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History of United Kingdom
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Nuclear tests in the South Pacific
Islands in the South Pacific were used extensively for nuclear tests between 1945 and 1995.
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British troops wading through the river at the Battle of Modder River, Nov. 28, 1899, during the South African War (1899–1902).
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Queen Victoria’s coronation, 1837.
The Print Collector/Heritage-Images
England during the Civil Wars.
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European penetration into western Africa in the late 19th century.
From J. Fage, An Atlas of African History; Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd.
Map depicting the member countries and partner countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Ancient Britain.
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Membership change, by county, in the House of Commons as a result of the Reform Act of 1832 (England only).
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The British battleship Queen Elizabeth leading the surrendering German fleet, November 21, 1918.
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British soldiers of the North Lancashire Regiment passing through liberated Cambrai, France, October 9, 1918.
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British troops passing through the ruins of Ypres, West Flanders, Belgium, September 29, 1918.
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Ecstatic crowds in London celebrating the end of the European phase of World War II, May 8, 1945.
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Overview of aerial bombardment in Europe during World War II, with a detailed discussion of the Battle of Britain.
Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz
Learn about the concurrent growth of the British Empire and the English language.
© Open University (A …
A newsreel from 1958 reporting on efforts to lower trade barriers between the United Kingdom and continental Europe.
Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library
Overview of the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, 1940.
Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz
Towering English figures in exploration, science, and the arts during the reign of Elizabeth I.
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Description of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
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Harold Macmillan discussing Britain’s position relative to the European Common Market, 1956.
Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library
An overview of the Great Famine in Ireland.
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“Britain’s H-Bomb,” newsreel on the test of Great Britain’s first thermonuclear weapon, May 15, 1957.
Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library
Overview of the Normandy Invasion.
Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz
Overview of Queen Victoria’s reign.
Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz
Overview of the Dominican Republic.
Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz
Women in the workplace in Britain during World War I.
Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library
“Keren Occupied,” Pathé Gazette newsreel following the defeat of Italian forces by the British near Keren, Eritria, March 26, 1941.
Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library
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in United Kingdom: Ancient Britain
Archaeologists working in Norfolk in the early 21st century discovered stone tools that suggest the presence of humans in Britain from about 800,000 to 1 million years ago. These startling discoveries underlined the extent to which archaeological research is responsible for any knowledge of Britain before the Roman conquest (begun ad 43). Britain’s ancient history is thus lacking in detail,...
in history of Europe: Nobles and gentlemen
...and the rest. In France, above knights and esquires without distinctive title, ranged barons, viscounts, counts, and marquises, until the summit was reached with dukes and princes of the blood. In Britain, by contrast, only peers of the realm, whether entitled duke, marquess, earl, or baron, had corporate status: numbering under 200, they enjoyed few special privileges beyond membership of the...
in history of Europe: Nobles and gentlemen
...the need for display (as could not be said of Louis XIV’s Versailles) or where a wise patron put his trust in the reputedly best architect, art could triumph. Civilizing trends were prominent, as in England, where there was a free intellectual life. New money, as lavished by the duke of Chandos, builder of the great house of Canons and patron of the composer George Frideric Handel, could be...
in history of Europe: The middle 19th century
To be sure, this patriotic union of hearts did not mean agreement on the details of future political states, and the same disunion existed to the west, in England and France, where liberals, only half satisfied by the compromises of 1830 and 1832, felt the push of new radical demands from the socialists, communists, and anarchists. Reinforcing these pressures was the unrest caused by...
in history of Europe: Britain
The Marquês de Pombal was inspired by what he had seen in London, and it was in Great Britain (as it became after the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707) that the entrepreneurial spirit was least restricted and most influential in government and society. By the accession of James I in 1603, there had already been a significant divergence from the Continental pattern. The 17th century saw...
in balance of power
...term balance of power came into use to denote the power relationships in the European state system from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War I. Within the European balance of power, Great Britain played the role of the “balancer,” or “holder of the balance.” It was not permanently identified with the policies of any European nation, and it would throw its...
in Christian Socialism
...Socialism was first appropriated by a group of British men including Frederick Denison Maurice, novelist Charles Kingsley, John Malcolm Ludlow, and others, who founded a movement that took shape in England immediately after the failure of the Chartist agitation of 1848. Their general purpose was to vindicate for “the Kingdom of Christ” its “true authority over the realms of...
in Cold War: Origins of the Cold War
Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 near the close of World War II, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel. By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. The Americans and the British feared the...
in 20th-century international relations: The economic battle with Communism
The Marshall Plan was born in the State Department in response to the fact that western Europe was making little progress toward prosperity and stability. Britain was exhausted and committed to the Labour government’s extensive welfare programs. In France, Charles de Gaulle’s postwar government quickly gave way to a Fourth Republic paralyzed by quarreling factions that included a large,...
in 20th-century international relations: Great Britain and decolonization
The Suez crisis of 1956, followed by Soviet space successes and rocket-rattling after 1957, dealt serious blows to the morale of western Europe. Given the potential of the war scares over Berlin to fracture NATO, the United States had to reassure its allies and try to satisfy their demands for greater influence in alliance policy. American efforts largely succeeded in the case of Britain, an...
in Berlin blockade and airlift
international crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union, in 1948–49, to force the Western Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) to abandon their post-World War II jurisdictions in West Berlin. In March 1948 the Allied powers decided to unite their different occupation zones of Germany into a single economic unit. In protest, the Soviet...
in Truman Doctrine
...under pressure from Soviet expansion in the Mediterranean area. As the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power during the Cold War that followed World War II, Great Britain announced that it could no longer afford to aid those Mediterranean countries, which the West feared were in danger of falling under Soviet influence. The U.S. Congress responded to a message...
