DEFINING GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

1. Terminology of the British Isles 

A diagram clarifying the terminology, with geographical terms in blue, and political terms in red. Various terms are used to describe the different (and sometimes overlapping) geographical and political areas of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, and surrounding islands. The terminology is often a source of confusion, partly owing to the similarity between some of the actual words used, but also because they are often used loosely. Thepurpose of this article is to explain the meanings of and relationships among those terms. In brief, the main terms and their simple explanations are as follows.

PREHISTORIC BRITAIN AND CELTS

1. Prehistoric Britain                                            

1. The British Isles have been populated by human beings for hundreds of thousands of years, but it was the introduction of farming around 7,000 years ago that began a process of radical change.

2. Originally, people subsisted by gathering food like nuts, berries, leaves and fruit from wild sources, and by hunting.

ROMAN BRITAIN (c. 43-410)

1. Roman conquest of Britain 

Roman Britain (Latin: Britannia or, later, Britanniae, "the Britains") was the area of the island of Great Britain that was governed by the Roman Empire, from ad 43 to 410

BRITAIN IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES - ANGLO-SAXONS (c. 500-1066)

1. Britain in the Early Middle Ages 

A. Anglo-saxons - the Angle, Saxon, and Jute tribes, who invaded Britain in the 5th and 6^th Centuries, are known as the Anglo-Saxons. They left their homelands in northern Germany, Denmark and northern Holland and rowed across the North Sea in wooden boats.

BRITAIN IN 'HIGH' MIDDLE AGES - THE HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET (1154 - 1485)

1. The House of Plantagenet

A. General characteristic of the house of Plantagenet - the House of Plantagenet was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The name Plantagenet is used by modern historians to identify four distinct royal houses – the Angevins who were also Counts of Anjou, the main body of the Plantagenets following the loss of Anjou, and the houses of Lancaster and York, the Plantagenets' two cadet branches. The family held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II, until 1485, when Richard III died.

TUDOR ENGLAND. RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1485-1603)

1. Renaissance

A. General information for the Renaissance  - the Renaissance (UK /rᵻˈneɪsəns/, US /ˈrɛnᵻsɑːns/) is a period in Europe, from the 14th to the 17th century, considered the bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe, marking the beginning of the Early Modern Age. The Renaissance's intellectual basis was its own invented version of humanism, derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said, that "Man is the measure of all things."

THE BRITISH CIVIL WAR AND RESTORATION OF MONARCHY (1603-1688)

1. The English Civil War

А. Jacobine Era (1603–1625) - the Jacobean era refers to a period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James I (1603 – 1625). The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Caroline era, and specifically denotes a style of architecture, visual arts, decorative arts, and literature that is predominant of that period.

THE "LONG" EIGHTEEN CENTURY IN BRITAIN HISTORY (1689-1837)

1. The ‘Bloodless’ or ‘Glorious’ Revolution

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). William's successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascending of the English throne as William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of England, in conjunction with the documentation of the Bill of Rights 1689. 

VICTORIAN AGE IN GREAT BRITAIN HISTORY (1837-1901)

1. General characteristic of the Victorian Age (1837–1901)

the Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death, on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities and political concerns to the passage of the Reform Act 1832.

EDUARDIAN ERA IN GREAT BRITAIN HISTORY (1901-1914)

1. Eduardian era (1901-1914) 

A. Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN GREAT BRITAIN HISTORY (1914-1918)

1. General information 

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland—then consisting of England, Scotland, Wales, and the whole of Ireland—was one of the Allied Powers during the First World War of 1914–1918, fighting against the Central Powers (the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria). The state's armed forces were reorganised—the war marked the creation of the Royal Air Force, for example—and increased in size because of the introduction, in January 1916, of forced conscription for the first time in the kingdom's history as well as the raising of the largest all-volunteer army in history, known as Kitchener's Army, of more than two million men. The outbreak of war has generally been regarded as a socially unifying event, although this view has been challenged by more recent scholarship. In any case, responses in the United Kingdom in 1914 were similar to those amongst populations across Europe.

