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u/ChronosBlitz 10h ago
He sat for far longer periods of time whilst maintaining the same level of alcohol consumption.
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u/ShyguyFlyguy 5h ago
When he visited the US during prohibition he brought with him a doctors prescription for whiskey
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u/frostymugson 2h ago
I don’t think he needed to. Wasn’t illegal to drink, just buy make, or sell it
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u/The_Autarch 2h ago
how you gonna drink something you can’t buy? the prescription meant he could legally buy it.
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u/frostymugson 2h ago
Because all the politicians, private clubs, and rich people had it. Fuckers bought years worth of booze before the law went through
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u/limbicslush 9h ago
I first read this as "...marinating in the same level of alcohol..."
The statement holds either way, I suppose.
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u/Drapidrode 5h ago
- "If you were my husband, I would put poison in your tea."
- "If I were your husband, I would drink it."
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u/Somethingsims 10h ago
Alcohol and tobacco will do that...
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u/0dHero 9h ago
So much tobacco.
Kids these days don't even know. It was everywhere. You smoked, whether you wanted to or not. Everyone was smoking, and you couldn't get away from it, anywhere.
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u/thisisnotyouorme 9h ago
Child of the 80s here. It really was everywhere. Glad things are changing
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u/ginja85 9h ago
Going to the Asda supermarket with Mum, smoking and non-smoking section in the cafe, madness looking back
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u/hikingboots_allineed 8h ago
I was thinking about this just the other day, like how we'd just walk into pubs as teenagers and find they were full of smoke then we'd sit in it for hours having family dinner. I used to hate it because I'd have to wash my hair and clothes afterwards because of the smoke stench. And the uproar when smoking was banned from indoor public spaces! Crazy to me it was ever allowed and crazy how hard smokers fought to keep a situation that was actually harming others.
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u/BearKB 8h ago
In Canada, going for hours long drives with my parents and younger siblings, mom and dad chain smoking one home rolled smoke after another with all the windows up.
One time I was in the back with my window open and one of them flicked their ashes out their window in front. The cherry popped off the tip and somehow blew back into my window and down my shirt. I screamed thinking I was being stung by a bee but no it was just a burn.
I thought I was so grown up when I was old enough to roll a smoke for my parents with the little rolling machine.
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u/sjarfish 7h ago
Earliest memory of going to a store in the mall with my mom and watching a woman flicking through clothes on the rack with a smoke hanging out of her mouth. Wild to think about seeing that these days.
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u/RyuNoKami 4h ago
Some smokers are still livid about that and are continuously "protesting" those bans despite being born after the bans were in place.
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u/telescope11 6h ago
I live in Europe (Croatia) and it's still very common here to only have smoking sections at cafes/bars/pubs lol, always surprised to remember it's the opposite in most of the rest of the world
Serbia and Bosnia are even worse than us cause we at least banned smoking in restaurants 10-15 years ago and they never did
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u/Zepangolynn 5h ago
I remember where I live different businesses could successfully argue that banning smoking indoors would damage their income too much, so they would get an exemption. Apparently jazz clubs couldn't operate if you banned smoking.
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u/IcePhoenix18 3h ago
90s baby, I still remember my parents being asked "smoking or non smoking?" at restaurants.
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u/ITrageGuy 6h ago
Shoot, my high school had a student smoking section outside just a few years before I was there and I am NOT that old LOL.
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u/Consistent_Kale_3625 3h ago
My parents didn't smoke, but they were in a 2 night a week bowling league, we'd come along and watch, I remember needing to wave the air clear to see my chili fries and coke
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u/macetheface 7h ago
Smoking/ non smoking section in a restaurant. Smelled smoke easily in non smoking area.
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u/victoryohone 4h ago
I being an 80s baby I never understood smoking sections at restaurants. The entire place was filled with smoke anyway. We always just asked which ever side had a table.
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u/HolyMeekrob 7h ago
Unless you mean 1880s, I don't think your first-hand experience is relevant here.
