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Chapter 3: A long and illustrious history

Early Britain to the Romans

Britain was once joined to mainland Europe by land; the handbook says it became an island about 10,000 years ago. The first farmers built Stonehenge in Wiltshire; Skara Brae on Orkney is the best-preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe. Bronze Age people buried their dead in round barrows; Iron Age people built hill forts such as Maiden Castle in Dorset and made the first coins minted in Britain.

Julius Caesar tried to invade in 55 BC but failed. The Emperor Claudius succeeded in AD 43. Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, fought back — her statue stands on Westminster Bridge. Hadrian's Wall was built to keep out the Picts. The Romans stayed about 400 years and left in AD 410.

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans

After the Romans, the Jutes, Angles and Saxons settled, and their languages became the basis of English. A king was buried with treasure in a ship at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. St Patrick became the patron saint of Ireland, St Columba founded a monastery on Iona, and St Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

Vikings from Denmark and Norway first raided in AD 789. King Alfred the Great defeated them, but many settled in the Danelaw. In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, beat King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. William ordered the Domesday Book, a survey of land and property in England.

The Middle Ages

In 1215 King John agreed the Magna Carta, establishing that the king was subject to the law. Robert the Bruce defeated the English at Bannockburn in 1314. The Hundred Years War with France actually lasted 116 years; Henry V won at Agincourt in 1415. The Black Death of 1348 killed about a third of England's population.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, and William Caxton was among the first to print books in England. The Wars of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose) ended at Bosworth Field in 1485, when Henry Tudor became Henry VII.

Tudors and Stuarts

Henry VIII married six times and broke with Rome to create the Church of England. Jane Seymour gave him his son, Edward VI. Elizabeth I's navy defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588; Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world in the Golden Hind. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564.

In 1603 James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. Civil war broke out in 1642 between Cavaliers (for the king) and Roundheads (for Parliament). Charles I was executed in 1649 and England became a republic; in 1653 Oliver Cromwell was given the title of Lord Protector. The monarchy returned with Charles II in 1660. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Sir Christopher Wren designed St Paul's Cathedral. The Habeas Corpus Act came in 1679, and Isaac Newton described gravity.

Building a global power

In the Glorious Revolution of 1688 William of Orange took the throne without fighting in England. The Act of Union in 1707 joined England and Scotland as the Kingdom of Great Britain. Sir Robert Walpole (1721–42) is seen as the first Prime Minister. Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated at Culloden in 1746. Robert Burns wrote Auld Lang Syne, and the Enlightenment produced thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Hume.

The slave trade was abolished in 1807, after a campaign in which William Wilberforce played a key part; slavery was abolished across the Empire in 1833. Nelson won at Trafalgar in 1805 and Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. The Union Flag combines the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick — Wales is not represented.

The Victorians and the vote

Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901. Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the Great Western Railway, and the Great Exhibition of 1851 was held in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Florence Nightingale nursed soldiers in the Crimean War and founded a nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in 1860. Rudyard Kipling won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.

Emmeline Pankhurst led the suffragettes. Women over 30 got the vote in 1918, and women got the vote at 21 — the same as men — in 1928.

The 20th century

The First World War ended at 11am on 11 November 1918; about 60,000 British soldiers were casualties on the first day of the Somme in 1916. Ireland was divided in 1922. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.

Winston Churchill led Britain in the Second World War. The RAF won the Battle of Britain in 1940 with Spitfires and Hurricanes, cities suffered the Blitz, and D-Day took place on 6 June 1944. The NHS was founded in 1948, with Aneurin Bevan as health minister.

The UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973. Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister in 1979. The Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. British inventions include television (John Logie Baird), radar (Robert Watson-Watt), the World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee) and the cloning of Dolly the sheep (1996).

Practice questions on this chapter

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