THE INTERWAR PERIOD IN GREAT BRITAIN HISTORY (1919-1939)

1. General information for the period

Historian Arthur Marwick sees a radical transformation of British society resulting from the Great War, a deluge that swept away many old attitudes and brought in a more equalitarian society. He sees the famous literary pessimism of the 1920s as misplaced, arguing there were major positive long-term consequences of the war to British society. He points to an energized self-consciousness among workers that quickly built up the Labour Party, the coming of partial woman suffrage, and an acceleration of social reform and state control of the economy. He sees a decline of diference toward the aristocracy and established authority in general, and the weakening among youth of traditional restraints on individual moral behavior. The chaperone faded away; village druggists sold contraceptives. Marwick says that class distinctions softened, national cohesion increased, and British society became more equal.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH (1939-1945)

Britain, along with the dominions and the rest of the Empire, declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939, after the German invasion of Poland. After a quiet period of "phoney war", the French and British armies collapsed under German onslaught in spring 1940. The British with the thinnest of margins rescued its main army from Dunkirk (as well as many French soldiers), leaving all their equipment and war supplies behind. Winston Churchill came to power, promising to fight the Germans to the very end.

POSTWAR PERIOD IN GREAT BRITAIN (1945-2015)

When Britain emerged victorious from World War II, the Labour Party under Clement Attlee came to power and created a comprehensive welfare state, with the establishment of the National Health Service, entitling free healthcare to all British citizens and other reforms included the introduction of old-age pensions, free education at all levels, sickness benefits and unemployment benefits, most of which was covered by the newly introduced national insurance, paid by all workers, this was all under the Beveridge Report. The Bank of England, railways, heavy industry, coal mining and public utilities were all nationalised. During this time, British colonies such as India, Burma and Ceylon gained independence and Britain was a founding member of NATO in 1949.

CHANGES IN THE CLASS STRUCTURE. THE BRITISH WELFARE STATE

1. Changes in the Class Structure

A. Middle class and stability in Georgian society - the middle class grew rapidly in the 18th century, especially in the cities. At the top of the scale The legal profession succeeded first, establishing specialist training and associations, and was soon followed by the medical profession. The merchant class prospered with imperial trade. Wahrman (1992) argues that the new urban elites included two types: the gentlemanly capitalist, who participated in the national society, and the independent bourgeois, who was oriented toward the local community. By the 1790s a self-proclaimed middle class, with a particular sociocultural self-perception, had emerged.  

THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND DECOLONISATION

1. British Empire and decolonisation

A. Origins (1497–1583) 

The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496 King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead a voyage to discover a route to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 1497, five years after the European discovery of America, and although he successfully made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland (mistakenly believing, like Christopher Columbus, that he had reached Asia), there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was heard of his ships again.

GOVERNMENT, ADMINISTRATION AND LAW IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

The United Kingdom is a unitary democracy governed within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the Monarch is the head of state and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by Her Majesty's Government, on behalf of and by the consent of the Monarch, as well as by the devolved Governments of Scotland and Wales, and the Northern Ireland Executive. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as in the Scottish parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The highest court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

CULTURE AND MEDIA IN GREAT BRITAIN

1. Culture    

The culture of the United Kingdom is the pattern of human activity and symbolism associated with the United Kingdom and its people. It is influenced by the UK's history as a developed island country, a liberal democracy and a major power, its predominantly Christian religious life, and its composition of four countries—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales—each of which has distinct customs, cultures and symbolism. The wider culture of Europe has also influenced British culture, and Humanism, Protestantism and representative democracy developed from broader Western culture.

DEVOLUTION IN GREAT BRITAIN

1. Power and Its Decentralisation: Devolution and Its Aftermath

In the United Kingdom, devolution (Scottish Gaelic: fèin-riaghlaidh, Welsh: datganoli) refers to the statutory granting of powers from the Parliament of the United Kingdom to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the London Assembly and to their associated executive bodies the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Greater London Authority.

EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY GREAT BRITAIN

1. General charachteristics of education in England 

England is overseen by the United Kingdom's Department for Education and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Local government authorities are responsible for implementing policy for public education and state-funded schools at a local level.

The education system is divided into stages based upon age: Early Years Foundation Stage (ages 3–5), primary education (ages 5–11), secondary education (ages 11–18) and tertiary education (ages 18+).