Life in the UK test study guide: A long and illustrious history

Chapter 3 is the longest chapter in the official handbook, and it carries the most questions. It is a list of dates, names and events. That sounds hard, but it is not. You do not need to understand why things happened. You need to know what happened and when.

This guide walks through the chapter in order, from the Stone Age to today. Read it in sections. After each section, look away and try to say the dates out loud.

Before the Romans

For most of the Stone Age, Britain was joined to Europe by a land bridge. The first people walked across it. They were hunter-gatherers. They hunted animals, collected wild plants and moved around to follow the food.

About 10,000 years ago the sea rose. The land bridge disappeared, and Britain became an island.

The first farmers arrived about 6,000 years ago. They probably came from south-east Europe. They brought crops and farm animals with them.

Three sites from this period come up often.

• Stonehenge in Wiltshire, in the south west of England. It was probably a place for seasonal ceremonies, and its stones line up with the sun.
• Skara Brae on Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. Its stone houses survive so well that we can see how Stone Age people lived.
• Maiden Castle in Dorset. This is an Iron Age hill fort, which is a defended settlement on high ground.

Bronze Age people lived in roundhouses. They buried their dead in round barrows, which are mounds of earth raised over a grave. Iron Age people made the first coins in Britain, and some of those coins carry the names of Iron Age kings. Those are the earliest names of people in Britain that we know.

Iron Age people spoke a language in the Celtic family. Welsh and Gaelic come from the same family.

Roman Britain

Julius Caesar led a Roman invasion in 55 BC. It failed, and the Romans left again. The successful invasion came almost 100 years later, in AD 43. Roman rule then lasted about 400 years.

Not everyone accepted it. Boudicca was queen of the Iceni, a tribe in what is now eastern England. She led her people in a fight against the Roman army.

The Romans changed Britain in ways that lasted.

• They built the first cities, including London, Colchester and St Albans. London was called Londinium.
• They built a network of straight paved roads. Some modern roads still follow them.
• They brought their own system of law.

The first Christian communities in Britain appeared in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, while the Romans were still here. The Roman army left in AD 410, because it was needed to defend other parts of the empire. It never came back.

The Anglo-Saxons

After the Romans left, tribes from northern Europe invaded and settled. They were the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons. By about AD 600, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms covered most of what is now England. Wales and Scotland stayed free of their rule.

The Anglo-Saxons were not Christians when they arrived. Missionaries converted them.

Sutton Hoo in Suffolk is the burial place of one of the kings of East Anglia. He was buried in a ship, covered by a mound of earth, with treasure and armour. The find shows how rich these kings were.

The language the Anglo-Saxons spoke is the basis of modern English.

The Vikings

The Vikings came from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They crossed the North Sea in longships, which were fast and shallow enough to sail on to a beach.

They first came in AD 789. At first they only raided coastal towns for goods and slaves. Later they stayed, farmed and built communities. The part of England where they settled and where their law applied was called the Danelaw. Many place names in eastern England still come from that time.

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms united under King Alfred the Great, who defeated the Vikings in battle. He is the only English king called the Great.

In the north, the threat of Viking attack helped people unite under one king, Kenneth MacAlpin. The name Scotland began to be used for his kingdom.

The Norman Conquest

In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, defeated the Saxon king Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Harold was killed. William became King of England, and he is known as William the Conqueror.

This was the last successful foreign invasion of England.

The Bayeux Tapestry is a long embroidered cloth showing the battle and the conquest. It still exists and can be seen in France.

In 1086 William completed the Domesday Book. He sent officials all over England to list the towns and villages, the people in them, and the land and animals they owned.

The Normans took control of England. They could not easily conquer Wales and Scotland, although they did take land along the borders. They built castles across the country, and each castle held a small force of soldiers. They spoke Norman French, which became the language of the court. Many French words entered English because of this.

The Middle Ages

Magna Carta

In 1215 King John was forced by his noblemen to agree to Magna Carta. The name is Latin for the Great Charter. It set out that the king was subject to the law, not above it. That idea still sits at the heart of British democracy.

Parliament takes shape

Parliament grew out of the councils a king called to advise him and to agree money for his wars. Over time these meetings became permanent. By the end of the Middle Ages Parliament had two Houses.

