Margaret Thatcher was rejected by ICI after a chemistry degree, told she was too strident for politics, and dismissed by the British establishment at every turn. She responded by becoming the longest-serving British prime minister of the twentieth century, breaking the trade unions, privatizing state industries, and remaking the British economy so thoroughly that even the Labour Party eventually accepted her framework.

This episode traces Thatcher from her grocer’s shop childhood in Grantham through her unlikely rise in the Conservative Party, the Falklands War that saved her premiership, and the poll tax revolt that finally brought her down.

• Thatcher’s childhood above a grocery shop and the values her father instilled
• Her rejection from chemistry jobs, the pivot to law and politics, and the climb through Tory ranks
• The Falklands War, the miners’ strike, and the confrontational style that earned her the Iron Lady name
• The poll tax, the Cabinet revolt, and the tearful departure from Downing Street