History of The United Kingdom

See also: History of the British Isles

Before 1707

Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.

Main articles: History of England, History of Wales, History of Scotland, History of Ireland, and History of the formation of the United Kingdom

Settlement by anatomically modern humans of what was to become the United Kingdom occurred in waves beginning by about 30,000 years ago.^[45] By the end of the region's prehistoric period, the population is thought to have belonged, in the main, to a culture termed Insular Celtic, comprising Brythonic Britain and Gaelic Ireland.^[46] The Roman conquest, beginning in 43 AD, and the 400-year rule of southern Britain, was followed by an invasion by Germanic Anglo-Saxon settlers, reducing the Brythonic area mainly to what was to become Wales.^[47] The region settled by the Anglo-Saxons became unified as the Kingdom of England in the 10th century.^[48] Meanwhile, Gaelic-speakers in north west Britain (with connections to the north-east of Ireland and traditionally supposed to have migrated from there in the 5th century)^[49][50] united with the Picts to create the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century.^[51]

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings and the events leading to it.

In 1066, the Normans invaded England and after its conquest, seized large parts of Wales, conquered much of Ireland and settled in Scotland bringing to each country feudalism on the Northern French model and Norman-French culture.^[52] The Norman elites greatly influenced, but eventually assimilated with, each of the local cultures.^[53] Subsequent medieval English kings completed the conquest of Wales and made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to annex Scotland. Thereafter, Scotland maintained its independence, albeit in near-constant conflict with England. The English monarchs, through inheritance of substantial territories in France and claims to the French crown, were also heavily involved in conflicts in France, most notably the Hundred Years War.^[54]

The early modern period saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches in each country.^[55] Wales was fully incorporated into the Kingdom of England,^[56] and Ireland was constituted as a kingdom in personal union with the English crown.^[57] In what was to become Northern Ireland, the lands of the independent Catholic Gaelic nobility were confiscated and land given to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.^[58] In 1603, the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland were united in a personal union when James VI, King of Scots, inherited the crowns of England and Ireland and moved his court from Edinburgh to London; each country nevertheless remained a separate political entity and retained its separate political institutions.^[59][60] In the mid-17th century, all three kingdoms were involved in a series of connected wars (including the English Civil War) which led to the temporary overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the short-lived unitary republic of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.^[61][62] Although the monarchy was restored, it ensured (with the Glorious Revolution of 1688) that, unlike much of the rest of Europe, royal absolutism would not prevail. The British constitution would develop on the basis of constitutional monarchy and the parliamentary system.^[63] During this period, particularly in England, the development of naval power (and the interest in voyages of discovery) led to the acquisition and settlement of overseas colonies, particularly in North America.^[64][65]

Since the Acts of Union of 1707

Main article: History of the United Kingdom

The Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.

On 1 May 1707 a new kingdom of Great Britain was created by the political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland in accordance with the Treaty of Union, negotiated the previous year and ratified by the English and Scottish Parliaments passing Acts of Union.^[66][67][68]

In the 18th century, the country played an important role in developing Western ideas of the parliamentary system and in making significant contributions to literature, the arts, and science.^[16] The British-led Industrial Revolution transformed the country and fuelled the growing British Empire. During this time Britain, like other great powers, was involved in colonial exploitation, including the Atlantic slave trade, although with the passing of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 the UK took a leading role in battling the trade in slaves.^[69] The colonies in North America had been the main focus of British colonial activity. With their loss in the American War of Independence, imperial ambition turned elsewhere, particularly to India.^[70]
In 1800, while the wars with France still raged, the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland each passed an Act of Union, uniting the two kingdoms and creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which came into being on 1 January 1801.^[71]

The Battle of Waterloo marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the start of Pax Britannica.

