Téma: History of Great Britain
Predmet: Angličtina
Zaslal(a): a-mpytlikova
The Celtic Period (around 2 – 1000 BC – 43 AD)
- 1st settlers were Celts, arrived at approximately 1 000, lived there during the Iron Age
- The Celts were pagans with priests known as Druids
Roman Britain (43 – 407 AD)
- Julius Caesar invaded southern Britain
- It became the Roman colony, called Britannia
- They set up their capital in London, they built cities in York, Bath, and Chester
- Romans brought Christianity to England, also education, social organization, urbanism
- They influenced the language: the names of towns end with -chester and -caster
- Hadrian’s Wall: was built by Romans as the protection of Celtic invasion (Hadrian)
- Romans were pushed out of Britain by the Germanic tribes at the beginning of the 5th century
The Anglo-Saxon Period (5th century – 1066)
- 3 German tribes invaded Britain – Angles, Saxons, Jutes
- In those days a Welsh hero king Arthur lived
- He managed to pull a magic sword Excalibur from the rock, he lived in Camelot, his knights sat at the Round table – they were equal
- England was divided into 7 kingdoms
- Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex
- Alfred the Great (9th century): Saxon king, a heroic warrior
- very educated – wrote and translated books
- 886: captured London from Danes, created a new nation and established a legal code
Feudalism (1066 – 15th century)
- King Edward the Confessor died
- Norman’s invasion in 11th century
- 1066 Battle of Hastings
- the Duke of Normandy William (the Bastard) defeated Saxon King Harold
- He was proclaimed the king of England as William the Conqueror
- England became a strong country
- Richard, the Lion-Heart (1189-99): spent a lot of time abroad on crusade expeditions
- The famous outlaw Robin Hood lived in those days
- Age of Crusades
Magna Charta Libertatum
- John (the Lackland) – Richard’s brother: in 1199 became the king
- Lost almost all the English possessions in France
- Magna Carta in 1215: limited the absolute power of the king
- The oldest written constitutional document
- Started the process of developing the parliamentary system
- Gave some rights to the nobles
- 1265: House of Commons
The Hundred Year’s War (1337 – 1453)
- Huge conflict between England and France
- because of Flanders in France (important business territory)
- The English king claimed the French throne and some of the lands in France
- Divided into three stages (Edwardian, Carolin and Lancastrian)
- At the beginning Edward III (Br. T.) stood against Philippe VI (Fr. T.)
- 1346:The Battle of Crécy – victory of England
- 1356: The Battle of Poitiers – victory of England
- 1415: Batlle of Agincourt – victory of England
- Siege of Orleans – Joan of Arc
- She led the French army (that she built) and set Orleans free
- Captured by Burgundians and then she was burnt alive as a witch by English men
- 1453: The Battle of Castillon – England definitely lost, France became the winner of the war and kept almost all the lands
- The Black Death: a big epidemic of plague hit England and also most of Europe in 1348 and swept through the continent rapidly
The War of the Roses (15th century)
- lasted for 30 years
- the dynastic struggle for the possession of the crown
- between the House of York (white rose) and the House of Lancaster (red rose)
- Called “war of roses” because both of the houses had a rose in the coat of arms
- Richard III was killed (last king of House of York) in the battle of Bosworth Field
- Lancastrian army with Henry Tudor defeated Yorks
- Henry founded a new dynasty à the House of Tudor (lasted till 1603)
- England became one of the leading world power
The Tudor Period (1485 – 1603)
- Leading power
- The English Reformation
- Geographical discoveries
- Industry and trade were prospering
- Britain defeated the Spanish Armada
- Henry VIII (1509-1547)
- Best known for his six marriages
- Wanted to divorce from his first wife – Catherine of Aragorn, because she hadn’t produced son
- The Pope said no to this divorce
- broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and founded the Church of England
- Head of the Church of England
- Anne Boleyn: second wife, daughter Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth I)
- Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603)
- Henry’s daughter, the last Tudor monarch
- The Virgin Queen – she had never got married
- The whole era is called the Elizabethan Age – the golden age of England
- Time of discoveries, renaissance, and Shakespeare
- England became a major sea power and prospered in many ways
- Founding colonies in the new world
- England defeated the Spanish Armada
- During her reign England’s sailors captured many Spanish ships bringing treasure from America
- Mary Queen of Scots: the tension between them because of the English throne
- Mary was a relative of Elizabeth, refused to recognize her as the rightful queen of England
- Elizabeth let her executed
Stuart period
- James VI of Scotland
- Son of Mary Stuart, the closest relative of Elizabeth I (after her death)
- 1603: James crowned in England, Scotland was united with and England
- King James I of England and also James VI of Scotland
- -> For the next 100 years England and Scotland remained separate but were ruled by one monarch
- 1707: The Act Of Union – Scotland was united with England
Civil War (17th century, 1642-1651)
- Caused by a power struggle between parliamentarians and royalists
- king believed that the monarch had absolute power, Parliament disagreed
- the result of the war was the execution of the king in 1649
- 1651: battle of Worcester
- Oliver Cromwell: leader of parliamentary army, established a republic, Lord Protector
- 1660: the monarchy was restored by King Charles II who succeeded to the throne
- 1688: Glorious revolution – confirmed sovereignty of Parliament (strengthened in the 18th century)
Industrial Revolution (19th century)
- 1805: the Battle of Trafalgar à Britain led by Admiral Nelson defeated French and Spanish
- 1815: Napoleon lost at Waterloo and Britain strengthened it’s position as the leading world power
- Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901)
- The Victorian Age: second half of the 19th century, full of great changes and reforms
- caused great social changes in Britain
- many people in cities, work in factories, creating an urban working class which was often very poor
- many people died from diseases caused by poor hygiene and housing
- during that time the British Empire doubled in size
- technological innovations – steam engine by James Watt
World War I (1914-1918)
- British economy became weaker, suffered huge casualties and economic losses
- ended in victory for the Allied Powers
- positive result was the right to vote given to the British women
- 1921: Ireland became independent
- 1929: the Wall Street Exchange Market collapsed and started the great economic depression of 1930’s (caused by the overproduction of goods)
World War II (1939-1945)
- The biggest British personality of this period was the prime minister sir Winston Churchill
- 1938: British prime minister Chamberlain, France and Italy signed the pact with Hitler in Munich allowing Germany to annex the Sudetenland in Czech republic and later the rest of Bohemia and Moravia
- Summer 1940: the air battle – Battle of Britain gone down into history
- many of British pilots were from Czechoslovakia and became British national heroes
Post-World-War period
- Great Britain was one of the founding members of OSN and NATO
- Country gained political and financial stability
21st Century
- 2020: Brexit
- the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union
- this step was based on the result of the referendum in June 2016, in which voters chose to leave EU (with the winning score of 51.9)