Winston Churchill turned 69 on November 30, 1943 — only eighty years ago. The toasts at the summit conference in Teheran were interminable that night. It was the third night of the first summit attended by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, then 62, Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 61.

“Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days.”

Thus spoke Winston Churchill to the students of Harrow School on October 29, 1941. The British prime minister visited the school, and made this speech, fewer than six weeks before the United States would enter World War II. Churchill spoke only one year after Britain had victoriously defended itself against the relentless Luftwaffe bombing of London. But for English bravery, the Battle of Britain could have ended the war before America joined it.

On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the Civil War. Four score years later in April 1945, the Allied coalition in Europe effectively strangled the Nazi war machine. German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30. A week later on May 7, 1945, German military authorities surrendered to the Allies at Rheims, France.

Near the end of World War I, Winston Churchill spoke on the “142nd anniversary of American independence.” The occasion was a Liberty Day rally in London on July 4, 1918. For the first time in history, Britain and America were allies in war. While recognizing the Anglo-American political tradition in fighting tyranny, Churchill used his speech to celebrate the union of long-held principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence by which America had explained its reason for breaking off from the British crown.