in British Empire
a worldwide system of dependencies— colonies, protectorates, and other territories—that over a span of some three centuries was brought under the sovereignty of the crown of Great Britain and the administration of the British government. The policy of granting or recognizing...
in Afghanistan War: Iraq takes centre stage
...United States consistently represented the largest foreign force in Afghanistan, and it bore the heaviest losses. By spring 2010 more than 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Afghanistan, while the British troops suffered some 300 deaths and the Canadians some 150. Both Britain and Canada stationed their troops in Afghanistan’s south, where fighting had been most intense. More than 20 other...
in Afghanistan War: Prelude to the September 11 attacks
The joint U.S. and British invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 was preceded by over two decades of war in Afghanistan. On Dec. 24, 1979, Soviet tanks rumbled across the Amu Darya River and into Afghanistan, ostensibly to restore stability following a coup that brought to power a pair of Marxist-Leninist political groups—the People’s (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party. But the...
in Afghanistan War: The September 11 attacks and the U.S.-British invasion
The hijacking and crashing of four U.S. jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, brought instant attention to Afghanistan. The plot had been hatched by al-Qaeda, and some of the 19 hijackers had trained in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the attacks, the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush coalesced around a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda, though...
in Alabama claims
maritime grievances of the United States against Great Britain, accumulated during and after the American Civil War (1861–65). The claims are significant in international law for furthering the use of arbitration to settle disputes peacefully and for delineating certain responsibilities of neutrals toward belligerents. The dispute centred on the Confederate cruiser Alabama, built...
in Afrīdī
British encounters with the Afrīdīs began during the first Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42), notably when General George Pollock fought against them during his march to Kabul. After the British annexation of the Punjab in 1849, various methods were tried to keep the Khyber Pass open, including allowances, punitive expeditions such as those of 1878 and 1879 against the Kohāt...
in Argentina: Independence
In Argentina the independence movement began in 1806–07, when British attacks on Buenos Aires were repelled in the two battles known as the Reconquista and the Defensa. Also important there, as elsewhere in Spanish America, were the ramifications of Napoleon I’s intervention in Spain, beginning in 1808, which plunged that country into a civil war between two rival governments—one...
in War of the Austrian Succession
...constructed an alliance with Bavaria and Spain and, later, with Saxony and Prussia against Austria. The Austrian ruler Maria Theresa (daughter of Charles VI) derived her main foreign support from Britain, which feared that, if the French achieved hegemony in Europe, the British commercial and colonial empire would be untenable. Thus, the War of the Austrian Succession was, in part, one phase...
in Battle of the Dunes
(June 14, 1658), during the Franco-Spanish War of 1648–59, a victory of French and British forces led by Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, over Spanish forces near Dunkirk (then just north of the French frontier in the Spanish Netherlands). The victory led to the surrender of Dunkirk by Spain and eventually to the conclusion of the war with the Peace of the Pyrenees between...
in Bering Sea Dispute
dispute between the United States, on the one hand, and Great Britain and Canada, on the other, over the international status of the Bering Sea. In an attempt to control seal hunting off the Alaskan coast, the United States in 1881 claimed authority over all the Bering Sea waters. Britain refused to recognize this claim. In 1886 the U.S. government ordered the seizure of all vessels found...
in Bloody Sunday (Northern Ireland [1972])
...fire, killing 13 and injuring 14 others (one of the injured later died). Bloody Sunday precipitated an upsurge in support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which advocated violence against the United Kingdom to force it to withdraw from Northern Ireland. The incident remained a source of controversy for decades, with competing accounts of the events. In June 2010 the Saville Report, the...
in Channel Islands (islands, English Channel)
...Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Lihou, and Brecqhou are Guernsey’s dependencies, and the Ecrehous rocks and Les Minquiers are Jersey’s. The last two were the source of long-standing dispute between England and France until 1953, when the International Court of Justice confirmed British sovereignty. In the late 20th century the dispute revived, as sovereignty of these islands determines...
in British Empire
a worldwide system of dependencies— colonies, protectorates, and other territories—that over a span of some three centuries was brought under the sovereignty of the crown of Great Britain and the administration of the British government. The policy of granting or recognizing...
...of the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “
Charge of the Light Brigade.
” In this battle, the Russians failed to capture Balaklava, the Black Sea supply port of the British, French, and Turkish forces in the southern Crimea; but the British lost control of their best supply road connecting Balaklava with the heights above Sevastopol, the major Russian naval...
in Crimean War
(October 1853–February 1856), war fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support from January 1855 by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman...
in Siege of Sevastopol
(Oct. 17, 1854–Sept. 11, 1855), the major operation of the Crimean War (1853–56), in which 50,000 British and French troops (joined by 10,000 Piedmontese troops during 1855), commanded by Lord Raglan and Gen. François Canrobert, besieged and finally captured the main naval base of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Sevastopol’s defenses had been built by the military engineer...
in Denmark: Foreign policy
...Denmark-Norway acquired an important merchant marine and a navy. Freedom of the seas had become a vital issue and a difficult problem, complicated especially by the export of Norwegian timber to Great Britain. During wars in the middle of the century, Denmark-Norway had to bow to the British claim of ruling the waves. In 1780, during the American Revolution (1775–83), the Danish...
in Denmark: The Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath
...of peace for Denmark and Norway that had lasted since the 1720s. The armed neutrality treaty of 1794 between Denmark and Sweden, which Russia and Prussia joined in 1800, was considered hostile by Great Britain. In 1801 British navy ships entered The Sound and destroyed much of the Danish fleet in a battle in the Copenhagen harbour. When the British fleet next proceeded to threaten the Swedish...
in Easter Rising
Irish republican insurrection against British government in Ireland, which began on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, in Dublin. The insurrection was planned by Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, and several other leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which was a revolutionary society within the nationalist organization called the Irish Volunteers; the latter had about 16,000 members and was armed...
