When Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, Great Britain was alone. The British had won no meaningful battles and had no important allies. They had entered the war to support Poland, a cause that seemed lost. Nazi Germany and its Soviet ally dominated the continent. The Soviet Union had invaded Finland in November 1939, beginning with a bombing of Helsinki. Right after Churchill assumed office, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The United States had not entered the war. Adolf Hitler had no special animus toward Britain or its empire, and indeed imagined a division of the world into spheres of interests. He expected Churchill to come to terms after the fall of France. Churchill did not. … The German Luftwaffe began the bombing of British cities. Hitler expected that this would force Churchill to sign an armistice, but he was mistaken. … Churchill did what others had not done. Rather than concede in advance, he forced Hitler to change his plans. The essential German strategy had been to remove any resistance in the west, and then to invade (thus betraying) the Soviet Union and colonize its western territories. In June 1941, with Britain still in the war, Germany attacked its Soviet ally. – From On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (pp. 53-55) by Timothy Snyder.
Snyder gives other examples of “standing out”: Rosa Parks, whose action kicked off the Montgomery bus boycott, and Teresa Prekerowa, who assisted Polish Jews during the war and later became a historian. Like Winston Churchill, they refused to obey in advance. They worked with others for change. It can be done.
Living ~400lbs 