Portal:United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, making up a total area of 94,354 square miles (244,376 km2). Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The United Kingdom had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom is London, whose wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. The cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, respectively.
The lands of the UK have been inhabited continuously since the Neolithic. In AD 43, the Roman conquest of Britain began; the Roman departure was followed by Anglo-Saxon settlement. In 1066, the Normans conquered England. With the end of the Wars of the Roses, the English state stabilised and began to grow in power, resulting by the 16th century in the annexation of Wales, the domination of Scotland, and the establishment of the British Empire. Over the course of the 17th century, the role of the British monarchy was reduced, particularly as a result of the English Civil War. In 1707, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united under the Treaty of Union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Acts of Union 1800 incorporated the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922 as the Irish Free State, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 created the present United Kingdom.
The UK became the first industrialised country and was the world's foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the "Pax Britannica" between 1815 and 1914. The British Empire was the leading economic power for most of the 19th century, a position supported by its agricultural prosperity, its role as a dominant trading nation, a massive industrial capacity, significant technological achievements, and the rise of 19th-century London as the world's principal financial centre. At its height in the 1920s, the British Empire encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and the Second World War damaged Britain's economic power and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. (Full article...)
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HMS Indefatigable was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy and the lead ship of her class. Her keel was laid down in 1909 and she was commissioned on 24 February 1911. When the First World War began, the ship was serving with the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS) in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully pursued the battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau of the German Imperial Navy as they fled towards the Ottoman Empire. The ship bombarded Ottoman fortifications defending the Dardanelles on 3 November 1914, then, following a refit in Malta, returned to the United Kingdom. Indefatigable was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war. Part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, she was hit several times in the first minutes of the "Run to the South", the opening phase of the battlecruiser action. Shells from the German battlecruiser Von der Tann caused an explosion ripping a hole in her hull, and a second explosion hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet (60 m) in the air. Only three of the crew of 1,017 survived. (Full article...)
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William Barley (1565?–1614) was an English bookseller and publisher. He completed an apprenticeship as a draper in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company, he was embroiled in a dispute between it and the Stationers' Company over the rights of drapers to function as publishers and booksellers. He found himself in legal tangles throughout his life. Barley's role in Elizabethan music publishing has proved to be a contentious issue among scholars. The assessments of him range from "a man of energy, determination, and ambition", to "somewhat remarkable", to "surely to some extent a rather nefarious figure". His contemporaries harshly criticized the quality of two of the first works of music that he published, but he was also influential in his field. After becoming the assignee of the composer and publisher Thomas Morley, Barley published Anthony Holborne's Pavans, Galliards, Almains (1599), the first work of music for instruments rather than voices to be printed in England. His partnership with Morley enabled him to claim a right to the music publishing patent that Morley held prior to his death in 1602. Some publishers ignored his claim, however, and many music books printed during his later life gave him no recognition. (Full article...)
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Did you know -
- ... that the Labour Party received their highest share of the vote to date in the 1951 UK general election but still lost to the Conservatives, who received fewer votes?
- ... that Elizabeth II's childhood toys at 145 Piccadilly included 30 toy horses and a farm set collected from Woolworths?
- ... that South African nurse Stella Madzimbamuto filed an appeal in 1968 with the Privy Council of the United Kingdom that resulted in the Rhodesian government being declared illegal?
- ... that the 2023 United Kingdom student protests were organised on TikTok and Snapchat?
- ... that Change UK had eleven elected members of Parliament despite never actually winning an election?
- ... that, before same-sex unions were legally recognised in the UK, the London Partnership Register allowed nearly 1,000 couples to celebrate their relationships?
In the news
- 19 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Military aids during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, United Kingdom and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- 19 December 2024 – Georgia–United Kingdom relations, Georgia–United States relations, 2024 Georgian post-election protests
- The United Kingdom and the United States impose sanctions on Georgian officials, including Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri, in response to alleged violent crackdowns on pro-European protests. (EFE)
- 18 December 2024 – Legal affairs of the Tate brothers
- The Westminster Magistrates' Court rules that British police may seize £2.2 million (US$2.5 million) from influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan for allegedly failing to pay taxes on profits from their online ventures. (DW)
- 15 December 2024 – Free trade agreements of the United Kingdom
- The United Kingdom joins the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, becoming the 12th member and the first European member. (Reuters)
- 11 December 2024 – 2024 United Kingdom farmers' protests
- Hundreds of tractors block Whitehall in protest of Labour government changes to agricultural inheritance tax. (The Independent)
- 7 December 2024 – 2024–25 European windstorm season
- Two people are killed by falling trees in England and more than 1.5 million people experience power outages in Ireland and the United Kingdom as Storm Darragh hits the British Isles. (BBC News) (Sky News)
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