Former British leader dies at 89

LONDON – Sir Edward Heath, the prime minister who led England into what is now the European Union but lost the Conservative Party leadership to Margaret Thatcher, died Sunday.

He was 89.

Heath, who governed England from 1970-1974, died at his home in the southern cathedral city of Salisbury.

A carpenter’s son who broke the tradition of blue bloods leading the British Conservative Party, Heath was a born politician whose major achievement was to negotiate Britain’s 1973 entry into the European Community.