in Essex (county, New York, United States)
From the early 17th to the early 19th century, control over Lake Champlain was the prize in a struggle between the Indians, the French, the British, and the Americans. At the fortifications in Crown Point, the British dislodged the French (August 4, 1759), who in turn were ousted by the Green Mountain Boys (May 11, 1775). Similarly, Fort Ticonderoga was held by the French (1755–59) and...
in Tewodros II
His modernization program, however, failed. Several incidents in the 1860s, including a letter to Queen Victoria that remained unanswered, led Tewodros to feel insulted by England. When he imprisoned several British missionaries and envoys, accusing them of plotting against him, Great Britain sent the Napier expedition (1867–68) to rescue the prisoners. Aided by rebellious nobles along...
in Ethiopia: Tewodros II (1855–68)
...returned to rebellion. The emperor held Ethiopia together only through coercion. In 1861 he conceived a bold foreign policy to bolster his kingdom and promote his reforms. In 1862 Tewodros offered Britain’s Queen Victoria an alliance to destroy Islam. The British ignored the scheme, and, when no response came, Tewodros imprisoned the British envoy and other Europeans. This diplomatic incident...
in Argentina: Galtieri and the Falklands War
...of Chile. (In 1979 the matter had again gone into negotiation, this time under Vatican auspices, and in 1984 Chile was awarded sovereignty.) In February 1982 Argentina increased pressure on the United Kingdom to relinquish the Falkland Islands. With popular support at home, Argentine troops landed on the Falklands and South Georgia island in early April, overcame the British Royal Marines...
in 20th-century international relations: Marxism and the Cuban role
...abuses of his dictatorship and an ailing economy at home—broke off talks concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and invaded the remote archipelago in April 1982. The British government of Margaret Thatcher was taken by surprise but began at once to mobilize supplies, ships, and men to reconquer the islands some 8,000 miles from home. The United States was torn...
in naval warfare: The age of the guided missile
On a smaller scale than the U.S.-Soviet naval competition, the Falkland Islands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982 exhibited the tactical environment of sea-based forces fighting land-based forces in the guided-missile era. In this, the only extended naval campaign after World War II, were observed several modern influences on naval combat. First, submarines were formidable...
in French Revolution: Counterrevolution, regicide, and the Reign of Terror
In the spring of 1793, the war entered a third phase, marked by new French defeats. Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain formed a coalition (later called the First Coalition), to which most of the rulers of Europe adhered. France lost Belgium and the Rhineland, and invading forces threatened Paris. These reverses, as those of 1792 had done, strengthened the extremists. The Girondin leaders were...
in French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars: Monarchies at war with the French Republic
...Kellermann turned back an invading Prussian-Austrian force at Valmy, and by November the French had occupied all of Belgium. Early in 1793 Austria, Prussia, Spain, the United Provinces, and Great Britain formed the first of seven coalitions that would oppose France over the next 23 years. In response to reverses at the hands of the First Coalition, the Revolutionary government declared a levy...
in law of war: Neutrals
...troops belonging to the army of a belligerent state who enter the territory of a neutral must be interned. Also, a neutral must act evenhandedly to all belligerent states; for this reason, the United Kingdom declared its neutrality in the war between Iran and Iraq (1980–88), refusing to sell either side military equipment that would have significantly enhanced its capability to...
in King William’s War
(1689–97), North American extension of the War of the Grand Alliance, waged by William III of Great Britain and the League of Augsburg against France under Louis XIV. Canadian and New England colonists divided in support of their mother countries and, together with their respective Indian allies, assumed primary responsibility for their own defense. The British, led by Sir William Phips,...
in Battle of Lundy’s Lane
(July 25, 1814), engagement fought a mile west of Niagara Falls, ending a U.S. invasion of Canada during the War of 1812. After defeating the British in the Battle of Chippewa on July 5, 1814, U.S. troops under General Jacob Brown established themselves at Queenston. On the night of July 24–25, a British force under General Phineas Riall moved forward to Lundy’s Lane. On the 25th he was...
in Libya: Revolt in 2011
On March 27 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officially took over command of military operations in Libya from the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. The handover came after several days of debate among NATO countries over the limits of international military intervention; several countries argued that the coalition’s aggressive targeting of pro-Qaddafi ground forces...
in Malayan Emergency
After World War II the Federation of Malaya was formed through the unification of several former British territories, including Sabah and Sarawak. The negotiations included special guarantees of rights for Malays (including the position of sultans) and the establishment of a colonial government. These developments angered the Communist Party of Malaya, an organization that was composed largely...
in Mexico: French intervention
...economic situation afforded Napoleon III the perfect opportunity to implement his scheme. The Juárez government had a huge foreign debt, and in 1861 it suspended all payments to Spain, Britain, and France. The three European powers prepared to send a punitive expedition to Mexico. The intervention was spearheaded by Spain, the forces of which landed at Veracruz on Dec. 14, 1861,...
in Moroccan crises
In 1904 France had concluded a secret treaty with Spain partitioning Morocco and had also agreed not to oppose Britain’s moves in Egypt in exchange for a free hand in Morocco. Germany, however, insisted upon an open-door policy in the area; and, in a dramatic show of imperial power, the emperor William II visited Tangier and, from his yacht on March 31, 1905, declared for Morocco’s independence...
in Paraguay: Paraguay’s conflicts with its neighbours
...was threatened by a major Brazilian naval expedition on the Paraná River in 1855. In 1858 a large flotilla of the U.S. Navy appeared to force a solution to a complex diplomatic issue, but British war vessels captured and held for a time the flagship of the small Paraguayan navy. In most of those contretemps, López was forced to give in, and the consequent humiliation lent...
in Peninsular War
Napoleon’s pact with Russia at Tilsit (July 7, 1807) left him free to turn his attention toward Britain and toward Sweden and Portugal, the two powers that remained allied or friendly to Britain. Russia, it was decided, would deal with Sweden, while Napoleon, allied to Spain since 1796, summoned (July 19) the Portuguese “to close their ports to the British and declare war on...
in Russia: Foreign policy
...he underestimated Japan’s resolution and power. The British government, fearing that Russia would be able to establish domination over the Chinese government and so interfere with the interests of Britain in other parts of China, made an alliance with Japan in January 1902. Negotiations between Russia and Japan continued, but they were insincere on both sides. On the night of January 26/27...
in Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: The Civil War and the creation of the U.S.S.R.
