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Actress Angelina Jolie has sold a Moroccan landscape painting by British premier Winston Churchill for more than £8million, smashing the previous record for one of the World War Two leader's artworks. The painting, which is called 'Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque', sold at London auction house Christie's for a staggering £8.3million. It was completed after the 1943 Casablanca Conference, where Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt planned the defeat of Nazi Germany - and was later gifted to the US President as a memento of their trip to Marrakech.

"Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."—Winston Churchill

The GOP today is the party of Donald Trump, but some Republicans just don’t know it yet. The failed GOP, the one that nominated John McCain and Mitt Romney for the Presidency, is dead. Good riddance to it. The GOP survives this day only because Donald Trump rescued it in 2016. Some have suggested that if Joe Biden is sworn in that Donald Trump should start his own party. Absolutely not! Why go through the process building an entirely new party when instead he can clear out all the splinters of driftwood from the party of Abraham Lincoln? There are,...

A wartime spy described as Winston Churchill's favourite has finally been remembered with a blue plaque. Christine Granville, who was born Krystyna Skarbek in Warsaw, joined British intelligence in 1939 and is said to have inspired Ian Fleming's spy character Vesper Lynd. She struggled after the war and was given cheap lodgings at a London hotel run by the Polish Relief Society. It was her home until she was murdered by a stalker in 1952, aged 44. The English Heritage Blue Plaque has been unveiled at the former Shelbourne Hotel (now 1 Lexham Gardens), in Kensington, and is inscribed with...

Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Britain on May 10, 1940. World War II would rage another year and a half before the entrance of Unite States. The situation in Europe was desperate, as two massive Nazi armies were driving back British, French, Dutch, Polish and Belgian troops to the English Channel, bottling them up in the port of Dunkirk. The Belgian army surrendered. If the British forces were destroyed, Britain would be forced to negotiate a surrender. For reasons still debated, Hitler approved an order on May 24 to halt for three days the advance of 800,000 Nazi troop,...

A year before the British surrender at Yorktown, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy.” It’s a simple point: times defined by the former are not times defined by the latter. C. Bradley Thompson understandably desires that Americans “rediscover the philosophy of Americanism,” the philosophy—at least as he understands it—of the American Founding. What Thompson misunderstands, though, is that ours are once again times of war and politics; no mere philosophy can save us now. Americans of the founders’ age could realize the...

Dame Vera Lynn was the 'forces' sweetheart' during the Second World War, performing for troops as they fought enemy forces around the globe with inspirational songs that gave them hope on their darkest days that they would see home again. Her extraordinary career stretched 96 years, beginning when she was seven and continuing until just six weeks ago when she sang 'We'll Meet Again' with Katherine Jenkins to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day. In her final interview before she died, she described her bond with the Allied troops who gave or risked their lives for their country -...

Winston Churchill's photo disappeared from Google's list of British prime ministers this morning, as protesters call for his statue to be torn down. The wartime leader was the only prime minister to be left without a photo with Clement Attlee, Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin, who all served before Churchill, still displayed with their images. Adolf Hitler's picture was also still displaying on the search engine, despite Churchill's being missing for several hours this morning.

Heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury has told Boris Johnson to “grow a pair” after seeing Sir Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square repeatedly vandalised at Black Lives Matter protests. The wartime prime minister’s statue has been defaced with graffiti branding him a racist and slogans such as “BLACK LIVES MATTER” and “ACAB” (“All Coppers Are Bastards”) at Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the United Kingdom, which have quickly moved on from protesting the death of George Floyd in the United States to demands for the removal historic monuments and memorials whose activities and views are considered problematic by the standards...

Winston Churchill was a ‘racist’. Or so the Black Lives Matter graffiti says on the plinth of his statue in London’s Parliament Square which is bound to be pulled down by hard-left activists sooner or later because the police don’t seem to have that much of an appetite to save it. It amazes me that even intelligent people – including one or two politicians and commentators on the right who really should know better – are taking these disgusting Black Lives Matter/Antifa protests at face value, by applauding the demonstrators’ motives or even daringly admitting that they too feel sufficiently...

