35 Interesting Facts about Prime Ministers

In 1975, Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India declared martial law for two years, jailed rival politicians without trial, censored the press, and instituted a compulsory mass-sterilization campaign. She was re-elected and is well-honored by the country even today.

27. Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney forged a deep friendship with Queen Elizabeth II. On Canada Day, the Queen asked to clear some time in her schedule to relax with the Mulroney's. A glass of wine in hand, the Queen kicked off her shoes, put her feet up, and started to chat with him about “free spirits.”

28. About 20 days before John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Ngo Dinh Diem, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam was himself assassinated in a CIA-backed coup. Both of their successors would be defined by their failed alliance in the Vietnam War.

29. Japanese Prime Minister Kōki Hirota argued that warlordism and Chinese Communism represented a ‘festering sore deep down in the bosom of Eastern Asia’ that threatened ‘all Asian races with sure and inescapable death’. He thought attacking China was ‘heroic surgery’ rather than invasion.

30. As of August 2020, Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister has a job besides being a PM. He still teaches two hours of social studies a week at a high school in The Hague.

Jens Stoltenberg, the former Prime Minister of Norway used to play Age of Empire as "Steklov", his KGB code name.

32. Mohammed Abdullahi Farmajo, who served as the Prime Minister of Somalia from 2010 to 2011 is a Somalian-American man who worked and continues to work at the Buffalo, New York Department of Transportation.

33. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill still owes the exclusive Bangalore Club in India 13 rupees in unpaid bills.

34. Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was once drugged and robbed of his passport, wallet, suitcase, and trousers in a motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was quoted as saying “I wish I’d never heard of bloody Memphis.”

35. The former prime minister of New Zealand, David Lange, once wrote in an opinion piece for an NZ military periodical: "Our military forces are an arm of government, just like the Department of Social Welfare, although probably less able to inflict widespread harm."