HISTORY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

A Short Account

The history of the United Kingdom began in the early eighteenth century with the Treaty of Union and
Acts of Union. The core of the United Kingdom as a unified state came into being in 1707 with the
political union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, into a new unitary state called Great
Britain.The Act of Union 1800 added the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland.

The first decades were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart cause at the
Battle of Culloden in 1746. In 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the growth of the First
British Empire. With defeat by the United States, France and Spain in the War of American
Independence, Britain lost its 13 American colonies and rebuilt a Second British Empire based in Asia
and Africa. As a result, British culture, and its technological, political, constitutional, and linguistic
influence, became worldwide. Politically the central event was the French Revolution and its
Napoleonic aftermath from 1793 to 1815, which British elites saw as a profound threat, and worked
energetically to form multiple coalitions that finally defeated Napoleon in 1815. The Tories, who came
to power in 1783, remained in power (with a short interruption) until 1830. Forces of reform, often
emanating from the Evangelical religious elements, opened decades of political reform that broadened
the ballot (vote), and opened the economy to free trade. The outstanding political leaders of the 19th
century included Disraeli, Gladstone, and Salisbury. Culturally the Victorian era was a time of
prosperity and dominant middle-class virtues when Britain dominated the world economy and
maintained a generally peaceful century, 1815–1914. The First World War (1914–1918), with Britain
in alliance with France, Russia and the United States, was a furious but ultimately successful total war
with Germany. The resulting League of Nations was a favourite project in Interwar Britain. However,
while the Empire remained strong, as did the London financial markets, the British industrial base
began to slip behind Germany and, especially, the United States. Sentiments for peace were so strong
that the nation supported appeasement of Hitler's Germany in the late 1930s, until the Nazi invasion of
Poland in 1939 started the Second World War. In the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the
U.S. joined Britain as the main Allied powers.

Britain was no longer a military or economic superpower, as seen in the Suez Crisis of 1956. Britain
no longer had the wealth to maintain an empire, so it granted independence to almost all its
possessions. The new states typically joined the Commonwealth of Nations. The postwar years saw
great hardships, alleviated somewhat by large-scale financial aid from the United States, and some
from Canada. Prosperity returned in the 1950s. Meanwhile, in 1945–50 the Labour Party built a
welfare state, nationalized many industries, and created the National Health Service. The UK took a
strong stand against Communist expansion after 1945, playing a major role in the Cold War and the
formation of NATO as an anti-Soviet military alliance with West Germany, France, the U.S., Canada
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and smaller countries. NATO remains a powerful military coalition. The UK has been a leading
member of the United Nations since its founding, as well as numerous other international
organizations. In the 1990s neoliberalism led to the privatisation of nationalized industries and
significant deregulation of business affairs. London's status as a world financial hub grew
continuously. Since the 1990s large-scale devolution movements in Northern Ireland, Scotland and
Wales have decentralized political decision-making. Britain has moved back and forth on its economic
relationships with Western Europe. It joined the European Economic Community in 1973, thereby
weakening economic ties with its Commonwealth. However, the Brexit referendum in 2016
committed the UK to leave the European Union, which it did on 31st december 2020.

In 1922, Catholic Ireland seceded to become the Irish Free State; a day later, Northern Ireland seceded
from the Free State and returned to the United Kingdom. In 1927 the United Kingdom changed its
formal title to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, usually shortened to Britain
and (after 1945) to the United Kingdom or UK.

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Treaty of Union: It is the name given to the agreement which led to the creation of the new state of
Great Britain, stating that England (which already included Wales) and Scotland were to be "United
into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". At the time it was more often referred to as the
Articles of Union. The details of the Treaty were agreed on 22 July 1706, and separate Acts of Union
were then passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland to put the agreed Articles into effect.
The political union took effect on 1 May 1707.

Acts of Union 1800 (sometimes referred to as a single Act of Union) were parallel acts of the
Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain
and the Kingdom of Ireland (previously in personal union) to create the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland. The acts came into force on 1 January 1801, and the merged Parliament of the
United Kingdom had its first meeting on 22 January 1801.

Both acts remain in force, with amendments, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, but have been repealed in the Republic of Ireland.

Battle of Culloden in 1746: part of the War of British Succession.

The Battle of Culloden was fought near Inverness in Scotland on 16 April 1746, the Battle of Culloden
was the climax of the Jacobite Rising (1745-46). It finally settled a contest for the British Monarchy
that had lasted almost 60 years.

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Jacobites Rising: The Jacobites sought to restore the House of Stuart to the British throne. Staging
rebellions in Scotland in 1715, 1719 and 1745, they attempted to overthrow the ruling Hanoverian
Royal Family. The Jacobites were encouraged and assisted by Britain’s enemies, in particular the
French, who saw support for the Stuarts as a way of distracting Britain from its military campaigns
overseas.

Seven Years' War: a war fought in Europe, North America, and India between 1756 and 1763. The
war was about French and English colonies (colony ), and also Austria and Prussia wanting to control
Europe. As a result of the war, France lost most of its land in India and the US to Britain, and Prussia
became a leading European power .

War of American Independence: The American Revolutionary War ( 1775 – 1783), also known as
the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, secured a United States of America
independent from Great Britain. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, followed by the Declaration of
Independence on July 4, 1776. The American Patriots were supported by France and Spain, conflict
taking place in North America, the Caribbean, and Atlantic Ocean. It ended on September 3, 1783
when Britain accepted American independence in the Treaty of Paris, while the Treaties of Versailles
resolved separate conflicts with France and Spain.

Napoleonic Wars: Napoleonic Wars, series of wars between Napoleonic France and shifting alliances
of other European powers that produced a brief French hegemony over most of Europe. Along with
the French Revolutionary wars, the Napoleonic Wars constitute a 23-year period of recurrent conflict
that concluded only with the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon’s second abdication on June 22, 1815.

First World War: often abbreviated as WWI or WW1 or known as the First World War began on 28
July 1914 and ended on 11 November 1918. Referred to by contemporaries as the "Great War",
belligerents included much of Europe, Russia, the United States and Turkey, with fighting also
expanding into the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-
Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France,
Russia, Italy, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers).

Second World War: World War II was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world
during the years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and

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Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser
extent, China.

Suez Crisis: The Suez Crisis began on October 29, 1956, when Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt
toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70) nationalized the canal,
a valuable waterway that controlled two-thirds of the oil used by Europe. The Israelis were soon
joined by French and British forces, which nearly brought the Soviet Union into the conflict and
damaged their relationships with the United States. In the end, Egypt emerged victorious, and the
British, French and Israeli governments withdrew their troops in late 1956 and early 1957.

Cold War: During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought together as allies
against the Axis powers. However, the relationship between the two nations was a tense one.
Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and concerned about Russian leader Joseph
Stalin’s tyrannical rule of his own country. For their part, the Soviets resented the Americans’
decades-long refusal to treat the USSR as a legitimate part of the international community as well as
their delayed entry into World War II, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians.
After the war ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust and
enmity.