...became the dictator of the territories where it was deployed. Several smaller White armies came into being in the northwest, the north, and the Far East. All were in varying measures supported by Great Britain with money and war matériel. The Allied intervention was initially inspired by the desire to reactivate the Eastern Front, but after the Armistice it lost its clear purpose, and...
in Iraq: The Iraq War
The international community soon differed on the degree of Iraq’s cooperation. Initial inspections were inconclusive, though a small block of countries led by the United States and the United Kingdom argued that Iraq had resorted to its earlier practices, that it was willfully hindering inspection efforts, and that, given the large volume of material unaccounted for from previous inspections,...
in Iraq War
...conflict in Iraq that consisted of two phases. The first of these was a brief, conventionally fought war in March–April 2003, in which a combined force of troops from the United States and Great Britain (with smaller contingents from several other countries) invaded Iraq and rapidly defeated Iraqi military and paramilitary forces. It was followed by a longer second phase in which a...
in Seven Years’ War
...major conflict before the French Revolution to involve all the great powers of Europe. Generally, France, Austria, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia were aligned on one side against Prussia, Hanover, and Great Britain on the other. The war arose out of the attempt of the Austrian Habsburgs to win back the rich province of Silesia, which had been wrested from them by Frederick II (the Great) of...
in aggression
...1933, between Greece and its neighbours in 1947, between the Netherlands and Indonesia in 1947, between India and Pakistan in 1948, between Israel and its neighbours in 1949, between Israel, Great Britain, France, and Egypt in 1956, and between Israel, Jordan, and Egypt in 1970. None of these states was at the time declared an aggressor. On the other hand, Japan was found to be an aggressor in...
in Suez Crisis
...law in the canal zone and seizing control of the Suez Canal Company, predicting that the tolls collected from ships passing through the canal would pay for the dam’s construction within five years. Britain and France feared that Nasser might close the canal and cut off shipments of petroleum flowing from the Persian Gulf to western Europe. When diplomatic efforts to settle the crisis failed,...
in 20th-century international relations: The Suez Crisis
...East, efface Israel, and restore Islāmic grandeur. Egypt began sponsoring acts of violence against Israel from the Gaza Strip and cut off shipping through the Strait of Tīrān. The British were understandably hostile to Nasser, as were the French, who were battling Islāmic nationalists in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
in Afghanistan: Struggle for democracy
...The Taliban refused repeated U.S. demands to extradite bin Laden and his associates and to dismantle terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan. Within weeks of the attacks, the United States and Britain launched an intensive bombing campaign against the Taliban and provided significant logistical support to Northern Alliance forces in an attempt to force the regime to yield to its demands....
in Battle of Trafalgar
(Oct. 21, 1805), naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, which established British naval supremacy for more than 100 years; it was fought west of Cape Trafalgar, Spain, between Cádiz and the Strait of Gibraltar. A fleet of 33 ships (18 French and 15 Spanish) under Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve fought a British fleet of 27 ships under Admiral Horatio Nelson.
in Trent Affair
(1861), incident during the American Civil War involving the doctrine of freedom of the seas, which nearly precipitated war between Great Britain and the United States. On Nov. 8, 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes, commanding the Union frigate San Jacinto, seized from the neutral British ship Trent two Confederate commissioners, James Murray Mason and John Slidell, who were seeking...
in Venezuela: The reigns of Guzmán Blanco and Crespo
...October 1892 Crespo seized power. His six-year rule was troubled by continued political turmoil, growing economic difficulties, and the nation’s first serious diplomatic problem—a dispute with Great Britain over the boundary between eastern Venezuela and western British Guiana. This virtually uninhabited wilderness territory, in which gold was discovered in 1877, had been the object of...
in Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
...encroachments along the northern shore of the Río de la Plata. Spain also wanted to curtail contraband trade between Portuguese Brazil and Buenos Aires. In addition, by the 1760s the British had made clear their intention to take the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands. Although Spain pressured the British out of temporary possession of the islands, the need for greater military control...
in blackface minstrelsy
...whose material caricatured the singing and dancing of slaves. The form reached the pinnacle of its popularity between 1850 and 1870, when it enjoyed sizeable audiences in both the United States and Britain. Although blackface minstrelsy gradually disappeared from the professional theatres and became purely a vehicle for amateurs, its influence endured in later entertainment genres and media,...
in dentistry: Development of dentistry in Europe
English dentistry did not advance as far as French dentistry in the 18th century. The guild that had united the barbers and surgeons was dissolved in 1745, with the surgeons going their own way. Some barbers continued their dental ministrations and were designated “tooth drawers.” A second group, as a result of the French influence, referred to themselves as “dentists,”...
in dentistry: Dentistry in 19th-century Europe
In Britain, dentistry was also coming of age. In 1856 English dentist Sir John Tomes led the formation of the first dental organization in England, the Odontological Society. It was through the activity of this group that the Royal Dental Hospital of London was established in 1858. In opposition to the Odontological Society, a group of dental professionals formed the College of Dentists of...
