Chapter 3: History — Set 3

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Learning to produce it gave Bronze Age Britons stronger tools and weapons than stone alone could provide.

Caesar first landed in Britain in 55 BC and returned with a larger force in 54 BC, but these expeditions did not lead to a permanent Roman conquest.

The ending comes from 'castra', meaning a Roman army camp or fort — a sign that many of these towns began life as Roman military settlements.

Patrick was born in Britain and was kidnapped and taken to Ireland as a slave while still a boy. He later escaped, trained as a priest and returned as a missionary, becoming Ireland's patron saint.

Kenneth MacAlpin became king of both the Scots and the Picts in the 840s, uniting them into the kingdom that developed into Scotland.

Edward I's Statute of Rhuddlan applied English law and administration to Wales, tightening English control after his conquest of the Welsh princes.

The plague reached Britain in 1348 and spread rapidly, killing a very large share of the population within a few years.

The revolt was triggered by the poll tax, which charged the same amount to almost every adult regardless of wealth, and by attempts to keep wages and labourers under tight control.

John Knox led the Scottish Reformation. In 1560 Scotland broke with Rome and became a Protestant country, with Knox's preaching shaping its new church.

Mary, Queen of Scots was executed in 1587 after being implicated in plots against Elizabeth I, whose prisoner she had been for many years.

In 1603 the crowns were united: James ruled both Scotland and England, but each kingdom kept its own parliament, laws and church for another century.

Charles I ruled without Parliament for eleven years (1629–1640), raising money by other means — a major cause of the tensions that led to the Civil War.

Parliament's New Model Army crushed Charles I's army at Naseby in 1645, and Parliament's forces won a decisive victory at Marston Moor in 1644. Edgehill, in 1642, was the first major battle of the war and produced no decisive winner, while Sedgemoor was fought in 1685, when the Duke of Monmouth's rebels were destroyed by the royal army — long after the Civil War had ended.

The Great Plague of 1665–66, which killed tens of thousands in London, was Britain's last major plague epidemic.

The fire began in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane and, driven by wind through closely packed wooden buildings, destroyed much of the old City of London over several days.

The 1689 Bill of Rights limited royal power: the monarch could not suspend laws, raise taxes or maintain a standing army in peacetime without Parliament's consent.

The 1715 rising ('the Fifteen') tried to put James Edward Stuart — the 'Old Pretender', son of James II — on the throne in place of the Hanoverian George I.

Charles Edward Stuart's ('Bonnie Prince Charlie') army was destroyed at Culloden in April 1746, the last pitched battle fought on British soil, ending the Jacobite threat.

Wolfe's capture of Quebec in 1759, in which he was killed, was the turning point that led to British control of Canada.

Britain was defeated and recognised the independence of the thirteen American states, which became the United States of America.

The slave trade was abolished in 1807, making it illegal for British ships to carry enslaved people — though slavery itself continued in the colonies until the 1830s.

The 1833 Act made slavery itself illegal across most of the British Empire, freeing hundreds of thousands of enslaved people in the colonies.

The Chartists campaigned for political reform, above all votes for all men, along with secret ballots and payment for MPs so working men could afford to stand.

Nightingale exposed the appalling conditions in military hospitals during the Crimean War and transformed nursing and hospital hygiene, greatly reducing deaths among wounded soldiers.