of 1940 in steeling the British upper classes to resist Hitler and to relieve Dunkirk by sending off a civilian armada to rescue the British army from the Nazis. The hour was very dark indeed. Aware as you might be of my aversion to movies, allow me to astound you further. This was not the first time I went to see Darkest Hour. It was the second time! I might see it again. The...

There could be no starker illustration of the profound differences that exist between Washington and London -- despite alignment on many other issues -- than comments this week by our two leaders on climate change and the environment. For President Trump, the Paris Agreement is a bad deal that will close US businesses -- perhaps even has closed some already. Meanwhile, in London last week, Prime Minister Theresa May was launching the UK's 25-year Plan for Nature. Its flagship pledge is to "leave the environment in a better state than we found it". The evidence is entirely against the world...

Many in Tonypandy and Llanelli saw Churchill as someone who would use troops against workersTourists line up each day in Whitehall to enter Winston Churchill’s subterranean war rooms and Gary Oldman is a favourite to win an Oscar for his portrayal of the Prime Minister in The Darkest Hour. The Conservative leader was voted the “greatest Briton” of all time in a television poll in 2002 in which he was championed by Mo Mowlam, perhaps the most enduringly popular Labour figure of modern times. Wholehearted admiration for Churchill unites the UK – but not, perhaps, in Wales. Stories of his...

Please pardon the vanity. I just saw Darkest Hour. It was really excellent and moving. Both history and drama. Some lines and scenes are obviously fictionalized. The scene with Churchill riding the subway is silly, but I understand the need for dramatic license. It is about the last three weeks of May 1940. Churchill becomes Prime Minister, even though Chamberlain, Halifax, and King George dislike him. Hitler invades France, which becomes a rout. Halifax insists on peace negotiations with Hitler. Churchill wavers, but decides to fight on. It is impossible to say what might have happened if Britain had made...

Churchill is an abidingly popular role with big-time actors once the receding hairline and expanding girth of middle-age set in. Sometimes the player is too evidently suited to the part - one thinks of Robert Hardy on telly in the Eighties - and the jowly gravitas gets clanked around as if Winnie wandered Chartwell and Westminster in never-was-so-much-owed mode 24/7. On the literal face of it, the man who brought both Sid Vicious and Commissioner Gordon to the silver screen is one of the least obvious cinematic Winstons ever, and he wears his lavish prosthetics with a very light touch....

In a key episode, Churchill went to the larger Cabinet and won overwhelming approval for his stalwartness. Here, he made his famous statement, “We shall go and we shall fight it out, here or elsewhere, and if at last the long story is to end, it were better it should end, not through surrender, but only when we are rolling senseless on the ground.”  After the war, Churchill wrote of the reaction of his colleagues: “Quite a number seemed to jump up from the table and came running to my chair, shouting and patting me on the back. There is...

Margaret Thatcher granted the deathbed request of a spy who masterminded one of the greatest World War II operations. Ewen Montagu wanted to find out the official verdict on Operation Mincemeat, an audacious plan which helped change the course of the war by fooling the Nazis into diverting their troops to the wrong place. Newly-declassified National Archives files reveal that Mr Montagu, a judge who volunteered for the Navy during the war, wrote to Mrs Thatcher from his deathbed with his request.

Comparing the late Prime Minister Winston Churchill to President Donald Trump is guaranteed to elicit scorn from intellectuals, for one was a prolific man of letters, while the other speaks in the vocabulary of the common man. One was a journalist and scholar, while the other is a builder, deal-maker, and master persuader (as Scott Adams argues). And one smoked and drank prolifically, while the other abstains from both. But beneath the veneer of literary styles, there are obvious historical similarities between Winston Churchill's becoming prime minister and Donald Trump's shocking election to the American presidency. It is hard to...