[MadIvan]

"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 Churcill, October 29, 1941

I voted for Winston a very long time ago - I don't need to see a programme to convince me. He remains Britain's saviour and one of our finest orators and literary minds.

Regards, Ivan

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Great man. Great quote.

[xp38]

To me beyond all his abilities the most wonderful thing about Churchill was his wit and sense of humour. The guy knew how to live too.

[moyden]

Greatest leaders in modern history:

1. George Washington

2. Queen Victoria

3. Winston Churchill

4. Abraham Lincoln

5. Ghandi

6. FDR

7. Ronald Reagan

8. Margaret Thatcher

9. Andrew Jackson

10. (General) Dwight Eisenhower

[RJL]

Winston S Churchill would be my choice too.

I know I am not alone in saying I am very proud to have one of the United States warships named the USS Winston S Churchill.

[Mike Darancette]

I would rate Churchill as #1 with Elizabeth I in second place.

It is my opinion that Churchill's masterwork "A History of the English Speaking People" be required reading in all American high schools.

[Teacup]

He was surely a great man. He gets my vote.

[Billthedrill]

Well, Brunel was actually quite an astonishing fellow, the Great Northern despite. Jacob Bronowski introduced me to his accomplishments in The Ascent of Man. He helped shape the Industrial Revolution, and hence the modern world.

But Churchill is in quite another category, IMHO, a one-man argument for the nearly-defunct Great Man approach to historiography. One trembles to think what the 20th century would have been like if a single Boer bullet had offed a young, upstart journalist on horseback. His performance during WWII was such as to eclipse a list of other accomplishments as long as your arm (including a 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature - not what I'd term exactly second-tier).

But the world has changed, and now the only real measure of human accomplishment has to be the quality of a person's posts to FreeRepublic, that and the tasteful consumption of divers alcoholic beverages and a yen for rooting for losing cricket teams. As it's a secret ballot my selection must remain private, but I betcha MadIvan's blushing...