Chapter 3: History — Set 6

At Bletchley Park, codebreakers read German military messages protected by the Enigma machine, giving Britain vital intelligence during the Second World War.

Alan Turing was central to cracking Enigma at Bletchley Park, designing machines to speed up the work, and he later became one of the founders of computer science.

Radar gave early warning that German air raids were on their way, and Spitfire fighters, designed under R. J. Mitchell, helped the RAF keep control of the skies. The bouncing bomb was not used until the Dambusters raid of 1943, and the Home Guard was a part-time volunteer force preparing to resist a land invasion — it played no part in the air battle.

The Home Guard was a volunteer, part-time force of men not serving in the regular forces, often older men, organised to help resist a German invasion.

Many of the weavers who settled in medieval England came from Flanders, in the Low Countries (modern-day Belgium), a region famous across Europe for its fine woollen cloth.

The Cavaliers were the Royalists — the supporters of Charles I in the Civil War, fighting against Parliament and its supporters, the Roundheads. Despite the similar name, they were not simply cavalry soldiers: 'Cavalier' was a nickname for the king's side as a whole.

Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982; Britain sent a naval task force to the South Atlantic and recovered the islands after a short war.

The Channel Tunnel was officially opened in 1994, giving Britain a fixed rail link with France for the first time.

As the last Ice Age ended, melting ice raised sea levels and flooded the land connection to the continent, separating Britain from mainland Europe about 10,000 years ago.

The wall ran for about 73 miles (roughly 117 kilometres), from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west.

The wall lies entirely within what is now England, some distance south of the modern Anglo-Scottish border; it marked the northern frontier of Roman Britain.

Boudicca was queen of the Iceni, a tribe based in what is now Norfolk, and she led their uprising against Roman rule.

Alfred is the only English king to be known by the title 'the Great', earned through his defence of his kingdom against the Vikings and his reforms.

In 793 Viking raiders attacked the wealthy monastery on Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian coast - a shock that announced the beginning of Viking raids on Britain.

At Sutton Hoo a great ship had been hauled ashore and buried beneath a mound, with a burial chamber full of treasures such as a famous helmet and gold ornaments.

William the Conqueror ordered the building of the White Tower, begun in the late 1070s, as a fortress to assert Norman power over London.

John met the barons at Runnymede, a meadow by the Thames near Windsor, and there sealed the Magna Carta in June 1215.

The rival houses were Lancaster, whose badge was a red rose, and York, whose badge was a white rose.

Wat Tyler led the Kentish rebels into London in 1381 and was fatally wounded during a confrontation with the Lord Mayor of London while meeting King Richard II.

With so few workers left alive, labourers could demand higher wages, and despite laws trying to hold wages down, many moved away to sell their labour where the pay was better.

By defeating Richard III at Bosworth in 1485, Henry VII founded the Tudor dynasty, which ruled England until 1603.

The Mary Rose sank in the Solent in July 1545, during a battle with a French invasion fleet, within sight of Henry VIII watching from the shore.

Mary was a Catholic claimant to Elizabeth's throne. Raised in France and a focus for Catholic hopes in England, she became the centre of plots against the Protestant Elizabeth — plots in which she was eventually implicated, leading to her execution in 1587.

Fawkes was found in the cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament, guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder the plotters had hidden there, and was arrested before the plot could be carried out.