The United Kingdom's Geographic Challenge

In the Iron Age, all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons, including some Belgic tribes (e.g. the Atrebates, the Catuvellauni, the Trinovantes, etc.) in the south east. In CE 43 the <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/Roman-Britain" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Roman conquest of Britain</a> began; the Romans maintained control of their province of Britannia until the early 5th century. The end of Roman rule in Britain facilitated the <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/Anglo-Saxons" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Anglo-Saxon</a> settlement of Britain, which historians often regard as the origin of England and of the English people. The Anglo-Saxons, a collection of various <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/History-of-Germany" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Germanic</a> peoples, established several kingdoms that became the primary powers in present-day England and parts of southern <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/History-of-Scotland" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Scotland</a>. They introduced the Old English language, which largely displaced the previous Brittonic language. The Anglo-Saxons warred with British successor states in western Britain and the Hen Ogledd, as well as with each other. <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/Viking-Invasions-of-England" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Raids by Vikings</a> became frequent after about CE 800, and the Norsemen settled in large parts of what is now England. During this period, several rulers attempted to unite the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, an effort that led to the emergence of the Kingdom of England by the 10th century. In 1066, a <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/Battle-of-Hastings" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Norman expedition</a> invaded and conquered England. The Norman dynasty, established by William the Conqueror, ruled England for over half a century before the period of succession crisis known as the Anarchy (1135–1154). Following the Anarchy, England came under the rule of the House of Plantagenet, a dynasty which later inherited claims to the <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/History-of-France" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kingdom of France</a>. During this period, Magna Carta was signed. A succession crisis in France led to the <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/Hundred-Years-War" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hundred Years' War</a> (1337–1453), a series of conflicts involving the peoples of both nations. Following the Hundred Years' Wars, England became embroiled in its own succession wars. The <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/War-of-the-Roses" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wars of the Roses</a> pitted two branches of the House of Plantagenet against one another, the House of York and the House of Lancaster. The Lancastrian Henry Tudor ended the War of the Roses and established the Tudor dynasty in 1485. Under the Tudors and the later Stuart dynasty, England became a colonial power. During the rule of the Stuarts, the <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/English-Civil-War" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">English Civil War</a> took place between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, which resulted in the execution of King Charles I (1649) and the establishment of a series of republican governments—first, a Parliamentary republic known as the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653), then a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell known as the Protectorate (1653–1659). The Stuarts returned to the restored throne in 1660, though continued questions over religion and power resulted in the deposition of another Stuart king, James II, in the Glorious Revolution (1688). England, which had subsumed Wales in the 16th century under Henry VIII, united with Scotland in 1707 to form a new sovereign state called Great Britain. Following the Industrial Revolution, which started in England, Great Britain ruled a colonial Empire, the largest in recorded history. Following a process of decolonisation in the 20th century, mainly caused by the weakening of Great Britain's power in the <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/World-War-I" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">World War I</a> and <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/World-War-II" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">World War II</a>; almost all of the empire's overseas territories became independent countries.

Visual Timelines

History of England Timeline

History of England Timeline

Bronze Age of England

Iron Age of England

Celtic invasions

Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain

Roman Britain

Anglo-Saxon Period

Anglo-Saxons

Heptarchy

Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England

Viking Invasions of England

Alfred the Great

English Unification

Battle of Brunanburh

England under the Danes

Norman England

Battle of Hastings

Norman Conquest

The Anarchy

Plantagenet England

England under the Plantagenets

Magna Carta

Three Edwards

Hundred Years' War

Wars of the Roses

Tudor England

Henry VIII

Edward VI and Mary I

Elizabethan era

Union of the Crowns

English Civil War

Stuart Restoration

Glorious Revolution

Acts of Union 1707

First British Empire

Hanoverian succession

Industrial Revolution

Loss of the Thirteen American Colonies

Second British Empire

Napoleonic Wars

United Kingdom

British Malaya

Great Game

Victorian era

First Opium War

Crimean War

British Raj

Cape to Cairo

Second Boer War

Irish independence and partition

England during World War I

England during World War II

Postwar Britain

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Life in a Medieval Village

Logistics during the American Civil War

Art of War of the Byzantine Empire

Naval Warfare during the American Revolution

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