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99,999 BCE
Stone Age - Paleolithic (2.500.000 BC)
Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) Britain is the period of the earliest known occupation of Britain by humans. This huge period saw many changes in the environment, encompassing several glacial and interglacial episodes greatly affecting human settlement in the region.
There is evidence from bones and flint tools found in coastal deposits near Happisburgh in Norfolk and Pakefield in Suffolk that a species of Homo was present in what is now Britain at least 814,000 years ago. -
10,000 BCE
Stone Age - Mesolithic
Mesolithic people occupied Britain by around 9,000 BC, and it has been occupied ever since. By 8000 BC temperatures were higher than today, and birch woodlands spread rapidly, but there was a cold spell around 6,200 BC which lasted about 150 years.
The warmer climate changed the arctic environment to one of pine, birch and alder forest; this less open landscape was less conducive to the large herds of reindeer and wild horse that had previously sustained humans. -
6000 BCE
Stone Age - Neolithic
The Neolithic was the period of domestication of plants and animals, but the arrival of a Neolithic package of farming and a sedentary lifestyle is increasingly giving way to a more complex view of the changes and continuities in practices that can be observed from the Mesolithic period onwards.
In any case, the Neolithic Revolution, as it is called, introduced a more settled way of life and ultimately led to societies becoming divided into differing groups of farmers, artisans and leaders. -
3000 BCE
Prehistory - New Stone Age - Chalkland People
During the Neolithic, occurred the second wave of invaders, Chalkland people crossed the Narrow Sea from Europe to the island in small round boats.
They settled in the western parts of Britain and Ireland. During the early Neolithic Age, many long barrows were constructed on the island. In the late Neolithic, large stone circles called henges appeared, the most famous is Stonehenge.
Before Roman occupation, the island was inhabited by a diverse group of tribes, collectively known as Britons. -
2500 BCE
The First Inhabitants - from 250.000 BC to 10.000 BC
No human remains or tools have been found from Britain for the period of 180,000 to 60,000 years ago, although we know Neanderthals thrived elsewhere in Europe during this time.
Neanderthals did eventually make it back to Britain, arriving via Doggerland.
Doggerland is a former landmass in the southern North Sea that connected Great Britain to mainland Europe during and after the last Ice Age, surviving until about 6,500 or 6,200 BCE, then gradually being flooded by rising sea levels. -
2400 BCE
Copper Age/Bronze Age - Beaker People
Beaker pottery appears in England around 2475 BC along with flat axes and burial practices of inhumation.
Beaker techniques brought to Britain the skill of refining metal. At first the users made items from copper, but from around 2150 BCE smiths had discovered how to smelt bronze. The Beaker people were also skilled at making ornaments from gold, silver and copper, and examples of these have been found in graves of the wealthy Wessex culture of central southern Britain. -
700 BCE
Iron Age - The Celts
Britons or Brythons or British people were not the original inhabitants of what we call England today, but they were certainly one of the earlier peoples to inhabit what we call England today. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as Common Brittonic and lived in Great Britain during the Iron Age, the Roman Era and the post-Roman Era.
It is properly pronounced Kelt. No one called these people living in Britain during the Iron Age Celts until the 18th century. -
80
Ancient History - The Romans (43 AD to 410 AD)
Roman Britain is the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered was raised to the status of a Roman province.
Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars. The Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by other Celtic tribes during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. -
430
The Middle Ages - Germanic Invasions - 430 AD The Angles-The Jutes-The Saxons
A British monk Adomnan, suggested a Law of Innocents to protect the women and children. The Saxons appear to have rejected this strange and foreign concept! Following these early Saxon raids, from around AD430 a host of Germanic migrants arrived in east and southeast England. The main groups being Jutes from the Jutland peninsula (modern Denmark); Angles from Angeln in southwest Jutland and the Saxons from northwest Germany. -
Period: 476 to 1485
The Middle Ages
During most of the Middle Ages (c. 410–1485 AD), the island of Great Britain was divided into several kingdoms.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were hierarchical societies, each based on ties of allegiance between powerful lords and their immediate followers. At the top of the social structure was the king, who stood above many of the normal processes of Anglo-Saxon life and whose household had special privileges and protection -
800
The Middle Ages - The Vikings - 800 AD
The Vikings were people who lived in Northern Europe during the Middle Ages. They originally settled the Scandinavian lands that are today the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The Vikings played a major role in Northern Europe during the Middle Ages, especially during the Viking Age which was from 800 CE to 1066 CE. -
1066
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of Normans, Bretons, Flemish, and men from other French provinces, all led by the Duke of Normandy later styled William the Conqueror.
William's claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the childless Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor, who may have encouraged William's hopes for the throne. -
1272
Monarchs of England and Wales - 1272 to 1399
Llewelyn and his armies drove the English from north Wales in 1212. He reversed the trend of conquering,
taking the English town of Shrewsbury in 1215. During his long but peace-less reign through to 1240, Llewelyn
resisted several attempts at re-invasion by English armies dispatched by the then English King, Henry III. The
conquest of Wales by Edward I, referred to as the Edwardian Conquest of Wales, to distinguish it from the
earlier Norman conquest of Wales, took place between 1277 and 1283. -
1399
The House of Lancaster - 1399 to 1461
The first Lancastrian King with dubious claims to the throne, some 8th in line, who took the throne by force
from Richard. Henry previously known as Bolingbroke after Bolingbroke Castle where he was born and then
later the Duke of Lancaster, was the same age as his predecessor and cousin Richard who Henry murdered
by starvation. Henry usurped the throne in 1399, creating one of the factions in the Wars of the Roses. -
1461
The House of York - 1461 to 1485
The House of York was a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet. Three of its members
became kings of England in the late 15th century.The House of York descended in the male line from Edmund
of Langley, 1st Duke of York, the fourth surviving son of Edward III. In time, it also represented Edward III's
senior line, when an heir of York married the heiress-descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward III's
second surviving son. It is based on males that claimed the english crown. -
1485
Early Modern Britain
Early modern Britain is the history of the island of Great Britain roughly corresponding to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Major historical events in Early Modern British history include numerous wars, especially with France, along with the English Renaissance, the English Reformation and Scottish Reformation, the English Civil War, the Restoration of Charles II, the Glorious Revolution, the Treaty of Union and the formation and collapse of the First British Empire. -
1485
The Tudors - 1485 to 1509
The Tudor era saw unprecedented upheaval in England. Between them the five Tudor kings and queens
introduced huge changes that are still with us today.
The years between the crowning of Henry VII in 1485 and the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 saw the old religious
order swept away, the establishment of the American colonies, the foundation of the Royal Navy and the
power of Europe challenged. -
Late Modern Britain
Events from the 1600s in England. This decade marks the end of the Elizabethan era with the beginning of the Jacobean era and the Stuart period. Modern Era can be further classified into Early Modern Period and Late Modern Period, after the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Modern Times begin with the end of these revolutions in the 19th century, and includes the World Wars era (WWI and WWII) and the emergence of socialist countries that lead to the Cold War.