1558 | Elizabeth I
1580 | Sir Francis Drake
1587 | Mary Queen of Scots
1588 | The Spanish Armada
1590 | Shakespeare
1603 | King James VI and I
1605 | The Gunpowder Plot
1629 | Charles I and Parliament
1642 | The English Civil War
1649 | Regicide
1649 | Cromwell’s Commonwealth
1660| Restoration
1666 | Great Fire of London
1687 | Sir Isaac Newton
1688 | The Glorious Revolution
1707 | The Act of Union
1714 | The House of Hanover
1721 | Britain’s First Prime Minister
1739 | Highwaymen
1740 | Rule, Britannia!
1745 | Jacobite Uprising
1755 | Dr Johnson’s Dictionary
1763 | The Seven Years War
1700s | Food and Empire
1770 | Captain Cook and Australia
1772 | The Slave Trade
1775 | Britain’s First Factories
1776 | American Revolution
1776 | Steam Engine
1788 | Mad King George
1791 | Rights of Man
1805 | The Battle of Trafalgar
1813 | Jane Austen
1815 | Duke of Wellington
1829 | The Metropolitan Police Force
1830 | The Railway Age
1833 | Child Labour
1833 | Abolition of the Slave Trade
1837 | Queen Victoria
1846 | The Workhouse
1851 | Industrial Cities
1851 | The Great Exhibition
1854 | Florence Nightingale
1859 | On the Origin of Species
1859 | Brunel
1859 | Big Ben
1863 | Association Football
1870 | Charles Dickens
1888 | Jack the Ripper
1899 | The Boer War
1912 | Titanic
1913 | Emily Davison
1914 | The First World War
1916 | The First Day of the Somme
1918 | Armistice Day
1922 | The BBC
1926 | General Strike
1936 | Abdication
1940 | Dunkirk
1940 | The Battle of Britain
1941 | The Home Front
1945 | VE Day
1948 | The NHS
1948 | The Empire Windrush
1953 | Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
1956 | Suez Crisis
1966 | World Cup Win
1960s | Beatlemania
1979 | Thatcher Becomes Prime Minister
1989 | Invention of the World Wide Web
1994 | Opening of the Channel Tunnel
1997 | Death of Princess Diana
1997 | Harry Potter
2012 | London Olympics
2016 | Brexit
Conclusion
Index
About the Publisher
‘This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle… This precious stone set in the silver sea… This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England’
William Shakespeare, Richard II
In his paean to England in Shakespeare’s Richard II, John of Gaunt emphasises the importance of England’s status as an ‘island nation’. He is right to do so. So much of England’s history has been dictated by its position on a small, rainy island off the western coast of Europe.
England’s early history saw its shores invaded by waves of foreign settlers. The Romans arrived with Julius Caesar, followed by the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, and finally the Normans in 1066. This has given England an unusual mixture of Latin, French and Germanic influences. Days of the week in English are named after Norse Gods, but the months have Roman origins. The structure of the English language comes from Germany, but much of its vocabulary from France.
England’s status as an island nation has offered it unrivalled defences
