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Human beings have been living in the part of northern Europe that is today called Britain for about 750,000 years. For most of that time, they subsisted by gathering food like nuts, berries, leaves and fruit from wild sources, and by hunting.
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Stonehenge was constructed in three phases.
It has been estimated that the three phases of the construction required more than thirty million hours of labour.
Speculation on the reason it was built range from human sacrifice to astronomy. -
Most people in Henry's England lived in villages. Towns were much smaller than towns today. London was the biggest city, with about 50,000 people.
Wales at this time was ruled from England. So was Ireland. Scotland had its own King. -
Far from their dour reputation, the Middle Ages were a period of massive social change, burgeoning nationalism, international conflict, terrible natural disaster, climate change, rebellion, resistance and renaissance.
There was also a fight for power between the kings and the rich men in England. -
The Normans brought a powerful new aristocracy to Britain, and yet preserved much that was Anglo-Saxon about their new possession. What did they change and what did they leave?
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The Iron Age of the British Isles covers the period from about 800 BC to the Roman invasion of 43 AD, and follows on from the Bronze Age. As the Iron Age progressed through the first millennium BC, strong regional groupings emerged, reflected in styles of pottery, metal objects and settlement types. In some areas, 'tribal' states and kingdoms developed by the end of the first century BC.
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They went to defend Rome againist the barbians, who were not in the Roman Empire, and left Britain without any protection.
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The breakdown of Roman law and civilisation was fairly swift after the Roman army departed in 410 AD. To counter the raids from continental pirates, Vikings, Picts and Scots towns would bring in mercenaries from Europe to defend them from attack. These mercenary soldiers were Angles and Saxons from northern Germany.
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He visited Britain and decided to build a wall across the north of England to defend Roman Britain againist the Pics in Scotland
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Why did the Romans invade Britain in 43 AD? Their empire already extended from the Channel coast to the Caucasus, from the northern Rhineland to the Sahara.
The great age of conquest had ended a few decades before. Three legions had been destroyed in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest by rebellious German tribesmen in 9 AD, and the emperor Augustus concluded that the empire was overextended and called a halt to new wars of conquest. -
Was the first plague and in two successive years of the 17th century London suffered two terrible disasters. In the spring and summer of 1665 an outbreak of Bubonic Plague spread from parish to parish until thousands had died and the huge pits dug to receive the bodies were full.
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Whas the second plague which destroyed many buildings in the capital.
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How did Britain's naval strength, coupled with the beginnings of the industrial revolution, lead to the establishment of a strong global empire?
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Occurs of a result that Britain lost its colonies in America.
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During the Victorian era, Britain could claim to be the world's superpower, despite social inequality at home and burgeoning industrial rivals overseas. How did it happen?
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Post-1945, Britain quickly relinquished its status as the world's largest imperial power, but it was the massive cultural and social changes at home that truly transformed British society.
