This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people.

And you can go to IHeart Radio's app or wherever you get your podcast.

We'll listen to the show.

Speaking of a slightly American people, there are two British prime ministers with interesting

connections to our country.

Boris Johnson was born in New York City.

So too was Winston Churchill's mother, who was born more accurately, more precisely, in Brooklyn.

Here to tell the story of Churchill is English historian Andrew Roberts, the author of Churchill

Walking with Destiny.

And we're telling you this story

because on this day in 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister.

On the 10th of May, 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister at about 6 o'clock in the evening, but

on the morning of that day at dawn, Adolf Hitler invaded in the West, attacking Belgium

and Luxembourg and Holland shortly afterwards also to invade France.

And Churchill said of that day, I felt as if I were walking with destiny

and that all my past life had been a preparation

for this hour and for this trial.

One of the things that gave him this tremendous sense of destiny was the very many brushes with death that he had had in his life.

He had nearly died of pneumonia at the age of 10. He had nearly died in a drowning accident on Lake Geneva, nearly died also in a house fire. He'd been involved in two car crashes and two

plane crashes. He was very nearly run over by a taxi in New York as well. And of course,

...