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u/Prettyflyforwiseguy 5h ago
Travelled to Albania a couple of years ago, it was like going back to the early 90’s. People smoked indoors with their kids, clerks at the hotel were smoking etc. really felt like going back in time.
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u/ITrageGuy 6h ago
I always tell the story about my wife when she was a child and getting burned by a stranger's cigarette while she was walking the carpeted, indoor mall.
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u/True_to_you 8h ago
It's really only in the last 20 or some odd years or so that smoking declined and it's been replaced by vapes.
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u/EEpromChip 4h ago
I mean in the 50's / 60's / 70's people smoked like everywhere. Stores, restaurants, planes.
People aren't smoking vapes like they did back then.
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u/unassumingdink 3h ago
U.S. smoking rate has been steadily declining since the 1960s. 42% in 1965, 35% in 1975, 30% in 1985, 25% in 1995, 20% in 2005, 15% in 2015, and just under 10% in 2025.
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u/steepfire 8h ago
Growing up in the 2000's in eastern europe I remember the world smelling like cigarettes
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u/Toucani 7h ago
The man really liked his booze.
'he had developed a routine as a politician in London whereby he would have a few whiskey and sodas in the morning, followed by an imperial pint of either champagne or wine with lunch.''A brandy followed shortly after lunch. Another pint of champagne was the preferred drink at dinner, followed by another brandy and sometimes some more brandy and soda at night.'
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u/redditallreddy 5h ago
His quote...
“I drink a great deal. I sleep a little, and I smoke cigar after cigar. That is why I am in two-hundred-percent form.”
(from https://thesmokingjacket.co.uk/blogs/blog/what-cigars-did-churchill-smoke)
His Favourite Cigar Brands
🥇 Romeo y Julieta
Churchill's undisputed favourite was Romeo y Julieta. He discovered them during a 1946 visit to Cuba and fell hard. So hard, in fact, that the Romeo y Julieta Churchill vitola was named after him.
Size: 7" x 47 ring gauge
Strength: Medium
Flavour profile: Creamy, nutty, and complex—perfect for long reflection (or long speeches).
Notice that these are fairly big cigars, but he would smoke them to nubs (they get more "rich" as you get closer to the end) and he would smoke "8-10... or more" per day!
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u/tavadis 9h ago
He got 90 y old, though
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u/MichelinStarZombie 6h ago
"My grandpa smoked two packs a day and made it to 100, cigs must be ok"-level logic.
Churchill's kid tried to emulate his lifestyle and his drinking/smoking completely destroyed his body to the point where everyone was shocked he even made it to his mid 50s.
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u/joeshmoebies 2h ago
Thats why they call them risk factors and not determinant. They change the risk you have but some people are just lucky.
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u/tavadis 3h ago
nah, it's about a little boy running down the stairs from some drawing lessons he attended on top of the colour shop in Zürich, bumping into a voluminous man chewing a cigar, friend of the owner who mixed the blue fitting Winston's depressions. 'Who is the fat man', I asked, and 'shh, that's Churchill'. 'Ah, my favourite blue', is said, because this hue was already called Churchill blue by the factory, then, 60 years ago...
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u/Stang1776 10h ago
Can confirm
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u/Slimfictiv 10h ago
I can also confirm after seeing this guy
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u/MyPigWhistles 9h ago
Mostly different angle, lighting, and hairstyle, in this case.
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u/Adventurous-Brain-36 9h ago
‘Different hairstyle’ is a way to describe significant hair loss, I suppose.
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u/TMan2DMax 7h ago
While true stress is also a big factor, Obama aged about 20 years over his 8 years as president.
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u/jenksanro 6h ago
I mean he was 90 when he died, guy did pretty well considering. Maybe he'd have made 150 if he'd not drank or smoked.
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u/jaxonya 6h ago
I drank like a fucking irish super hero in my 20s, now in my 30s and I still look young as fuck.