• The House of Lords held the nobility and the bishops.
• The House of Commons held knights of the shire and wealthy people from the towns and cities. Only a small number of men could elect them.

The Scottish Parliament had three estates: the lords, the commons and the clergy.

English common law grew from the decisions judges made in real cases. Later judges followed those decisions, so the law became settled.

Wars in these islands

• Edward I annexed Wales to the Crown of England through the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. The great castles at Conwy and Caernarfon were built to hold the land.
• Robert the Bruce led the Scots to victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Scotland stayed independent.
• English control in Ireland was limited to a small area around Dublin, known as the Pale.
• The Hundred Years War ran from 1337 to 1453, so it lasted more than a hundred years. Henry V defeated the French at Agincourt in 1415.

The Black Death

The Black Death, a form of plague, reached England in 1348. About one third of the population died. Scotland and Wales suffered badly too.

So many people died that workers became scarce. Labourers could ask for higher wages, and the old feudal system grew weaker.

By 1400 English had become the language of the royal court and Parliament. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a set of poems about pilgrims travelling to Canterbury. John Barbour wrote The Bruce in the Scots language, about Bannockburn. English wool was the country's most important export.

The Wars of the Roses

This was a civil war about who should be king of England. It began in 1455. Two families claimed the throne.

The war ended at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485. King Richard III of York was killed. He was the last English king to die in battle. Henry Tudor of Lancaster won and became King Henry VII, the first Tudor king.

Henry VII married Elizabeth of York. The marriage joined the two houses. The Tudor rose, a red rose with a white one inside it, is the symbol of that joining. Henry VII reduced the power of the nobles and built strong central government, which made another civil war far less likely.

The Tudors

Henry VII was followed by his son, Henry VIII, who had six wives. He wanted a son to succeed him.

Wales was formally united with England during his reign. Henry VIII was also the first English monarch to call himself King of Ireland.

His three children ruled after him.

• Edward VI became king at nine years old and died at fifteen.
• Mary I was a devout Catholic who persecuted Protestants. She became known as Bloody Mary.
• Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603. Her long reign is remembered as a golden age.

Other names from this period come up often. Sir Francis Drake sailed the Golden Hind, one of the first ships to sail around the world. Mary Queen of Scots was a Catholic cousin of Elizabeth I with a claim to the English throne. She was held prisoner for about 20 years and then executed. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. English settlers first began to colonise the eastern coast of America in this reign.

The Reformation

Protestants were Christians who broke away from the authority of the Pope in Rome. They wanted a simpler church, and they believed people should read the Bible in their own language.

Henry VIII wanted his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. The Pope refused, so Henry broke with Rome. He made himself head of the Church of England. The monarch has been head of that church ever since. The monasteries in England, Wales and Ireland were closed, and the Crown took their land and wealth.

What followed depended on who was on the throne.

• Edward VI was strongly Protestant. He brought in the Book of Common Prayer, the first prayer book in English.
• Mary I was Catholic and persecuted Protestants.
• Elizabeth I re-established the Church of England and steered a middle course. She did not press people about their private beliefs, as long as they did not challenge her authority.

In Scotland the Parliament abolished the Pope's authority in 1560. The Church of Scotland is Presbyterian. It has no monarch at its head and is governed by ministers and elders. In Ireland most people stayed Roman Catholic, and attempts to impose Protestantism caused resentment.

The Stuarts and the Civil War

In 1603 James VI of Scotland became James I of England, Wales and Ireland. One monarch now ruled all four countries. He authorised a new English translation of the Bible, the King James Bible.

In 1605 a group of Catholics led by Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the king. The plot failed, and it is remembered every 5 November.

Land in Ulster was taken from Irish Catholic landowners and given to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. This is known as the plantation.

Why the war began

Charles I believed in the Divine Right of Kings. That is the belief that a king is appointed by God and does not have to answer to Parliament or the people. He fell out with Parliament over money and religion. He also tried to force a revised prayer book on the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. The Scots refused and raised an army.

The Civil War began in 1642.

Parliament's army won at Marston Moor in 1644 and at Naseby in 1645. Charles I was executed in 1649. No English king had ever been put to death in this way.

