Life in the UK Practice Test 29

Millicent Fawcett's Suffragists campaigned peacefully and lawfully for decades, using petitions and persuasion — unlike the Suffragettes, who turned to militant tactics.

The 1918 Act gave the vote to almost all men aged 21 and over, sweeping away most of the old property qualifications, as well as enfranchising women over 30 who met a property test.

Conscription was introduced for the first time in Britain by the Military Service Act of 1916, after voluntary recruitment could no longer meet the army's needs.

Returning from Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain claimed his agreement with Hitler meant 'peace for our time'; within a year Britain and Germany were at war.

El Alamein, fought in Egypt in 1942, halted the Axis advance in North Africa and marked a major turning point of the war in Britain's favour.

The BBC was founded in 1922 and began daily radio broadcasts from London that year; it later became a public corporation under a royal charter.

George VI died in February 1952 and was succeeded by his elder daughter, Elizabeth II, who was crowned the following year, in 1953.

In the 1975 referendum — two years after joining — voters chose by about two to one to stay in the European Community.

The miners' strike of 1984–85 pitted the National Union of Mineworkers against Margaret Thatcher's government over plans to close uneconomic coal pits.

Tony Blair led Labour to a landslide victory in 1997 and became Prime Minister, with his party presenting itself as 'New Labour'.

In 1642 Parliament, dominated by Puritans who disapproved of stage plays, ordered the London theatres to close; they stayed shut throughout the Civil War and Commonwealth years.

The Royal Society was founded in London in 1660, shortly after the Restoration, to promote scientific experiment and discussion.

Newton's Principia (1687) set out his three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, transforming the scientific understanding of the universe.

George I was Elector of Hanover in Germany and inherited the British throne in 1714 under the Act of Settlement because he was the nearest Protestant heir.

Raising the royal standard at Nottingham in August 1642 was Charles I's formal call to arms and is traditionally taken as the start of the Civil War.

The Puritan Parliament of the 1640s and 1650s banned Christmas celebrations, regarding them as frivolous and unbiblical; the festivities returned after the Restoration in 1660.

The false statement is the one about land ownership: in the feudal system the king owned all the land, and granted it to his barons, who passed some to knights below them, each man owing loyalty and service to the lord above him. The other statements are all true — King John sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, limiting royal power, and William the Conqueror's Domesday survey was completed in 1086.

The Acts of Union 1800, effective from 1 January 1801, united Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

James IV of Scotland was killed at Flodden in 1513, along with much of his nobility, after invading England while Henry VIII was campaigning in France.

St Columba founded his monastery on the small island of Iona off Scotland's west coast in about 563, and it became a great centre for spreading Christianity.

Cnut of Denmark conquered England and became its king in 1016, ruling until 1035 over an empire that also included Denmark and Norway.

English and Welsh longbowmen devastated the French at Crécy in 1346, demonstrating the power of the longbow that featured in English victories throughout the Hundred Years War.

More resigned as Chancellor and was executed in 1535 for refusing to swear the oath accepting Henry VIII, rather than the Pope, as head of the Church in England.

The Bank of England was founded in 1694, during the reign of William III, and grew into the country's central bank.