in devolution (government and politics)
Devolution became a major political issue in the United Kingdom beginning in the early 1970s. Many people in Scotland and Wales began demanding greater control over their own affairs, a trend reflected in a rise in support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales). In 1979 the Labour Party government, supported by the SNP and Plaid Cymru as well as the Liberal...
in duke: The British Isles
There were no English ducal titles (the duchies of Normandy and Aquitaine held by the English kings being, of course, French fiefs) until 1337, when Edward III erected the county of Cornwall into a duchy for his son Edward, the Black Prince. There followed the duchies of Lancaster (1351), Clarence (1362), York (1385), Gloucester (1385), Bedford (1st creation; 1413), and Somerset (1st creation;...
in bank (finance): The origins of central banking
The Bank of England, founded in 1694 for the purpose of advancing £1.2 million to the British government to fund its war against France, eventually became the world’s most powerful and influential financial institution. It was the first public bank to assume most of the characteristics of modern central banks, including acceptance, by the late 19th century, of an official role in...
in Bodø Affair
(1818–21), a diplomatic scandal involving Sweden-Norway (then a dual monarchy) and Great Britain. The affair arose over the illegal trading activities of an English company in the Norwegian port of Bodø, where Norwegian officials in 1818 seized a large cargo belonging to the company and arrested one of its owners, who later escaped. The Stockholm foreign ministry, which handled the...
in Canton system
trading pattern that developed between Chinese and foreign merchants, especially British, in the South China trading city of Guangzhou (Canton) from the 17th to the 19th century. The major characteristics of the system developed between 1760 and 1842, when all foreign trade coming into China was confined to Canton and the foreign traders entering the city were subject to a series of...
in Chinese Pidgin English
a modified form of English used as a trade language between the British and the Chinese, first in Canton, China, and later in other Chinese trade centres (e.g., Shanghai). Although some scholars speculate that Chinese Pidgin English may be based on an earlier Portuguese pidgin used in Macao from the late 16th century (as evidenced by certain words seemingly derived from Portuguese rather than...
in Continental System
in the Napoleonic wars, the blockade designed by Napoleon to paralyze Great Britain through the destruction of British commerce. The decrees of Berlin (November 21, 1806) and Milan (December 17, 1807) proclaimed a blockade: neutrals and French allies were not to trade with the British.
in fiscal crisis
This ideological assault on big government was led by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. Such thinking was given powerful credence by the fiscal crises and growing economic and political instability experienced in several major industrialized economies. This was most evident in the United Kingdom when, in September 1976, Chancellor of the Exchequer...
in opium trade
in Chinese history, the traffic that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries in which Western countries, mostly Great Britain, exported opium grown in India and sold it to China. The British used the profits from the sale of opium to purchase such Chinese luxury goods as porcelain, silk, and tea, which were in great demand in the West.
in history of Europe: Planning the peace
...the United States had advanced some $46 billion in nonrepayable “lend-lease” loans. When the war ended, so did lend-lease—to be replaced by huge stopgap loans on ordinary terms. Britain received $3.75 billion, but only on condition that it make sterling freely convertible. As soon as it did, there was a run on the pound. The entire loan, it was reckoned, would have melted...
in South Sea Bubble
the speculation mania that ruined many British investors in 1720. The bubble, or hoax, centred on the fortunes of the South Sea Company, founded in 1711 to trade (mainly in slaves) with Spanish America, on the assumption that the War of the Spanish Succession, then drawing to a close, would end with a treaty permitting such trade. The company’s stock, with a guaranteed interest of 6 percent,...
in Suez Canal: Finance
The Suez Canal Company had been incorporated as an Egyptian joint-stock company with its head office in Paris. Despite much early official coolness, even hostility, on the part of Great Britain, Lesseps was anxious for international participation and offered shares widely. Only the French responded, however, buying 52 percent of the shares; of the remainder, 44 percent was taken up by...
in history of Latin America: The independence of Latin America
...1795, it set off a series of developments that opened up economic and political distance between the Iberian countries and their American colonies. By siding with France, Spain pitted itself against England, the dominant sea power of the period, which used its naval forces to reduce and eventually cut communications between Spain and the Americas. Unable to preserve any sort of monopoly on...
in enclosure
In England the movement for enclosure began in the 12th century and proceeded rapidly in the period 1450–1640, when the purpose was mainly to increase the amount of full-time pasturage available to manorial lords. Much enclosure also occurred in the period from 1750 to 1860, when it was done for the sake of agricultural efficiency. By the end of the 19th century the process of the...
in history of Europe: The peasantry
...survived in varying degrees of rigour, with an array of dues and services representing seigneurial rights. It was a regime that about half of Europe’s inhabitants had known since the Middle Ages. In England all but a few insignificant forms had gone, though feudal spirit lingered in deference to the squire. Enclosures were reducing the yeoman to the condition of a tenant farmer or, for most, a...
in diplomatics: Post-Renaissance scholarship
...of the 20th century were Michael Tangl, Rudolf von Heckel, and, particularly, Paul Fridolin Kehr. In comparison with the amount of work done in France and Germany, historical scholarship in England long paid relatively little attention to legal, as opposed to literary, records. Although John Mitchell Kemble published his collection of Anglo-Saxon documents, the Codex Diplomaticus...
in Industrial Revolution: The first Industrial Revolution
In the period 1760 to 1830 the Industrial Revolution was largely confined to Britain. Aware of their head start, the British forbade the export of machinery, skilled workers, and manufacturing techniques. The British monopoly could not last forever, especially since some Britons saw profitable industrial opportunities abroad, while continental European businessmen sought to lure British...
in history of Europe: Economic effects
In this context an outright industrial revolution took shape, led by Britain, which retained leadership in industrialization well past the middle of the 19th century. In 1840, British steam engines were generating 620,000 horsepower out of a European total of 860,000. Nevertheless, though delayed by the chaos of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, many western European nations soon...
