What do you do if you're a powerful, belligerent, racist drunk who's used to getting your own way, and you're visiting Prohibition-wracked America?

You get a doctor to write you a prescription for a lot of booze, that's what.

Letter from Dr. Otto Pickhardt approving Churchill's use of alcohol, January 26, 1932, Courtesy of the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge; CHAR 1/400A/46,

While visiting Manhattan on December 13, 1931, Churchill made the classic mistake of an Englishman in America and looked the wrong way when stepping out of a cab. He was hit by an oncoming car, requiring a trip to the hospital, and a postponement of his lecture tour. Churchill turned the episode to his advantage, however, writing his tale of the near-miss for newspapers, and securing from Dr. Otto Pickhardt this prescription for medicinal alcohol at the height of prohibition.

Winston Churchill Archive [Art Tattler]





(via Joey DeVilla)