The Commonwealth

England was then declared a republic called the Commonwealth. There was no monarch for eleven years.

Oliver Cromwell was sent to Ireland in 1649 to establish the authority of the English Parliament. His campaign there was very harsh. In 1650 he defeated the Scottish army at Dunbar, and Charles II fled abroad. The story that Charles hid in an oak tree is why many pubs are called the Royal Oak.

Cromwell became Lord Protector in 1653. His son Richard took over but could not hold the country together.

The Restoration and the Glorious Revolution

In 1660 Parliament invited Charles II back from exile. This is the Restoration.

Three events from his reign come up often.

• The Royal Society was founded to promote science. It is one of the oldest scientific societies in the world.
• A major outbreak of plague swept London in 1665.
• The Great Fire of London broke out in 1666. Samuel Pepys described it in his diary. St Paul's Cathedral was destroyed and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren.

The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 stopped people being held in prison unlawfully. A prisoner had to be brought before a court. The Whigs and the Tories were the first political parties in Britain.

The Glorious Revolution

James II was a Catholic who gave important posts to Catholics. Protestant leaders invited William of Orange, the Protestant ruler of the Netherlands, to take the throne. He was married to James II's daughter Mary.

William landed with an army, but there was no fighting in England. James II fled to France. That is why the change of ruler is called glorious. William III then defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690. Supporters of James and his descendants were called Jacobites.

Three more dates finish this period.

• 1707: the Act of Union joined Scotland to England and Wales as the Kingdom of Great Britain, with one Parliament at Westminster.
• 1714: Queen Anne died and the throne passed to her German cousin, George I of Hanover, who spoke little English. Because he relied on his ministers, Sir Robert Walpole became the first Prime Minister.
• 1746: Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated at the Battle of Culloden. It was the last Jacobite rising.

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a period of new ideas in the 18th century. Thinkers valued reason, observation and evidence. They argued that everyone should be free to hold their own political and religious beliefs, and that the state should not dictate them.

Many of the great thinkers were Scottish. Edinburgh and Glasgow were important centres.

• Adam Smith developed ideas about economics and how trade works.
• David Hume was a philosopher whose ideas about human nature are still discussed.
• James Watt worked on steam power. His improved engines helped make the Industrial Revolution possible.

From 1695 newspapers could be published without a government licence. A free press has been part of British life ever since.

The Industrial Revolution

Britain was the first country to industrialise on a large scale. This happened in the 18th and 19th centuries. Before it, most people worked on the land.

Steam power drove the machines in the new factories, and coal was burned to make the steam. Coal and iron were the foundations of British industry.

Canals were dug to carry coal, iron and goods. Railways followed. The Bessemer process allowed steel to be made cheaply and in large amounts, which transformed shipbuilding and the railways.

At its peak Britain produced more than half of the world's iron, coal and cotton cloth. It became known as the workshop of the world.

Life in the early factories and mines was hard. Hours were very long, conditions were dangerous, and young children worked in them. Parliament later passed laws that stopped young children working and made workplaces safer.

Sake Dean Mahomet came from Bengal and opened Britain's first curry house in London. He and his wife also introduced shampooing, a form of head massage.

The slave trade and its abolition

Enslaved people were taken from West Africa and shipped across the Atlantic. The voyage was brutal and many died on the way. Those who survived were forced to work on plantations growing sugar and tobacco. The profits flowed back to Britain, and ports such as Bristol and Liverpool grew rich.

The campaign against it took many years.

• The Quakers set up the first anti-slavery groups in the late 1700s.
• William Wilberforce, an MP and evangelical Christian, led the campaign in Parliament.
• In 1807 it became illegal to trade in enslaved people in British ships or from British ports.
• The Emancipation Act of 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.

The Royal Navy then refused to let ships carry enslaved people, and freed those it found on board. After 1833 about 2 million workers from India and China were recruited to work on plantations in the Caribbean, mines in South Africa and railways in East Africa.

The Victorian age

Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901, for more than 60 years.

By 1900 the British Empire was the largest empire the world has ever seen. More than 400 million people lived in it. It covered India, Australia, Canada and large parts of Africa.