in modernization: The dual revolution
If the American and French revolutions laid down the political pattern of the modern world, the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain laid down the economic pattern. It also brought revolutionary changes to society. The share of men employed in agriculture fell from 60 percent to about 25 percent, while the share of those employed in industry rose from less than 20 percent to nearly 50...
in history of Europe: Innovation and development
As those names suggest, Britain was the country that experienced the breakthrough to higher levels of production. The description “Industrial Revolution” is misleading if applied to the economy as a whole, but innovations in techniques and organization led to such growth in iron, woolens, and, above all, cotton textiles in the second half of the 18th century that Britain established...
in history of Europe: The old industrial order
...advances large enough to justify investment in machinery. Starting with the Lombe brothers’ silk mills, their exploitation of secrets acquired from Italy (1733), and John Kaye’s flying shuttle, British inventions set textile production on a dizzy path of growth. Abraham Darby’s process of coke smelting was perhaps the most important single improvement, since it liberated the iron founder...
in history of Arabia: Omani expansion
During the 18th century the growth of the East India Company and British paramountcy in India began to affect Arabian politics and commerce most directly in the southern coastal region, while the interior was little concerned at first. Coastal Arabia now came fully into the world economy through commerce in coffee, slaves, pearls, and dates and the continuing pilgrimage to Mecca. Oman, Iran,...
in Roca-Runciman Agreement
a three-year trade pact between Argentina and Great Britain, signed in May 1933, that guaranteed Argentina a fixed share in the British meat market and eliminated tariffs on Argentine cereals. In return, Argentina agreed to restrictions with regard to trade and currency exchange, and it preserved Britain’s commercial interests in the country. It was signed in London by Argentine Vice Pres....
in John Winston Howard
...peacekeeping mission to end fighting between pro-Indonesian forces and island nationalists. In November 1999 a referendum was held to determine whether Australia would cut its historic ties to the United Kingdom and become a republic with a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of Parliament. The referendum failed to carry, and Howard, who had opposed it, was vindicated.
in Austria: New conflicts with the Turks and the Bourbons
...to find an alternative to trade with Dutch and British colonial markets in the vast transatlantic empire of Spain. In 1725 Charles entered into an alliance with Spain, whereupon France, Great Britain, and Prussia formed a rival alliance. But soon after Russia was won over to the Habsburg cause, Prussia changed sides. As the outbreak of a European war seemed imminent, attempts were made at...
in Austria: Allied occupation
...to the U.S.S.R.), control machinery was set up for the administration of Austria, giving supreme political and administrative powers to the military commanders of the four occupying armies (U.S., British, French, and Soviet). In September 1945 a conference of representatives of all states extended the authority of the Renner government to all parts of Austria.
in Austria: Seven Years’ War, 1756–63
...reconquest of Silesia. The result in 1756 was the “reversal of alliances,” a treaty system intended to isolate Prussia. With the two sets of irreconcilable enemies being France and Great Britain on the one hand and Prussia and Austria on the other, the reversal refers to Austria’s abandoning Great Britain as an ally in favour of France and Prussia’s abandoning France as an ally in...
in Austria: Anschluss and World War II
...regard the restoration of an independent Austrian republic as an essential part of the postwar order in central Europe. In October 1943, at a meeting in Moscow of the foreign ministers of Great Britain, the U.S.S.R., and the United States, a declaration was published that declared the Anschluss null and void and pledged the Allies to restore Austrian independence; it also reminded the...
in Austria: International relations: the Balkan orientation
...war won, the Russians did not content themselves with Bessarabia and, in the Treaty of San Stefano, violated Austria-Hungary’s Balkan interests by creating a large independent Bulgaria. Having Great Britain as an ally in his opposition to the Russian advance in southeastern Europe and Bismarck as an “honest broker,” Andrássy managed at the Congress of Berlin in July 1878 to...
in Austria: Foreign policy, 1878–1908
...complete isolation of France and obliged the major European powers to guarantee the status quo along the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The First and Second Mediterranean Agreements of 1887 joined Great Britain to the powers (Austria-Hungary and Italy) interested in blocking Russia from the Straits and enabled Kálnoky to abandon direct agreements with Russia. The Three Emperors’ League...
in China: U.S. aid to China
...Chinese air force, maintain an efficient line of communications into China, and arm 30 divisions. Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii brought the United States into alliance with China, and Great Britain joined the Pacific war as its colonial possessions were attacked. This widening of the Sino-Japanese conflict lifted Chinese morale, but its other early effects were harmful. With the...
in China: International relations
...disputes and encouraged the peaceful evolution of events in Asia. China adopted a policy of “one country, two systems” in order to provide a framework for the successful negotiation with Great Britain for the return of Hong Kong and adjacent territories in 1997 and with Portugal for the return of Macau in 1999; both were given special administrative status. Furthermore, China became...
in Germany: Foreign policy, 1890–1914
...and east-central and southwestern Africa—all territories of limited economic value—hardly seemed to justify the enormous expenditures on the navy. Moreover, Tirpitz’s plans alienated Britain. Germany already had the most powerful army in the world when it fastened on becoming a great naval power. The British found this threatening and negotiated an alliance with Japan in 1902 and...
in Germany: Allied occupation and the formation of the two Germanys, 1945–49
For purposes of occupation, the Americans, British, French, and Soviets divided Germany into four zones. The American, British, and French zones together made up the western two-thirds of Germany, while the Soviet zone comprised the eastern third. Berlin, the former capital, which was surrounded by the Soviet zone, was placed under joint four-power authority but was partitioned into four...
in Greece: Western encroachments
...was attended by the rhetoric of revolutionary liberation, soon gave way to a short-lived Russo-Turkish condominium, a further period of French rule, and finally, after 1815, the establishment of a British protectorate. Although governed like a colony, the Ionian Islands under British rule, in theory, constituted an independent state and an example of free Greek soil, adjacent to but not under...
