Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in May 1979 and led a Conservative government for 11 years — the longest single tenure of any 20th-century PM. Her government cut income tax, deregulated the City of London, sold off nationalised industries such as British Telecom, British Gas and British Airways, and curbed the power of the trade unions. The year-long miners' strike of 1984–85 ended in defeat for the National Union of Mineworkers.
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In 1982 she ordered a successful military operation to recapture the Falkland Islands from Argentina. She was finally forced to resign in 1990 after a leadership challenge within her own party. Her premiership remains one of the most consequential — and contested — periods of post-war British politics.
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