Chapter 3: History — Set 1

William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066, ending Anglo-Saxon rule in England.

Magna Carta forced the king to rule within the law and consult his barons — a foundation of constitutional government.

Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, led a revolt against Roman rule in Britain around AD 60.

Emperor Hadrian ordered the wall across northern England to defend the Roman province from northern tribes.

Alfred the Great of Wessex defeated the Vikings and began uniting the English kingdoms.

Henry VIII's break with Rome led to the Reformation in England and the dissolution of the monasteries.

The Spanish Armada sent by Philip II of Spain was defeated in 1588.

Oliver Cromwell led Parliament's armies and ruled the Commonwealth as Lord Protector.

In 1801 Great Britain united with Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and in 1707 England and Scotland had joined to form Great Britain. England and Ireland did not unite in 1707, and in 1603 only the crowns were united under one monarch — England and Scotland remained separate states.

The Black Death killed roughly a third of England's people, creating labour shortages that weakened feudal ties.

Winston Churchill led Britain from 1940 to 1945 and rallied the country through the war.

The Representation of the People Act 1918 first gave some women the vote; equal voting age with men came in 1928.

Skara Brae on Orkney, off Scotland's north coast, is a remarkably well-preserved Stone Age village that shows how people lived near the end of that period.

Stonehenge stands on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire and was built in stages by early people in Britain as a ceremonial monument.

Farming reached Britain with settlers from south-east Europe about 6,000 years ago, gradually replacing the hunter-gatherer way of life.

Iron Age people were the first in Britain to mint coins, and the coins bore the names of their kings, showing how organised their societies had become.

Caesar's forces landed but withdrew, and Britain stayed outside the Roman Empire for almost another hundred years, until the invasion under Emperor Claudius in AD 43.

In AD 410 the Roman legions withdrew from Britain for good, to defend other parts of the Empire, leaving Britain to defend itself against new invaders.

Sent by the Pope, Augustine preached Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Vikings sailed from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, first raiding coastal sites and later settling across large parts of Britain.

English developed largely from Anglo-Saxon, the language of the Germanic settlers, blended with the Norman French brought by the conquerors after 1066. Latin was the language the Romans used for government and records in Britain, and Celtic languages were spoken across Iron Age Britain, but neither is one of the two main ingredients of English.

William sent officials across England to list settlements, who held the land and what animals they kept; the Domesday Book still survives as a picture of life just after the Conquest.

Robert the Bruce's victory at Bannockburn in 1314 secured Scotland's independence from England for centuries to come.

Despite its name, the Hundred Years War between England and France actually lasted 116 years, fought mainly over English claims to French territory.