in Greece: The Metaxas regime and World War II
...Greek Democratic Army (Ellinikós Dímokratikos Ethnikós Strátos; EDES), opposed—as did EAM-ELAS—the return of the king upon liberation. With the support of a British military mission, the guerrillas engaged in some spectacular acts of resistance, most notably the destruction in November 1942 of the Gorgopotamos viaduct, which carried the railway line from...
in Baghdad: Beginnings of modernization
In the 19th century European influence grew in Baghdad with the establishment of French religious orders and increased European trade. In 1798 a permanent British diplomatic residency was established there, and the British residents soon acquired a power and prestige second only to that of the governor.
in Iraq: The fall of the Mamlūks and the consolidation of British interests
Britain’s influence in Iraq had received a major boost in 1798 when Süleyman Paşa gave permission for a permanent British agent to be appointed in Baghdad. This increasing European penetration and the restoration of direct Ottoman rule, accompanied by military, administrative, and other reforms, are the dominant features of 19th-century Iraqi history. The last Mamlūk governor...
in Iraq: British occupation and the mandatory regime
Merging the three provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Al-Baṣrah into one political entity and creating a nation out of the diverse religious and ethnic elements inhabiting these lands were accomplished after World War I. Action undertaken by the British military authorities during the war and the upsurge of nationalism afterward helped determine the shape of the new Iraqi state and the...
in Islamic world: The rise of British colonialism to the end of the Ottoman Empire
The many efforts to revive and resist were largely unsuccessful. By 1818 British hegemony over India was complete, and many other colonies and mandates followed between then and the aftermath of World War I. Not all Muslim territories were colonized, but nearly all experienced some kind of dependency, be it psychological, political, technological, cultural, or economic. Perhaps only the Saudi...
in Islamic world: Islamist movements from the 1960s
...by Nasserist Egypt—had led only to barbarity. Quṭb’s ideology was also influenced by Abū al-Aʿlā al-Mawdūdī (1903–79), founder in British India in 1941 of the Islamic Assembly, the first Islamic political party. The Islamic Assembly was reconfigured after the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947 in order to support the...
in Shimazu Hisamitsu
On Sept. 14, 1862, as Hisamitsu was traveling to the court with his retinue, his followers attacked four Britons who rode past the procession without paying proper respect to Hisamitsu. One was killed and two others were wounded. Britain’s demand for a huge indemnity precipitated a major crisis. The shogun agreed to pay £100,000, but the Satsuma ...
in Japan: The growth of the northern problem
...Matsumae domain in northern Honshu and placed it under its direct control, and in 1807 the bakufu also took direct control of both eastern and western Ezo for defensive purposes. In 1808 the English warship Phaeton made an incursion on Nagasaki, and three years later the Russian naval lieutenant V.M. Golovnin landed on Kunashiri Island, where he was arrested by bakufu...
in Japan: Foreign relations
Japan’s relations with the democratic powers deteriorated steadily. The United States and Great Britain did what they could to assist the Chinese Nationalist cause. The Burma Road into southern China permitted the transport of minimal supplies to Nationalist forces. Constant Japanese efforts to close this route led to further tensions between Great Britain and Japan. Anti-Japanese feeling...
in 20th-century international relations: The realist vision
...American help to deter future German attacks and restore the French economy. In particular, the French hoped that the wealthy United States would forgive the French war debts. On the other hand, if Britain and the United States pursued their own interests without regard to French needs, then France would be forced to find solutions to its triple crisis through harsher treatment of Germany.
in 20th-century international relations: Poland and Soviet anxiety
...refused, Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary be sent to Berlin on August 30 to settle the matter of Danzig and the Polish Corridor. Should the Poles refuse, their obstinacy might give London an excuse to leave them to their fate. Colonel Beck, however, had seen the fate of Schuschnigg and Hácha, and he would not submit to a Hitlerian kidnapping or to another Munich. When...
in Saʿīd ibn Sulṭān: Rise to power
Throughout his reign he was under British pressure to end the slave trade. He told a captain of the Royal Navy that “to put down the slave trade with the Muslims, that is a stone too heavy for me to lift without some strong hand to help me.” By a treaty of collaboration with Britain concluded in 1822, he agreed to forbid his subjects to sell slaves to the subjects of Christian...
in Oman: Periodic civil unrest
Tribal attacks in the name of the imam were made on Muscat and Maṭraḥ in 1895 and 1915. In 1920 the Agreement of Al-Sīb was negotiated by the British between the tribal leaders and Sultan Taymūr ibn Fayṣal, who reigned in 1913–32. By its terms, the sultan recognized the autonomy but not the sovereignty of the Omani interior.
in Qatar: History
...nearby Al-Ḥasā province of Saudi Arabia, occupied Qatar in 1871 at the invitation of the ruler’s son, then left following the Saudi reconquest of Al-Ḥasā in 1913. In 1916 Britain signed a treaty with Qatar’s leader that resembled earlier agreements with other gulf states, giving Britain control over foreign policy in return for British protection.
in flag of Qatar
The Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Britain all had an interest in finding allies among the small Arab sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf during the 19th century. A treaty signed in 1868 between Britain and one of those states, Qatar, may have been the occasion for the creation of the distinctive Qatari flag. Later the Turkish flag flew there, but during World War I, when the United Kingdom and the...
in Sweden: Royalist reaction
...France and Russia signed the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Gustav stubbornly accepted war, even with Russia. Denmark, which had sided with France in October 1807, declared war against Sweden in 1808. England, at the moment busy in Spain, could offer little help. Sweden thus became politically isolated, with enemies in the east, south, and west. The Swedish army defended Finland poorly, with that...
