BY ADELE SAMMARCO

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Margaret Thatcher, England’s first and only woman prime minister to date, died Monday following a stroke. She was 87.

Coined the “Iron Lady” by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the trail blazing Thatcher demonstrated long-before her time the challenges of being a working mother and a hard-nosed leader of an entire country. Thatcher led her Conservative party to three election victories from 1979 to 1990, the longest continuous period in office held by any British prime minister since the early 19th century.

Queen Elizabeth has authorized a ceremonial funeral for next week - a step short of a state funeral - complete with military honors, to be held at St. Paul's Cathedral. The service will be followed by a private cremation.

During her long and illustrious political career, Thatcher hardly ever admitted regrets, but in a 1998 interview did acknowledge she rarely saw her children or grandchildren.

"It's very sad," she said. "It's something that I thought would never happen."

Was it the price of power?

"Look," she replied bluntly, "you can't have everything."

“Battling Maggie,” as she was otherwise known, became a fearless icon who led Britain from post-World War II decline.

A grocer's daughter, Thatcher became Europe's first female prime minister in 1979, four years after the Conservative Party made her its leader. Due to her rising popularity, more victories soon followed in 1983 and 1987.

Her colleagues claimed she "beat her all-male Cabinet ministers with her handbag", but Thatcher, true to form, reveled in the attention and all her nicknames.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born Oct. 13, 1925, in the central England town of Grantham, the younger daughter of Beatrice and Alfred Roberts, a strict Methodist. She earned a science degree at Oxford University, working as a research chemist before turning to the law to become a barrister, an attorney who argues cases in court.

In 1951, she married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman, who was 11 years older. They had twins, Mark and Carol, born in 1953. She called Denis, who died in 2003, “her rock” and “great support,” who helped with the nannies and private boarding schools which, in turn, freed her time to run for political office.

Thatcher was elected to Parliament in 1959, the youngest of 25 women in the House of Commons.

As education secretary in the 1970-1974, British newspapers dubbed her "Thatcher Milk Snatcher" when she ended free milk for schoolchildren.

When she became prime minister in 1979 during a time of high inflation and garbage strikes under the Labor Party government, most of England had had enough and wanted a change.

In 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falklands Islands, she famously dispatched warships to free the remote South Georgia Island and a surge of national pride soon followed after Britain's victory.

In 1984, she survived an Irish Republican Army bombing that killed five people at the Conservatives' convention, then made a rousing keynote speech afterwards to the masses as an example of strength and fortitude.

Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan became fast friends in the 1980s, never wavering in her support of the United States. In 1986, she allowed U.S. warplanes to fly from British bases to bomb Libya. She sent ships, tanks and troops to fight against Iraq in the first Gulf War, but had resigned before the battle was joined in 1991.

Thatcher was one of the first world leaders to recognize Mikhail Gorbachev as a leader of the Soviet Union.

"I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together," she said after their first meeting in Britain in 1984.

Lady Thatcher, named a baroness in 1992, made regular American lectures, and founded the Thatcher Foundation to spread her free-market philosophy. She suffered from dementia in her later years, which was documented in the 2011 movie, “The Iron Lady,” starring Meryl Streep, who won the Oscar for Best Actress.