Anecdotes

British foreign secretary (1935-1938, 1940-1945, 1951-1955). British prime minister (1955-1957).

In 1959, an American Magazine paid him $300,000 for an excerpt from his memoir, The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden, which Houghton Mifflin published the following year.

He was portrayed by Anthony Calf in the original production of the play "Never So Good", by Howard Brenton , which premiered at the National Theatre, London, UK in March 2008.

Won the Military Cross, became a Privy Councillor in 1934, a Knight of the Garter in 1954 and the 1st Earl of Avon in 1961

His premiership ended when the United States strongly opposed the Anglo-French-Israeli military intervention in Egypt during the Suez Crisis in November 1956. The incident is widely regarded as the end of the UK's role as a superpower, although in reality this had happened during World War II, and arguably by the 1930s.

Son Nicholas was a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's government in 1983 and died of AIDS in 1985 and the noble titles became extinct.

Studied at Christ Church College at Oxford University. He graduated with a BA in Oriental Languages. He spoke fluent French, German and Persian, and also spoke some Arabic and Russian. Unlike many British politicians, Eden did not participate in undergraduate politics while at Oxford. His main leisure interest was art.

His widow Clarissa is the niece of Winston Churchill.

Unlike Churchill and Macmillan, Eden rarely participated in politics after his retirement from the premiership.

In a television interview in 1966 he called on the United States to halt its bombing of North Vietnam and to concentrate on developing a peace plan "that might conceivably be acceptable to Hanoi.".

Resigned as Foreign Secretary in 1938 in protest over what he saw as his government's appeasement of both Germany and Italy.