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History

Main article: History of the United Kingdom

The Battle of Waterloo marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the start of Pax Britannica.

The earliest known traces of human life in what is now the United Kingdom date back 700,000 years. However, the first settlement by modern humans is believed to have taken place by about 29,000 years ago, followed by a period of extinction resulting from Ice Age conditions and subsequent re-settlement begining about 14,700 years ago. Prehistoric Britain saw the introduction of farming in the 5th and 4th millenia BC, followed by a Bronze Age from the 3rd millenium to about 750BC. By the subsequent Iron Age, Britain had become populated by a patchwork of tribes belonging to a broadly Celtic culture (termed Insular), although the date and nature of the Celtic settlement is uncertain and subject to debate. In 43AD the Romans invaded Britain and conquered a territory extending in the north to a border which fluctuated between Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall. They named the province "Britannia", which remained a part of the Roman Empire for 400 years with a Romanized Celtic-Brythonic population, and called the northern-most part of the island "Caledonia", inhabited by the Picts (who, it is speculated, may also have been a Brythonic people). The Romans left Ireland largely untouched, which maintained a Celtic Gaelic culture.

From the 5th to 7th centuries, following the Roman departure, southern Britain was subject to invasion and setlement by Germanic peoples (often referred to collectively as Anglo-Saxons), establishing a number of petty kingdoms as far north as the Firth of Forth and assimilating or expelling the Romano-Britons. However, the Anglo-Saxons did not penetrate into what was to become Wales (where independent Brythonic kingdoms maintained their independence into the 13th century). At about the same time, Gaelic tribes from north eastern Ireland invaded and settled the north-west of Britain, and ultimately amalgamated with the indigenous Pictish tribes to form a Gaelicised Kingdom of Scotland by the 9th century. Likewise, by the 10th century the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had amalgamated into a unified Kingdom of England. From the 9th century, Britain and Ireland came under attack from Viking raiders from Scandinavia, who settled and established kingdoms in several regions, particularly northern and eastern England and western and northern Scotland.

In 1066 the Normans invaded and conquered England. The conquest had a profound effect not just on England, but subsequently also on Wales, Scotland and Ireland. In England, the Anglo-Saxon elite was replaced by the Norman conquerors who introduced Feudalism on the Northern French model. The Anglo-Normans maintained a separate language and identity to the Anglo-Saxon English for nearly 300 years but were ultmately assimilated, leaving a linguistic and cultural legacy. Following the conquest of England, the Normans seized most of southern Wales which became the fiefdom of the Marcher Lords. In the 12th century the Anglo-Normans invaded and partially conquered Ireland, although the Norman hold in the territory which would become Northern Ireland was weak ans soon reverted to Gaelic rule (and remained so until the 17th century). At the same time, by invitation of the Scots kings, Anglo-Normans migrated to southern and eastern Scotland to become influential and powerful land-holders there. In England, the Norman kings were succeeded in the 12th century by the Angevins (also known as Plantangenets) who held substantial territories in France. The Plantagenet kings ruled England for the rest of the medieval period, and undertook the conquest of the remainder of Wales in the 13th century and fought the Hundred Years War in France in an attempt to seize the French crown. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, Scotland, under the House of Dunkeld had been transformed from a Gaelic polity to one heavily influenced by Franco-Norman culture. With the death of the last Dunkeld monarch in 1296, the Plantagenets attempted but failed to subjugate Scotland and thereafter the Bruce and Stewart kings (both of Franco-Norman ancestry) ruled Scotland for the rest of the middle ages, a period when the Scots, in alliance with France, were in continuous conflict with England.

The rule of the Plantagenets in England ended with the intra-dynastic conflict of the Wars of the Roses and the assumption of the crown by the Tudor dynasty. Under the Tudors, the Renaissance developed in England with a particular emphasis on literature and music. In Scotland, the Renaissance led to a very great emphasis on education. The mid-16th century brought the Protestant Reformation to both England and Scotland with the adoption, after a period of conflict, of Anglicanism as the state religion of the former and Calvinism of the latter.

During this time England began to develop naval skills, and exploration  intensified.  In Scotland, at the same time, there was a flowering of Scottish culture with a particular emphasis on education. 

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union of 1800, by which the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were united as one. This union was preceded 94 years earlier by the creation of Great Britain as a single, united kingdom, which union may be taken to mark the beginning of a British history rather than that of related kingdoms.

