English politician Edward Heath was BOTD in 1916. Born in Broadstairs, Kent into a working-class family, he was a gifted student, winning a scholarship to Oxford University, where he joined the Conservative Party. An active opponent of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany, he served in the Royal Artillery during World War Two. After the war, he joined a merchant banking firm, before being elected to Parliament in 1950. He became minister of labour in 1960, leading British negotiations to enter the European Economic Community. In 1965, he was elected Conservative Party leader, winning a surprise victory in the 1970 general election. As Prime Minister, he oversaw Britain’s shift to decimal currency and membership of the European Community, though his leadership was dominated by violent conflict in Northern Ireland and an economic recession. His unsuccessful efforts to break a miner’s strike led to a national energy crisis and a three-day working week, crippling the nation’s economy. After losing his parliamentary majority in the 1974 election, he resigned as Prime Minister, and was ousted as party leader by Margaret Thatcher in 1975. He remained a bitter critic of Thatcherism until his death in 2005, aged 89. A lifelong bachelor, he appears to have had no intimate relationships. Biographers have debated whether Heath was a repressed gay man or possibly asexual. In 2015, police investigated historical allegations of his involvement in a pedophile ring, which were eventually dismissed. He was played by Michael Maloney as a pompous, near-autistic autocrat in the TV drama series The Crown.