She narrowly escaped an IRA assassination attempt

The last of these interesting facts about Margaret Thatcher is she narrowly escaped an IRA assassination attempt. In Brighton, England, on October 12, 1984, the Grand Hotel played host to the Conservative Party's annual conference when a time bomb detonated. Patrick Magee, a member of the Irish Republican Army, had planted the explosive weeks earlier. The prime minister was in the next room and was unhurt, but the blast severely destroyed the bathtub in Thatcher's suite. Five persons were murdered by the blast, including a parliamentarian.

Thatcher refused to leave immediately for London as requested by her security team, insisting on giving her speech as scheduled barely hours after the bombing. She informed her fellow party members, "This attack has failed, and all attempts to undermine democracy by terrorism will fail. The fact that we are gathered here right now, startled but composed and determined, is a sign."

In 1986, Thatcher disbanded the Greater London Council after a battle with Ken Livingstone's Labour-led administration in London. Few facets of British life had avoided Thatcher's second term's most comprehensive alteration of the country since the Labour Party's postwar reforms.