On 1 May 1707, the united Kingdom of Great Britain was created by the political union of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. This was the result of the Treaty of Union agreed on 22 July 1706, and then ratified by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland, each passing an Act of Union in 1707. The kingdoms of England and Scotland, together with the kingdom of Ireland, had already been in a personal union as a result of the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI, King of Scots inherited the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and moved his court from Edinburgh to London. (Wales had previously been added to the English crown by conquest by the 13th century, and fully incorporated into the Kingdom of England by statute in the 16th century. Ireland had been partially conquered following the Anglo-Norman invasion in the 12th century and had been constituted as a kingdom in personal union with the English crown in 1542.) Until 1707, England, Scotland and Ireland remained separate political entities and retained their separate political institutions. Almost a century later the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain were united to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the passing of the Act of Union 1800. In this way, the United Kingdom became a single kingdom encompassing the British Isles. Disputes within Ireland over the terms of Irish Home Rule led eventually to the partition of the island in 1921, with Dominion status for the Irish Free State in 1922, while Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom. As a result, in 1927, the formal title of the United Kingdom was changed to its current form, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

In the 18th century, the United Kingdom played an important role in developing Western ideas of the parliamentary system as well as making significant contributions to literature, the arts, and science. The UK-led Industrial Revolution transformed the country and fuelled the growing British Empire. During this time the UK, like other great powers, was involved in colonial exploitation, including the Atlantic slave trade, although with the passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 the UK took a leading role in combating the trade in slaves.

Infantry of the Royal Irish Rifles during the Battle of the Somme. More than 885,000 British soldiers lost their lives on the battlefields of World War I.

After the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815), the UK emerged as the principal naval and economic power of the 19th century (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830 to 1930) and remained a foremost power into the mid 20th century. Beside Russia, France and (after 1917) the USA, the British were one of the major powers opposing Germany and its allies in World War I (1914–18). Engaged in much of its empire, several regions in Europe and increasingly taking a major role on the Western front, the armed forces grew to over five million people.

The nation suffered an estimated two and a half million casualties and finished the war with a huge national debt. After the war the United Kingdom received the League of Nations mandate over former German and Ottoman colonies and the British Empire had expanded to its greatest extent, covering a fifth of the world's land surface and a quarter of its population. The Great Depression (1929–32) occurred at a time when the UK was still far from having recovered from the effects of the war and led to hardship and political and social unrest.

The United Kingdom was one of the three main Allies of World War II. Following the defeat of its European allies in the first year of the war, the United Kingdom continued the fight against Germany, which took form in these years with the Battle of Britain. After the victory, the UK was one of the Big Three powers that met to plan the postwar world. The war left the United Kingdom financially damaged. However, Marshall Aid and loans taken from both the United States and Canada helped the UK on the road to recovery.

Territories that were at one time part of the British Empire. Current British Overseas Territories are underlined in red.

The immediate postwar years saw the establishment of the Welfare State, including comprehensive public health services. As a result of a shortage of workers, initial postwar policy was to bring in workers from Germany, Poland and throughout Europe. However, the Colonial office persuaded the British Government that it should offer employment to British subjects of the Commonwealth, creating a multiethnic Britain. Although the new postwar limits of Britain's political role were confirmed by the Suez Crisis of 1956, the international spread of the English language meant the continuing influence of its literature and culture, while from the 1960s its popular culture also found influence abroad. Following a period of global economic slowdown and industrial strife in the 1970s, 1984 saw the inflow of substantial North Sea oil revenues and economic growth.

Inequalities between the Protestant and Catholic groups in Northern Ireland, combined with fears among unionists of the claim by the Republic of Ireland to the whole island, led to a breakout of violence in 1966. Paramilitary groups were created by both sides, and after riots in Derry in 1969 the British Army was called in to try to maintain peace. On 24 March 1972 the Parliament of Northern Ireland was suspended, and Direct Rule was introduced from London. Eventually, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in November 1985, in which the Republic of Ireland acknowledged the United Kingdom's rule in the North in exchange for some say in governance. Negotiations eventually led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland reflecting the terms of a peace settlement supported by most of the main political parties. The Agreement, approved by referendums in both halves of Ireland, created a new Northern Ireland Assembly and a power-sharing executive. The constitution of the Republic was amended to replace a claim it made to the territory of Northern Ireland while also acknowledging the nationalist desire for a united Ireland. The IRA and most other armed organisations ended their activities and destroyed their weaponry.

The United Kingdom was one of the 12 founding members of the European Union at its launch in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Prior to that, it had been a member of the EU's forerunner, the European Economic Community (EEC), from 1973. The end of the 20th century saw major changes to the governance of the UK with the establishment of devolved national administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales following pre-legislative referendums.