History of United Kingdom
The United Kingdom became a unified sovereign state began with the union of the Wales, and Scotland on 1 May 1707 with the Treaty of Union, signed on 22 July 1706, The 1707 Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain, in 1800 added the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Before 1707 the British were ruled by the Celts and Romans with the Norman conquest of England in 1066
Victory in the Seven Years' War, in 1763, which was the first war waged on a global scale, fought in Europe, India, North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and coastal Africa which was the first war waged on a global scale, fought in Europe, India, North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and coastal Africa. The signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763) had important consequences for Britain and its empire.
The British victory over France in the Seven Years War therefore left Britain as the world's dominant colonial power. led to the dominance of the British Empire which was the foremost global power for over a century and grew to become the largest empire in history
In 1775 the American Revolutionary War began and won by the colonists in 1783.
On 22 August 1770, James Cook discovered the eastern coast of Australia[13] while on a scientific voyage to the South Pacific. In 1778, Joseph Banks, Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement, and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon who threatened invasion of Britain itself.
Hostilities between Great Britain and France commenced on 18 May 1803. The series of naval and colonial conflicts, including a large number of minor naval actions, resembled those of the French Revolutionary Wars and the preceding centuries of European warfare. Conflicts in the Caribbean, and in particular the seizure of colonial bases and islands throughout the wars, could potentially have some effect upon the European conflict. The Napoleonic conflict had reached the point at which subsequent historians could talk of a "world war". Only the Seven Years' War offered a precedent for widespread conflict on such a scale.
The final defeat of Napolean at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 by a coalition of British and European nations left Britain as Europe and the world's foremost global power.
The Victorian era of the United Kingdom is a term commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901 which signified the height of the British Empire.
When potato blight hit the island in 1846, the class of cottiers or farm labourers was virtually wiped out in what became known in Britain as 'The Irish Potato Famine'.
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 put the crisis on the political backburner for the duration of the war. The Unionist and Nationalist volunteer forces joined the British army in their thousands and suffered crippling losses in the trenches.
Northern Ireland was created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, enacted by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland parliament in 1921.
The period between the two World Wars was dominated by economic weakness known as the 'Great Depression'.
In 1939, after the German invasion of Poland. Hostilities with Japan began in 1941, after it attacked British colonies in Asia. The Axis powers were defeated by the Allies in 1945.
From the 1950s wore on, the UK had lost its place as a superpower and could no longer maintain its large Empire. This led to decolonization, and a withdrawal from almost all of its colonies by 1970.
Britain's control over its Empire loosened during the interwar period. Nationalism strengthened in other parts of the empire, particularly in India and in Egypt.
The 1990s saw the beginning of a period of continuous economic growth that lasted over 16 years and was greatly expanded under the New Labour government of Tony Blair following his landslide election victory in 1997.
