History of the British Isles

"History of Britain" redirects here. For other uses, see History of Britain (disambiguation).

Bayeux Tapestry depicting events leading to Norman conquest of England, a moment that defined much of the history of the British Isles since.

The history of the British Isles has witnessed intermittent periods of competition and cooperation between the people that occupy the various parts of Great Britain, Ireland, and the smaller adjacent islands, which together make up the British Isles, as well as with France, Germany, the Low Countries, Denmark, Scandinavia, etc.

Today, the British Isles contain two sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. There are also three Crown dependencies: Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. The United Kingdom may be further broken down into the four countries of the United Kingdom: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Each of these countries bears its own history, with all but Northern Ireland having been independent states at one point. The History of the formation of the United Kingdom is very complex.

The British monarch was head of state of all of the countries of the British Isles from the Union of the Crowns in 1603 until the enactment of the Republic of Ireland Act in 1949, although the term "British Isles" was not used in 1603. Additionally, since the independence of Ireland, historians of the region often avoid the term British Isles due to the complexity of relations between the peoples of the archipelago (see: Terminology of the British Isles).

Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods

The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, also known as the Old and Middle Stone Ages, were characterised by a hunter-gatherer economy and a reliance on stone tool technologies.

Lower Palaeolithic

The Lower Palaeolithic period in Britain saw its first inhabitation by early hominins.

One of the most prominent archaeological sites dating to this period is that of Boxgrove Quarry in West Sussex, southern England.

Mesolithic

By the Mesolithic, homo sapiens, or modern humans, were the only hominin species to still survive in the British Isles.

Neolithic and Bronze Ages

In the British Isles, the Neolithic and Bronze Ages saw the transformation of British and Irish society and landscape. It saw the adoption of agriculture, as communities gave up their hunter-gatherer modes of existence to begin farming.

Iron Age

As its name suggests, the British Iron Age is also characterised by the adoption of iron, a metal which was used to produce a variety of different tools, ornaments and weapons.

Roman Britain

From 40 CE through to c.410 CE, southern Britain was a part of the Roman Empire, with archaeologists referring to this area as "Roman Britain", and this time span the "Romano-British period" or the "Roman Iron Age".

Mediaeval period

Late Mediaeval

In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy invaded England, claiming that he was the rightful heir to the throne, and successfully defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. Proclaiming himself to be King William I, he set about solidifying his regime by appointing Normans to many of the positions of high authority, building a system of castles across the country and ordering a census of his new kingdom, the Doomsday Book.

20th and 21st centuries

1900-1950

In 1922, the Irish Home Rule movement finally succeeded in its goals, and the U.K. government accepted the secession of the southern part of Ireland as an independent state.

As World War II broke out across Europe in 1939, the U.K. joined the Allied forces in opposition to the Axis forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, whilst the Republic of Ireland instead remained neutral throughout the conflict. At the war's end in 1945, the U.K. emerged as one of the victorious nations.

1950-1999

Domestically, the 1960s onward saw a liberalisation of social attitudes in both the Irish Republic and the U.K., with the rise of movements such as second wave feminism and LGBT rights. Politically, the U.K. was dominated by the centre-left Labour Party, who enacted a number of social democratic reforms, such as the implementation of the National Health Service, and the right-centre right Conservative Party.

On the international stage, the second half of the 20th century was dominated by the Cold War between the Soviet Union and its socialist allies and the United States and its capitalist allies; the U.K. was a key supporter of the latter, joining the anti-Soviet military alliance NATO in 1949. During this period, the U.K. became involved in several Cold War conflicts, such as the Korean War (1950-1953), as well as unrelated conflicts such as the Falklands War (1982). In contrast, the Republic of Ireland remained neutral and avoided involvement in any foreign wars during this period.

2000-present

In the 21st century, the U.K. became a major supporter of the U.S. in their "War on Terror", and joined them in the War in Afghanistan (2001-present) and the invasion of Iraq. The UK also took a leading role in the civilian protection campaign against Muammar Gaddafi's government in the 2011 military intervention in Libya.

Both the U.K. and the Irish Republic were affected by the global recession.

