Tableof contents
Table of contents
Entry about England
I. History
II. Government andpolitics
III. Geography
IV. Climate
V. Economics
VI. Demography
VII. Culture
VIII. Language
IX. Religion
X. People
Utillized literature
Entry. England (Old English:Englaland, Middle English: Engelond) is the largest and most populousconstituent country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and NorthernIreland. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total population ofthe United Kingdom, while the mainland territory of England occupies most ofthe southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and shares land borderswith Scotland to the north and Wales to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered bythe North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel.
England becamea unified state in the year 927 and takes its name from the Angles, one of theGermanic tribes who settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. The capitalof England is London, the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largesturban zone in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.
England ranksamongst the world's most influential and far-reaching centres of culturaldevelopment. It is the place of origin of the English language and the Churchof England, and English law forms the basis of the legal systems of manycountries; in addition, London was the centre of the British Empire, and thecountry was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. England was the firstcountry in the world to become industrialised. England is home to the RoyalSociety, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England wasthe world's first modern parliamentary democracy and consequently manyconstitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin inEngland have been widely adopted by other nations.
The Kingdom ofEngland was a separate state, including the Principality of Wales, until 1 May1707, when the Acts of Union resulted in a political union with the Kingdom ofScotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.
I. Bones and flint tools found inNorfolk and Suffolk show that Homo erectus lived in what is now England about700,000 years ago. At this time, England was joined to mainland Europe by alarge land bridge. The current position of the English Channel was a largeriver flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become theThames and the Seine. This area was greatly depopulated during the period ofthe last major ice age, as were other regions of the British Isles. In thesubsequent recolonisation, after the thawing of the ice, genetic research showsthat present-day England was the last area of ​​the British Isles to berepopulated, about 13,000 years ago. The migrants arriving during this periodcontrast with the other of the inhabitants of the British Isles, coming acrosslands from the south east of Europe, whereas earlier arriving inhabitants camenorth along a coastal route from Iberia. These migrants would later adopt theCeltic culture that came to dominate much of western Europe.
Roman conquest of Britain
By AD 43, the time of the main Roman invasion, Britain had already beenthe target of frequent invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the RomanRepublic and Roman Empire. It was first invaded by the Roman dictator JuliusCaesar in 55 BC, but it was conquered more fully by the Emperor Claudius in 43AD. Like other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had long enjoyedtrading links with the Romans, and their economic and cultural influence was asignificant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in thesouth. With the fall of the Roman Empire 400 years later, the Romans leftEngland.
Anglo-Saxons
The History of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early mediaevalEngland from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxonkingdoms in the 5th century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066.
Fragmentary knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England in the 5th and 6th centuriescomes from the British writer Gildas (6th century) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ahistory of the English people begun in the 9th century), saints 'lives, poetry,archaeological findings, and place-name studies.
The dominant themes of the seventh to tenth centuries were the spread ofChristianity and the political unification of England. Christianity is thoughtto have come from three directions-from Rome to the south, and Scotland andIreland to the north and west.
From about 500, England was divided (it is believed) into seven pettykingdoms, known as the Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex,Kent, Sussex, and Wessex.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms tended to coalesce by means of warfare. As earlyas the time of Ethelbert of Kent, one king could be recognised as Bretwalda("Lord of Britain"). Generally speaking, the title fell in the 7thcentury to the kings of Northumbria, in the 8th to those of Mercia, and in the9th, to Egbert of Wessex, who in 825 defeated the Mercians at the Battle ofEllendun. In the next century his family came to rule all England.
Kingdom of England
Originally, England (or Englaland) was a geographical term to describethe part of Britain occupied by the Anglo-Saxons, rather than a name of anindividual nation-state. It became politically united through the expansion ofthe kingdom of Wessex, whose king Athelstan brought the whole of England underone ruler for the first time in 927, although unification did not become permanentuntil 954, when Edred defeated Eric Bloodaxe and became King of England.
In 1016 England was conquered by the Danish king Canute the Great, andbecame the centre of government for his short-lived empire which includedDenmark and Norway. In 1042 England became a separate kingdom again with theaccession of Edward the Confessor, heir of the native English dynasty.However, the political ties and direction of England were changed forever by theNorman Conquest in 1066.
The Kingdom of England (including Wales) continued to exist as anindependent nation-state right through to the Acts of Union.
Middle Ages
The next few hundred years saw England as a major part of expanding anddwindling empires based in France, with the "Kings of England" usingEngland as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France formany years (Hundred Years 'War); in fact the English crown did not relinquishits last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost during the reign ofMary Tudor (the Channel Islands are still crown dependencies, though not partof the UK).
In the 13th century, through conquest Wales (the remaining Romano-Celts)was brought under the control of English monarchs. This was formalised in theStatute of Rhuddlan in 1284, by which Wales became part of the Kingdom ofEngland by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542. Wales shared a legal identity withEngland as the joint entity originally called England and later England andWales.
An epidemic of catastrophic proportions, the Black Death first reachedEngland in the summer of 1348. The Black Death is estimated to have killedbetween a third and two-thirds of Europe's population. England alone lost asmuch as 70% of its population, which passed from seven million to two millionin 1400. The plague repeatedly returned to haunt England throughout the 14th to17th centuries. The Great Plague of London in 1665-1666 was the last plagueoutbreak.
Reformation
During the English Reformation in the 16th century, the externalauthority of the Roman Catholic Church in England was abolished and replacedwith Royal Supremacy and ultimately describes the establishment...
