On June 4, 1940, as the evacuation of Dunkirk was concluding, Winston Churchill marked his 25th day as Prime Minister by rallying his embattled country with the words, ". . . we shall fight on the beaches . . . we shall never surrender."

Two weeks later, on June 18, 1940, Churchill warned the House of Commons that the Battle of Britain was imminent. He roused his fellow citizens with these words: ". . . Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war . . . Let us therefor brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say: 'This was their finest hour.'"

The phrase their finest hour lives on as an allusion to a moment of surpassing greatness and courage, or to a rising to the occasion in a terrible test of character and endurance.