Here you can listen to Churchill’s recordings of many of his key speeches made over his long career. Some of these recordings are contemporary (recorded at the time), others were made by Churchill after the war, in 1949 at Chartwell, and issued by Decca in 1964.

The largest collection of Churchill’s speeches – made in the House of Commons between 1901 and 1955 – are to be found in the verbatim record of all debates in Parliament). Many of Churchill’s speeches were collected together and published in book form either shortly after he gave them – he was always keen to capitalise on his writing through publishing – or over the subsequent years.

On 18 June, Churchill warned the British people that the ‘battle of France’ was over and the ‘battle of Britain’ was about to begin. His words were proved right. As early summer gave way to July and August, the threat of invasion loomed over Britain. Churchill, seeing that control of the skies was vital, put businessman Lord Beaverbrook in charge of Aircraft Production (as Minister) and encouraged British scientists to improve radar defences and counter German technology. In August, the Royal Air Force managed to inflict heavy casualties on the German and, in September, the German pilots transferred their attention from the coastal airfields and those in south-west England to London, allowing the fighter bases respite from attack but putting British people in the city at much greater risk. In early September a massive series of raids involving nearly four hundred German bombers and more than six hundred fighters targeted docks in London’s East End almost continuously, day and night. Listen to a reporter describing London in the Blitz, with St Paul’s Cathedral, its dome silhouetted against the ‘ruddy sky … almost like the Day of Judgement’. For more on the Battle of Britain, see the BBC collection in their online Archive of programmes and documents (including interviews from some of the battle’s heroes and film footage of the Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighter planes in action), . The turning point in Britain’s fortunes in the war was captured by Churchill’s famous speech in praise of the British men of the under-resourced Royal Air Force. But more was still to come.

Churchill’s reputation as an orator is based principally on his speeches and broadcasts as Prime Minister during the summer of 1940 during a particularly vital point in the Second World War, when Britain was under the threat of invasion. You'll probably know lots of famous phrases or quotes from these speeches: ‘We shall fight on the beaches’, ‘This was their finest hour' and 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’. His most well-known and most quoted speeches are those known usually as ‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’ (13 May), ‘We Shall Fight on the Beaches’ (4 June) and ‘This was their Finest Hour’ (18 June), all of which were delivered in the House of Commons, though Churchill also broadcast the ‘Finest Hour’ speech over the BBC. He only made a total of five broadcasts to the nation during this vital stage of the Second World War (19 May, 17 June, 18 June, 14 July, 11 September), but these speeches conveyed Churchill’s determination and commitment, and they gave his country confidence. Did Winston's Words Win the War?

In November 1945, Churchill was invited to give one of a series of annual lectures at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. The letter of invitation was annotated by President Truman who offered to introduce Churchill, and therefore guaranteed a high profile event. Churchill’s speech, given on 5 March 1946, was to prove enormously influential. Originally entitled ‘The Sinews of Peace’, it became better known as the ‘Iron Curtain’ speech because of his use of a phrase now in common use. This was Churchill’s first public declaration of the Cold War, in which he warned the western world about the ‘iron curtain’that was descending over Europe, drawn down by the Russians, and called for greater Anglo-US cooperation, in what he called a ‘special relationship’, in the battle against Soviet expansionism. Click to see Churchill give this speech in the presence of US President Harry S. Truman. The speech drew the world's attention to the threat of a powerful Soviet Union and the potential ‘cold war’ between the East and the West. Although the ‘iron curtain’ phrase had been used before, Churchill gave it common currency and in so doing, increased awareness and influenced world policy. Some Russian historians have even dated the beginning of the Cold War from this speech. Read more about Churchill and his role in the Cold War .

With the net tightening around Germany, on 4 February 1945 the Allied Leaders, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, met in Yalta, on the Black Sea cost of the Crimea, to clarify their plans for the final offensive, the occupation policy for Germany and the establishment of the United Nations and its Security Council. A month later, in March 1945, the Germans were in retreat. The Allies were on the west bank of the Rhine, the traditional border of Germany that no foreign army had crossed in 140 years (since Napoleon on 1805). On 22-24 March, the Allies crossed the Rhine and entered enemy territory.On 30 April, Adolf Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin.

Friday 8 May 2015 was the anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe Day), marking seventy years since the end of the Second World War in Europe. The occasion was commemorated with a three-day weekend of remembrance and celebration, with events being held across the UK.

A collection of Winston Churchill's most famous quotes from the World War II period accompanied by a host of images, audio, video and suggested further reading.

See Churchill making his speech, and receiving a standing ovation from his audience, at County Hall here https://wwwyoutubecom/embed/cRBGfYVOELk copyright: British Pathé...