Nicholas Soames, who served as a Tory MP for almost 30 years, has hit out at the police response to the anti-racist protests that took place across the UK this weekend. Responding to a Tweet by Home Secretary Priti Patel, where she wished a police officer who was injured in the demonstrations a speedy recovery, Mr Soames urged her to "get a grip" on the situation. He also indicated his astonishment and sadness that a statue of his grandfather, Sir Winston Churchill, was defaced during the protests.

Horse racing continues to take place daily during the coronavirus pandemic, and on Saturday Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., opens for the first time in 2020 with a loaded 11-race card. Only two of the 11 races will have smaller than a full 12-horse field. In Race 11, the Mark Casse-trained Fly So Pretty makes her first start of the year and goes for her third career win in five starts when she leaves the starting gate in an allowance race. She has been installed as the 7-2 favorite in the 5½-furlong turf sprint. The race is the final leg...

At this moment of having commemorated the 75th anniversary of the official end of World War II in Europe on May 8, 1945, and when countries are engaging in the fight against the pandemic COVID-19, the world remembers the struggle against the earlier terrifying enemy, Nazi Germany, and the rhetoric and actions of Western political leaders in fighting that enemy. Brilliant oratory and eloquence reached their height in the speech made by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, after the "victory of Dunkirk," when 338,000 British troops were rescued from France, that informed...

I'm just a horse racing fan, and I post this for others like me. I have no connection with either Churchill Downs or Brisnet. Past Performances for the entire meet are available via the link. ML/NJ

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Tuesday, May 12, 2020) - Churchill Downs Racetrack today released a preliminary list of races that could be used for the extension of the “Road to the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve,” pending agreeable race placement by the host tracks. Additionally, the first race in the extended series, the $150,000 Matt Winn (Grade III) on May 23 at Churchill Downs, will have Top 4 points raised from the previously announced 10-4-2-1 to 50-20-10-5. “Based on measured interest from horsemen and limited racing opportunities for 3-year-olds across the country, the Matt Winn at the home of the Kentucky...

The word 'civilization' means not only peace by the non-regimentation of the people, such as is required in war. Civilization means that officials and authorities, whether uniformed or not, whether armed or not, are made to realize that they are servants and not masters. Socialism or overweening State life, whether in peace or war, is only sharing miseries and not blessings. Every self-respecting citizen in every country must be on his guard lest the rulers demand of him in time of peace sacrifices only tolerable in a period of war... Once the rulers of a country can create a war...

A newly unearthed essay by Winston Churchill shows Britain's wartime leader was uncannily prescient about the possibility of alien life on planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. The 11-page article was drafted on the eve of World War Two in 1939 and updated in the 1950s, decades before astronomers discovered the first extrasolar planets in the 1990s. Yet Churchill pinpointed issues dominating today's debate about extraterrestrial life, proving that the former prime minister "reasoned like a scientist", according to an analysis of his work published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

55 years ago today was Sir Winston's funeral. He was the greatest leader of the 20th Century. He stood alone against Hitlerism. He saved the free world alone, holding out for months until other allies joined the struggle. Note the honor guard keeping watch over his casket, their chins tucked deep into their chests, their eyes sorrowful and downcast. Sir Winston was a commoner. He was half American. Note the marching sailors escorting his casket from Westminster to Saint Paul's That was never allowed for the funeral of a commoner. This was the first state funeral for a commoner in...

Thieves have stolen a solid gold toilet worth up to £1 million ($1.25 million) from the birthplace of British wartime leader Winston Churchill. The toilet, the work of Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, had been installed only two days earlier at Blenheim Palace, west of London, after previously being shown at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Police said the toilet was taken early Saturday by thieves who used at least two vehicles. …

Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Britain on May 10, 1940. World War II would rage another year and a half before the entrance of Unite States. The situation in Europe was desperate, as two massive Nazi armies were driving back British, French, Dutch, Polish and Belgian troops to the English Channel, bottling them up in the port of Dunkirk. The Belgian army surrendered. If the British forces were destroyed, Britain would be forced to negotiate a surrender. For reasons still debated, Hitler approved an order on May 24 to halt for three days the advance of 800,000 Nazi troop,...