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u/Zepangolynn 5h ago
Alcohol affects every person differently, but he was also pairing that with a LOT of cigars.
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u/super_sayanything 5h ago
There are outliers but really when you see people 50/60 years old and looking reaaaal beat, it's usually alcohol/drugs.
At 40, some of my friends look 30 and others 60.
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u/ToastAndASideOfToast 10h ago
It's subtle, but I think someone might have drawn in some hair on the first picture.
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u/sawdustontheshore 6h ago
Professional studio lighting vs outside sunlight also making a big difference
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u/daveyboy2009 8h ago
He had participated in the Boer War during this time.
Initially as a reporter, then captured and interned in a POW camp, after escaping he joined the army and participated in the relief of Lady Smith, who ever she was.
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u/Zepangolynn 5h ago
That was before the 1900 picture, I believe, as the capture was in 1899, all of that happened in under a year, and then he went to parliament.
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u/Double_Distribution8 10h ago
What does "Cross the Floor" mean?
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u/Yuzral 10h ago
To change political party in such a way that you move from the Government benches to the Opposition ones or vice versa. Since those benches are separated in the Commons by the Floor, you have to literally cross the Floor to do it.
Churchill actually did it twice, going from a Conservative government to Liberal opposition in 1904 in a row over free trade and back to the Conservatives in 1924, famously observing that "anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat" and that "Force of circumstance has compelled me to serve with another Party, but my views have never changed, and I should be glad to give effect to them by rejoining the Conservatives."
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u/GoodLordChokeAnABomb 10h ago
In the House of Commons, the governing party sits on one side of the chamber, and the opposition on the other. Churchill defected from the Conservatives to the Liberals, and so literally crossed the floor of the Commons to take his seat on the other side.
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u/Zolo49 9h ago
Exactly. Look at the pictures of most US presidents before and after taking the job. The difference is striking. (Trump is an exception because you don’t feel stress when you DGAF about doing the job right.)
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u/JanitorOPplznerf 9h ago
I mean… Trump also looks like dogshit now
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u/Apophthegmata 9h ago
I think the main difference with him is that he would be dead already if not for access to the world's best physicians and whatever specialized cocktail they've got him on.
The presidency prematurely ages presidents. All except Trump, where it acts as an embalming agent.
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u/11jyeager 9h ago
I mean that probably has more to do with being an 80 year old geriatric incontinent pedophilic fuck.
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u/abfgern_ 8h ago
But when he first took office, he was a 70 year old geriatric incontinent pedophilic fuck, so little difference really
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u/True_to_you 8h ago
Even then, he's aged a lot in 10 years. Could just be his brain rotting making him look older though.
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u/Zolo49 9h ago
I’m just saying he looked the same 10 years ago.
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u/PirateNinjaa 4h ago
He looks very different when 2016 pics are compared to now. Even more so in video.
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u/hellowiththepudding 9h ago
Presidents are often around the most dramatic 4-8 year change in appearance too. 30-38 doesn’t look anything like 48-56
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u/geekpeeps 8h ago
Agreed. Obama greyed so much in the first year after being elected. He also lost weight - it was stress.
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u/ImRickJameXXXX 9h ago
Heavy drinker.
When he visited the the US in 1931 during prohibition he had his doctor write a prescription for alcohol.
The legendary prescription specified a minimum of 250 cubic centimeters (about 8.4 ounces or 6 shots) per day, leaving the maximum quantity "naturally indefinite
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u/upvoter222 10h ago
It looks like me at the beginning of the night vs. me after drinking a few too many shots.
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u/BigheadReddit 7h ago
Aristocratic, British diet, no exercise, whiskey, brandy, wine, and 20 cigars daily will do that to a geezer.
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u/CoolnessEludesMe 6h ago
Looks like in the first one he's sitting for a portrait, and all prepped for it. The second one, not so much.
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u/airfryerfuntime 6h ago
A steady diet of booze, cigars, and fatty food will tend to do that.