in Sweden: Policy during World War I
During World War I, Sweden attempted to remain neutral and to assert its right to trade with the belligerent countries. For Great Britain, the blockade was an important weapon, and Sweden’s demand to import freely favoured Germany exclusively. As a result, the Allies stopped a large percentage of Sweden’s trade. This, however, not only affected Sweden’s exports to Germany but also from 1916...
in Syria: Egyptian domination
...war broke out between Muḥammad ʿAlī and his suzerain, the sultan. Ibrāhīm defeated the Ottoman army, but in 1840 the European powers intervened. After an ultimatum, a British, Ottoman, and Austrian force landed on the Syrian coast; the British encouraged a local insurrection, and the Egyptians were forced to withdraw from Syria, which reverted to the sultan’s...
in Syria: Uprising and civil war
The prospect of international military intervention in Syria began to fade by the end of August, in part because it became evident that majorities in the United States and in the United Kingdom were opposed to military action. A motion in the British Parliament to authorize strikes in Syria failed on August 29, and a similar vote in the U.S. Congress was postponed. Meanwhile, diplomacy took...
in Syrian Civil War: Civil war
The prospect of international military intervention in Syria began to fade by the end of August, in part because it became evident that majorities in the United States and the United Kingdom were opposed to military action. A motion in the British Parliament to authorize strikes in Syria failed on August 29, and a similar vote in the U.S. Congress was postponed on September 10. Meanwhile,...
in Chulalongkorn
...did not survive intact. The French provoked war with Siam in 1892, and by treaties with France up to 1907 Siam had to give up its rights in Laos and western Cambodia. In 1909 Siam ceded to Great Britain the four Malay states of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah, and Perlis, and this brought some moderation of the system of extraterritoriality—which ended only two decades later. In relations...
in Thailand: The early Chakri kings and a resurgent Siam
Western influence also grew in mainland Southeast Asia during the early years of the 19th century, and with it came increasing Western pressures on Siam. When Britain declared war on the Burmese kingdom in 1824, Rama III feared that the British might also attack Siam. He subsequently agreed to sign the Burney Treaty (1826), which set conditions for the conduct of trade between the two...
in United States: Imperial organization
British policy toward the American colonies was inevitably affected by the domestic politics of England; since the politics of England in the 17th and 18th centuries were never wholly stable, it is not surprising that British colonial policy during those years never developed along clear and consistent lines. During the first half century of colonization, it was even more difficult for England...
in United States: Madison as president and the War of 1812
...the War of 1812, which has sometimes been called the Second War of American Independence, marked a historical cycle. It resulted in a pacification of the old feelings of pain and resentment against Great Britain and its people—still for many Americans a kind of paternal relationship. And, by freeing them of anxieties on this front, it also freed Americans to look to the West.
in United States: The road to war
When Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 touched off World War II, Roosevelt called Congress into special session to revise the Neutrality Act to allow belligerents (in reality only Great Britain and France, both on the Allied side) to purchase munitions on a cash-and-carry basis. With the fall of France to Germany in June 1940, Roosevelt, with heavy public support, threw the resources of the...
in Palestine: World War I and after
...World War I the great powers made a number of decisions concerning the future of Palestine without much regard to the wishes of the indigenous inhabitants. Palestinian Arabs, however, believed that Great Britain had promised them independence in the Ḥusayn-McMahon correspondence, an exchange of letters from July 1915 to March 1916 between Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in...
in Palestine: Civil war in Palestine
On May 14 the last British high commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham, left Palestine. On the same day the State of Israel was declared and within a few hours won de facto recognition from the United States and de jure recognition from the Soviet Union. Early on May 15 units of the regular armies of Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, and Egypt crossed the frontiers of Palestine.
in Antarctic Treaty
...was made a demilitarized zone to be preserved for scientific research. The treaty resulted from a conference in Washington, D.C., attended by representatives of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Later other nations acceded to the treaty.
in Antarctica: The Antarctic Treaty
...was signed on December 1, 1959. With final ratification by each of the 12 governments (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the treaty was enacted on June 23, 1961.
in Treaty of Versailles (1919)
The treaty was drafted during the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of 1919, which was dominated by the national leaders known as the “Big Four,” David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the United States, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. The first three in particular made the important decisions. None of the defeated nations had any say in...
in history of Europe: The mood of Versailles
Public opinion in France and Britain wished to impose harsh terms, especially on Germany. French military circles sought not only to recover Alsace and Lorraine and to occupy the Saar but also to detach the Rhineland from Germany. Members of the British Parliament lobbied to increase the reparations Germany was to pay, despite the objections of several farsighted economists, including John...
in North Africa campaigns
...have ceded the bulk of Ethiopian territory to Italy in exchange for a truce. The Hoare-Laval Pact was crafted in the hopes of preserving the Stresa Front, an April 1935 alliance that had pledged Britain, France, and Italy to jointly oppose German rearmament and expansion. In fact, just the opposite happened: fascist Italy turned its back to the democratic West and took to the road of...
in North Africa campaigns: Egypt and Libya (Autumn 1941–January 1943)
On November 18, 1941, the British 8th Army, as the forces in the Western Desert had been rechristened, launched Operation Crusader. The British undertook that offensive with more than twice as many tanks as their opponent. In addition, some one-third of Rommel’s tanks were poorly armed Italian ones. Rommel handled his tanks more skillfully than the British, however, and he made clever and...
in North Africa campaigns: Planning a second front in Africa
The Anglo-U.S. invasion of northwest Africa had its origins at the Arcadia Conference in Washington, D.C., in the winter of 1941–42 and at meetings in London the following July. Under pressure from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to open a second front, the Western Allies debated how they might best engage Germany. American strategists advocated the Bolero Plan, a build-up of forces in Great...