After the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815), the UK emerged as the principal naval and economic power of the 19th century (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830)^[72] Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted the role of global policeman, a state of affairs later known as the Pax Britannica.^[73][74] It was also a period of rapid economic, colonial, and industrial growth. Britain was described as the "workshop of the world",^[75] and the British Empire grew to include India, large parts of Africa, and many other territories. Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, Britain's dominant position in world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many countries, such as China, Argentina and Siam.^[76][77] Domestically, there was a shift to free trade and laissez-faire policies and a very significant widening of the voting franchise. The country experienced a huge population increase during the century, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, causing significant social and economic stresses.^[78] By the end of the century, other states began to challenge Britain's industrial dominance.^[79]

Infantry of the Royal Irish Rifles during the Battle of the Somme. More than 885,000 British soldiers died on the battlefields of World War I.

The UK, along with Russia, France and (after 1917) the USA, was one of the major powers opposing the German Empire and its allies in World War I (1914–18).^[80] The UK armed forces grew to over five million people^[81] engaged across much of its empire and several regions of Europe, and increasingly took a major role on the Western front. The nation suffered some two and a half million casualties and finished the war with a huge national debt.^[81] After the war the United Kingdom received the League of Nations mandate over former German and Ottoman colonies, and the British Empire had expanded to its greatest extent, covering a fifth of the world's land surface and a quarter of its population.^[82] The rise of Irish Nationalism and disputes within Ireland over the terms of Irish Home Rule led eventually to the partition of the island in 1921,^[83] and the Irish Free State became independent with Dominion status in 1922, while Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.^[84] The Great Depression (1929–32) occurred when the UK had not recovered from the effects of the war, and led to hardship as well as political and social unrest.^[85]
The United Kingdom was one of the Allies of World War II and an original signatory to the Declaration of the United Nations. Following the defeat of its European allies in the first year of the war, the United Kingdom continued the fight against Germany, notably in the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic. After the victory, the UK was one of the Big Three powers that met to plan the postwar world. The war left the country financially damaged. Marshall Aid and loans from both the United States and Canada helped the UK on the road to recovery.^[86]

Territories that were at one time part of the British Empire. Current British Overseas Territories are underlined in red.

The Labour government in the immediate post-war years initiated a radical programme of changes, with a significant impact on British society in the following decades.^[87] Domestically, major industries and public utilities were nationalised, a Welfare State was established, and a comprehensive publicly funded healthcare system, the National Health Service, was created.^[88] In response to the rise of local nationalism, the Labour government's own ideological sympathies and Britain's now diminished economic position, a policy of decolonisation was initiated, starting with the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.^[89] Over the next three decades, most territories of the Empire gained independence and became sovereign members of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Although the new postwar limits of Britain's political role were illustrated by the Suez Crisis of 1956, the UK nevertheless became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and was the third country to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal (with its first atomic bomb test in 1952). The international spread of the English language also ensured the continuing international influence of its literature and culture, while from the 1960s its popular culture also found influence abroad. As a result of a shortage of workers in the 1950s, the British Government encouraged immigration from Commonwealth countries, thereby transforming Britain into a multi-ethnic society in the following decades.^[90] In 1973, the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC), and when the EEC became the European Union (EU) in 1992, it was one of the 12 founding members. From the late 1960s Northern Ireland suffered communal and paramilitary violence (sometimes affecting other parts of the UK and also the Republic of Ireland) conventionally known as the Troubles. It is usually considered to have ended with the Belfast "Good Friday" Agreement of 1998.^[91][92][93]

Following a period of widespread economic slowdown and industrial strife in the 1970s, the Conservative Government of the 1980s initiated a radical policy of deregulation, particularly of the financial sector, flexible labour markets, the sale of state-owned companies (privatisation), and the withdrawal of subsidies to others.^[94] Aided, from 1984, by the inflow of substantial North Sea oil revenues, the UK experienced a period of significant economic growth.^[95] Around the end of the 20th century there were major changes to the governance of the UK with the establishment of devolved national administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales following pre-legislative referendums,^[96] and the statutory incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Domestic controversy surrounded some of Britain's overseas military deployments in the 2000s (decade), particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.^[97