Periods

See also: History of Ireland

• Prehistoric Britain (Prehistory–AD 43)
  • Prehistoric Scotland
  • Prehistoric Wales
• Roman Britain (44–407)
• Sub-Roman Britain (407–597)
• Britain in the Middle Ages (597-1485)
  • Anglo-Saxon England (597–1066)
  • Norman Conquest of England (1066)
  • Scotland in the High Middle Ages (900-1286)
  • Scotland in the Late Middle Ages (1286–1513)
    • Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1357)
• Early modern Britain
  • Tudor period (1485–1603)
    • Tudor conquest of Ireland
    • English Renaissance
    • Elizabethan era (1558–1603)
  • First British Empire (1583–1783)
  • Jacobean era (1567–1625)
  • Union of the Crowns (1603)
  • Caroline era (1625–1642)
  • English Civil War (1642–1651)
  • English Interregnum (1651–1660)
  • Restoration (1660)
  • Glorious Revolution (1688)
  • Scottish Enlightenment
  • Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800)
  • Second British Empire (1783–1815)
  • Georgian era
• History of the United Kingdom (1801- )
  • United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922)
    • Britain's Imperial Century (1815–1914)
    • Regency (1811–1820)
    • Victorian era (1837–1901)
    • Edwardian period (1901–1910)
    • Britain in World War I (1914–1918)
    • Coalition Government 1916–1922
  • United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1922 - )
    • Conservative Government 1922–1924
    • Conservative Government 1924–1929
    • Labour Government 1929–1931
    • National Government 1931–1935
    • National Government 1935–1940
    • Britain in World War II (1939–1945)
    • History of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
    • Premiership of Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990)
    • Premiership of Tony Blair (1997–2007)
    • Premiership of Gordon Brown
    • Premiership of David Cameron
• History of the Republic of Ireland (1922 to present)
  • Irish civil war

Timeline history of the British Isles

Date	States/Peoples											Events
pre-6th c. BC	Prehistoric Britain, Prehistoric Ireland
6th to 1st c. BC	British Iron Age, Iron Age tribes in Britain, Insular Celtic
	Gauls		Brythons				Picts	Gaels
51 BC	Gallia Lugdunensis (Roman province)
43 AD			Britannia (Roman province)									Roman conquest of Britain
410	Brythons			Anglo-Saxon England	Hen Ogledd
638						Kingdom of Strathclyde						Viking raids
843
845	Kingdom of Brittany
878					Danelaw
911	Duchy of Normandy
927				Kingdom of England								Battle of Tara Battle of Clontarf
1054						Kingdom of Alba						Norman conquest of England
1079									Kingdom of Mann and the Isles
1098			Cymru				Kingdom of Norway					Norman invasion of Ireland
1171										Lordship of Ireland
1204												Magna Carta Treaty of York
1266
1282												Wars of Scottish Independence
1333	Bailiwick of Guernsey	Bailiwick of Jersey	Isle of Man
1469						Kingdom of Scotland						Poynings' Law
1541												Scottish Reformation Tudor conquest of Ireland Union of the Crowns
1607										Kingdom of Ireland		Flight of the Earls Plantation of Ulster Wars of the Three Kingdoms
1641											Confederate Ireland
1649				Commonwealth of England								Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
1653				Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland
1660				Kingdom of England		Kingdom of Scotland				Kingdom of Ireland		Penal Laws Revolution of 1688 Battle of the Boyne
1707				Kingdom of Great Britain								Acts of Union 1707 Battle of Culloden Irish Rebellion of 1798
1801				United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland								Act of Union 1800 Catholic Emancipation Irish Potato Famine
1919											Irish Republic	Irish War of Independence Partition of Ireland
1921/2				United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland						Northern Ireland	Irish Free State
1937											Ireland	The Emergency Battle of Britain The Troubles Celtic Tiger
1999				Wales		Scotland						Good Friday Agreement

Geographic

• History of England
  • History of Cornwall
  • History of London
• History of Scotland
• History of Wales
• History of Ireland
  • History of Northern Ireland
  • History of the Republic of Ireland
• History of the Isle of Man
• History of Jersey

States

• England in the Middle Ages
• Kingdom of England (to 1707)
• Kingdom of Scotland (to 1707)
• Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1801)
• Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1801)
• United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1927)
• United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1927 – )
• Isle of Man (unrecorded date to present)

Supranational

• British Empire
• Commonwealth of Nations
• European Union

See also

• British military history
• Economic history of the United Kingdom
• Geology of the United Kingdom - for history before human occupation
• History of British society
• List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom
• History of the horse in Britain

Further reading

• A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World, 3500 BC - 1603 AD by Simon Schama, Hyperion Books, 2000 ISBN 0-7868-6675-6
• A History of Britain, Volume 2: The Wars of the British 1603-1776 by Simon Schama, Hyperion Books, 2001 ISBN 0-7868-6675-6
• A History of Britain III: The Fate of Empire 1776-2000 by Simon Schama
• The British Isles: A History of Four Nations by Hugh Kearney, Cambridge University Press 2nd edition 2006, ISBN 978-0521846004
• A History of Britain - The Complete Collection on DVD by Simon Schama, BBC 2002
• The Isles, A History by Norman Davies, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-513442-7
• Shortened History of England by G. M. Trevelyan Penguin Books ISBN 0-14-023323-7
• This Sceptred Isle: 55BC-1901 by Christopher Lee Penguin Books ISBN 0-14-026133-8 (originally a radio series [1])
• The Reduced History of Britain - by Chas Newkey-Burden

External links

• World History Database
• The most comprehensive sites on British History
• Encyclopedia of British History
• 1000 years of British history
• British History Online
• Homepage of the BBC History website
• British History Interactive Timeline
• Rutgers University Libraries - American and British History
• British History at about.com
• English History and Heritage guide - History of England
• The British History Site with rss feed#
• Mytimemachine.co.uk
• The History Files [2]