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Ex-Prime Minister Thatcher dies

Summary

8 April 2013

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has died.

Reporter:

Neil Edgeller

Report

The former British Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died at the age of 87 following a stroke.

Her spokesman Lord Bell said: "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning."

Baroness Thatcher, who was was the leader of the British Conservative Party, served as prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

She was the first woman to hold the post.

Baroness Thatcher, who was born Margaret Roberts, became the Conservative MP for Finchley in north London in 1959. She retired from the House of Commons in 1992.

She won general elections in 1979, 1983 and 1987.

Baroness Thatcher's government privatised several state-owned industries. She was also in power when the UK went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982.