Queen Victoria died in January 1901, and Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria ascended the throne. Edwardian Britain was a powerful and rich country, much of its wealth coming from business abroad. By that time, British money had been invested in many countries, and British banks and insurance companies had customers and did business [...]
Great Britain is the term used for the island containing the contiguous principalities of England, Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is used to distinguish Britain from Brittania Minor, or Brittany, in France. The term Great Britain was officially used only after King James I (who was also James VI of Scotland) acceded to the throne [...]
Almost every nation has a reputation of some kind. The French are supposed to be amorous, gay, fond of champagne. The Germans are usually considered as dull, formal, efficient, fond of military uniforms and parades; the Americans boastful, energetic, gregarious and vulgar. The British are reputed to be cold, reserved, rather haughty people. They are [...]
In 1960’s Britain experienced a real revolution in fashion. This was a rebellion against the existing conventions in dress, social behaviour, music, popular entertainment, and so on. London became a world capital of popular music, and the groups like “The Beatles” made British music popular all over the world.
During the last decades the people of Great Britain stopped to be purely “European”. Most of the country’s population descend from the Celts, Angles, Saxons, and Normans. Since the 1950’s, however, many immigrants from Commonwealth countries have settled in Great Britain, especially in England. In the mid-195 O’s immigrants arrived at a rate of about [...]
The general election of 1945 gave the Labour party led by Clement Attlee for the first time a majority of the popular vote and an overwhelming parliamentary majority. The result was less a rebuke of Churchill’s wartime leadership than an expression of approval of the party’s role in the war, and of hope that it [...]
Without a declaration of war, Germany opened an offensive against Poland on 1 September 1939. The Allies, Britain and France, stood helplessly by while Poland suffered the full force of the German “blitzkrieg” — lightning war. The preparedness of the German airforce allowed it to carry out simultaneous bombing of military depots and air bases, [...]
The reign thus thrust upon George VI was to be one of the most momentous in the history of Britain. The immediate preoccupations were with Foreign Policy. Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in 1937 and, faced by a new and sinister line-up, the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo “Axis”, did his best to appease its members’ power hunger. Hitler’s [...]
In 1936 King George V died and was succeeded by his son Edward VIII. Edward VIII was 41 when he ascended the throne. Soon he abdicated because he wanted to marry a certain Mrs. Simpson. Mrs. Simpson was an American and by no means belonged to aristocracy. The government would never consent” to this marriage. [...]
In Ireland the reaction to the war was somewhat different. While the bourgeois nationalists supported England and turned themselves into recruiting agents, the left wing of the Volunteers opposed the war and prepared for an armed rising. They were ready, if necessary, to seek German aid.
