On December 13, 1931 Winston Churchill, during a lecture tour through the United States, sustained significant injury from an automobile accident which occurred as he was crossing Fifth Avenue. Apparently he was looking for traffic in the wrong direction, accustomed to British traffic rules.It took a week for Churchill to recover, after which point he was able to return to England, a fortunate thing not only for his family but also for the rest of the world a decade later in the throes of the second world war.