Key events of the reign:

• The Great Exhibition of 1851 showed goods and inventions from Britain and the Empire, in a huge glass building in Hyde Park.
• The Crimean War, from 1853 to 1856. Britain fought alongside Turkey and France against Russia. It was the first war widely reported by the press.
• The Victoria Cross was introduced in 1856 to honour great bravery in the armed forces.
• The Boer War, from 1899 to 1902, in South Africa.

Florence Nightingale went to Turkey in 1854 to care for wounded British soldiers. She improved conditions and saved many lives. In 1860 she set up the Nightingale Training School for nurses, and she is seen as the founder of modern nursing.

The population moved as well as grew. About a million people died in the Irish famine of the 1840s, and many more emigrated. Around 120,000 Russian and Polish Jews came to Britain between 1880 and 1910 to escape persecution.

Victorian reformers limited working hours for women and children and made workplaces safer. A series of reforms gave the vote to many more men, though not to women. Rudyard Kipling wrote about the Empire and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.

The First World War

The war began in 1914. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria set off the chain of events that led to it.

Soldiers on the Western Front fought from long lines of trenches. Conditions were wet, cold and dangerous. The Battle of the Somme in 1916 is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles in British history. There were about 60,000 British casualties on the first day alone.

Troops from across the British Empire fought alongside British soldiers, including men from India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Caribbean.

With so many men away fighting, women took on factory work and other jobs. This strengthened the case for giving women the vote.

Between the wars

Votes for women came in two steps.

• 1918: women over 30 who were householders, or married to householders, won the vote.
• 1928: women won the right to vote at 21, the same age as men.

Emmeline Pankhurst set up the Women's Franchise League in 1889 and later led the campaign for votes for women. Campaigners were known as suffragettes. Some chained themselves to railings or went on hunger strike in prison.

In Ireland, the Easter Rising took place in Dublin in 1916. Home Rule had been agreed before the war but was suspended while the fighting went on. Ireland was divided in 1922. The south became the Irish Free State and later the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland stayed part of the UK.

The General Strike took place in 1926. Workers in many industries stopped work in support of the miners. It lasted nine days before most returned.

The Great Depression began in 1929. Unemployment rose sharply, and areas that depended on heavy industry were hit hardest. New industries such as car making and aviation grew in the 1930s, mainly in the Midlands and the south. Many new homes were built, and living conditions improved for many families.

The BBC began radio broadcasting in 1922 and started its television service in 1936.

The Second World War

Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, and Britain declared war on 3 September 1939.

The Spitfire and the Hurricane were the RAF's main fighters in the Battle of Britain. Both were built in Britain. Coventry was very heavily bombed and its cathedral was destroyed. Many children were evacuated from the cities to the countryside, and often lived with families they had never met.

Alan Turing worked at Bletchley Park and helped break the German Enigma code. His work shortened the war and helped start computing.

Britain since 1945

Labour won the 1945 election and Clement Attlee became Prime Minister. His government built the welfare state, following a report written by William Beveridge in 1942.

The National Health Service was created in 1948, led by Aneurin Bevan. It offered healthcare to everyone, free at the point of use. The railways, coal mines and other key industries were taken into public ownership, which is called nationalisation.

The end of the Empire

India and Pakistan became independent in 1947. During the 1950s and 1960s most British colonies in Africa became independent countries, and many then joined the Commonwealth.

Britain needed workers to rebuild after the war. People from the West Indies were invited to come and take jobs. Workers were also recruited from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for textile mills, engineering firms and public transport. In 1972 people of South Asian origin were forced to leave Uganda, and many settled here.

Later decades

• The Beatles and the Rolling Stones led the British music of the 1960s, often called the Swinging Sixties.
• In 1972 the Northern Ireland Parliament was suspended, and Northern Ireland was ruled directly from Westminster.
• The UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973.
• Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister of the UK in 1979. She served until 1990.
• Britain fought the Falklands War in 1982, after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.
• The Channel Tunnel opened in 1994.
• Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997.
• The Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, and led to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
• The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly first met in 1999, after referendums in 1997.
• No party won a majority in 2010, so the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government.

Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952 and was crowned the following year. She reigned for 70 years. British forces served in Afghanistan from 2001 and in Iraq from 2003, alongside allied countries.