United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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Capital: London Population projection, 2020: 66·70m. GNI per capita, 2014: (PPP$) 39,267 HDI/world rank, 2014: 0·907/14= Internet domain extension: .uk KEY HISTORICAL EVENTS Remains of Stone Age settlements of hunters and fishermen suggest that the first inhabitants crossed from the low countries of Continental Europe on one or more wide causeways. By the time their successors had turned to subsistence farming, the land links to the continent had disappeared under the sea. These offshore islands created at the ending of the Ice Age shared, with nearside Europe, a slowly evolving agricultural economy using bronze and iron tools. The Ancient Britons were Celts, whose ancestors had migrated from the valleys of the Rhine, the Rhône and the Danube. Having asserted their command of northern Italy and France (Gaul), the Celts established a bridgehead to Ireland and thence to Britain. By 600 BC they were the undisputed dominant force of Western Europe and were to remain so until challenged by the Romans.
Norman Conquest William, duke of Normandy, led the Norman Conquest and was crowned king in 1066. When William died in 1087 he left Normandy to his eldest son Robert, thus separating it from England. The French dialect known as Anglo-Norman was spoken by the ruling class in England for two centuries after the Conquest. The Norman heritage was preserved also in the overlap between French and English feudal lords. Henry II, the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty, was feudatory lord of half of France. But most of the French possessions were lost by Henry’s son John. Thereafter, the Norman baronage came to regard themselves as English. The ambitions of Edward III began and those of Henry V renewed the Hundred Years War (1338–1453) with France, which ended with the loss of all the remaining French possessions except Calais. The dynastic struggle between the rival houses of York and Lancaster was concluded by the invasion of Henry (VII) Tudor in 1485. His son, Henry VIII, asserted royal authority over the church and rejected papal authority. Tudor power reached its zenith with Elizabeth I, under whom Protestantism became firmly established in England. The Spanish Armada—an attempt by Catholic Spain to return England to the papal fold—was repelled in 1588. The accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne in 1603 brought the two countries into dynastic union. A struggle for supremacy between Crown and Parliament culminated in the Civil War, which started in 1642. Charles I was executed by Parliament in 1649, beginning the rule of Protector Oliver Cromwell. The Stuart monarchy was restored in 1660, on terms which conceded financial authority and thus decision-making power to Parliament. The attempt of James II, a Catholic, to restore the royal prerogative led to the intervention of William of Orange. James fled the country and the crown was taken by William (III) and his wife Mary as queen regnant. The accession of William involved England in a protracted war against France. The parliaments of England and Scotland were uni
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