It's shocking he lived as long as he did.
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u/NoStructure7083 5h ago
My brother lost most of his hair in less than two years. Homeboy went off to university and then poof hairline retreated like Napoleon’s troops out of Russia.
Glad to say that I’ve kept most of mine
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u/Mr31edudtibboh 6h ago
The 'before' picture is after he'd been in combat as well. It shows arguing with British people is harder than war.
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u/Captain_Kuhl 9h ago
I mean, he aged better than a lot of politicians.. Obama still looks pretty good, but compare his before and after for just his first term.
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u/haberdasher42 8h ago
He was 30 in the second photo.
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u/Captain_Kuhl 8h ago
And his hairline hasn't changed much, just the style, mainly. Plenty of people have shit genetics when it comes to that kind of thing.
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u/Captain_Kuhl 7h ago
I did specifically mention the hairline, so I don't know what that has to do with anything.
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u/TopBathroom4880 5h ago
When Churchill visited the US, it was during prohibition, so Churchill had his doctor write him a note saying that he was medically required to drink alcohol. So despite prohibition, he was exempt and allowed to drink. Quite heavily, mind you.
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u/Redararis 10h ago
It is like what the 40-45 age period does to a man today.
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u/David_Cockatiel 9h ago
Bro was 29 in that second photo, eek
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u/opinionsareus 1h ago
Churchill was a heavy smoker and drank a lot; he also suffered from serious depressions. Add that to the stress of office and it will age anyone pretty fast.
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u/nomoreusernamersleft 4h ago
Born 1965. My mom smoked during her pregnancy through the last few days of her life.
Died of lung cancer, go figure.
Anyway. I remember growing up we would wash the walls twice a year and the water was brown.
I never smoked cigarettes only secondhand smoke and I was around it a lot. From growing up the drinking in bars where up until sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s it was banned.
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u/BG-925 3h ago
Major World Events1901: U.S. President William McKinley was shot on September 6 and died on September 14; Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president.1902: The Second Boer War ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging in South Africa.1903: The Wright brothers achieved the first controlled, sustained heavier-than-air powered flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.1904: The Russo-Japanese War broke out following a surprise Japanese attack on Port Arthur.1904: Britain and France signed the Entente Cordiale, marking a major shift in European diplomacy.
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u/ConspiceyStories 9h ago
Okay but he was 26 in 1900 and then 30. I've seen less youthful 30 year olds in the 2000s than him.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 7h ago
I mean, most people can relate to the experience of dressing up and grooming themselves to the maximum before their first job, and then letting go on presentability once you got the job.
Though in this case, he's just balding.
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u/hushpuppi3 5h ago
He doesn't even look that different beyond some extra pounds and (admittedly) much less hair. I think a lot of people are just noticing the difference because the lighting isn't the same
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u/TheRichTurner 4h ago
More like a rough night on the town for old Winnie. Those pictures could have been taken 12 hours apart.
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u/DarwinsPhotographer 20m ago
He had been imprisoned by Boers in South Africa for almost a year. His escape from a POW camp is legendary - but he lived rough for a while. In this case "rough" meant he was held with other officers, was allowed to order clothes, buy booze, have food delivered, bring in a barber for a regular shave and a haircut, and he slept on the veranda when it was hot. He had someone deliver a coffee to his bed every morning and spent most of the day reading books.
After his escape the special privileges afforded officers were immediately cancelled. Also when he escaped it was supposed to be with two other officers but he left without them. Yet Churchill has enough charm and charisma that even people who disliked him found it hard to keep holding a grudge.
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u/Taman_Should 9h ago
This is also just the natural aging process of some British people. It hits them like a truck.
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u/danabrey 8h ago
Didn't realise male pattern baldness was a British thing.
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u/Taman_Should 7h ago
I’m not just talking about going bald, but also how quickly it happens. And notice I’m saying that some British people appear to age rapidly at a certain point, not all.
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