Fifty Things You Need To Know About British History
What are the 50 key events you need to understand to grasp British history?If you could choose the 50 things that define British history, events of significance not only in themselves, but in their importance to wider themes running through our past, what would they be? Hugh Williams has made that selection, and the result is a fascinating overview of Britain’s past.He refines British history into a series of key themes that represent a crucial strand in our history, and pinpoints the seminal events within those strands - Roots, from the Roman invasion to Britain’s entry into the Common Market; Fight, Fight and Fight Again, from the Battle of Agincourt to the Falklands War; The Pursuit of Liberty, from the Magna Carta through the Glorious Revolution to the foundation of the NHS; Home and Abroad, from Sir Francis Drake and Clive of India to the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush; and All Change, from Chaucer and the English language to the invention of the web.With great clarity, simplicity and a zest for the marvellous stories that underpin many of these events, Hugh Williams explains the linkage between each one and its importance in the progress of British history as a whole. Along the way, he has some fascinating tales to tell, making this a highly enjoyable read as well as a perceptive insight into our shared past, and vital for anyone who wants quickly and enjoyably to grasp the essential facts about Britain’s history.
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Fifty Things You Need to Know About British History
Hugh Williams
Contents
PART 1 Roots: The Origins of Britain
2 The Roman Invasion of Britain 43 AD
3 Saint Augustine Arrives in Britain 597 AD
4 Alfred the Great Becomes King of Wessex 871 AD
6 The Dissolution of the Monasteries 1536
7 The Birth of William Shakespeare 1564
9 The Irish Home Rule Bill 1886
10 Britain Signs the Treaty of Rome 1973
PART 2 Struggle: The Battles for Britain
1 The Battle of Agincourt 1415
6 The Battle of Trafalgar 1805
8 The Battle of the Somme 1916
10 The Battle of Goose Green 1982
PART 3 The Sea: Britain at Home and Abroad
1 Sir Francis Drake and the Circumnavigation of the Globe 1577–1580
2 The Voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers 1620
3 The South Sea Bubble 1711–1720
5 The Surrender of the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia 1781
6 The Abolition of Slavery 1833
7 The Afghanistan Massacre 1842
8 The Discovery of the Victoria Falls by David Livingstone 1855
10 The Arrival of the ss Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks 1948
PART 4 Freedom: The Pursuit of Liberty
4 The Execution of Charles I 1649
5 The Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights 1688–1689
6 Sir Robert Walpole Becomes Prime Minister 1721
7 The Publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth ofNations 1776
9 The Foundation of the Women’s Social and Political Union 1903
10 The Creation of the National Health Service 1948 305
PART 5 Ingenuity: Britain’s Innovations
1 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales 1387
2 The Authorised Version of the Bible 1611
3 The Foundation of the Bank of England 1694
5 James Watt Patents His Steam Engine Condenser 1769
6 The Metropolitan Police Act 1829
7 The Publication of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species 1859
8 The Football Association Publishes ‘The Laws of Football’ 1863
9 The Foundation of the BBC 1927
Some years ago I was browsing in a bookshop in America. I’ve always liked American bookshops; much of what they sell reveals the differences between our two countries. So it proved on this occasion. On the history shelf I found a paperback called What Every American Should Know About American History by Alan Axelrod and Charles Phillips. Intrigued by the title, I bought it.
It turned out to be an intelligent and very readable canter through American history from the days of Viking exploration to the end of the Cold War. In all it covered 200 significant events, outlining the principal facts relating to each one. Enjoyable, unpretentious and above all, simple, it presented – in a take-it-or-leave-it sort of way – the story of the most powerful nation on earth. I enjoyed it immensely and felt my knowledge of American history had improved effortlessly. I also felt something else rather less heart-warming.
This book, I thought, could never be published in Britain. It was far too simplistic for all those sophisticated people who banged on about the Empire in a vague, unsympathetic way, or wrote off the whole of nineteenth-century Britain as a smoke-enveloped slum of exploitation and capitalist greed.
Disraeli once said that his wife could never remember which came first – the Greeks or the Romans. Lots of people I met didn’t know whether Henry VIII came before or after Charles I; they couldn’t put the battles of Bannockburn, Bosworth and Blenheim in a historical order; and they hadn’t a clue about events of such fundamental importance to their country as the Glorious Revolution or the Great Reform Bill. They were all happy, well-connected, successful people, and these holes in their knowledge had not hampered their lives in any palpable way. Or had they? Wasn’t that the whole point? In Britain, lack of knowledge of the country’s past was becoming a badge of honour. All that mattered was now: look forward, never back. These people, I thought, would laugh at my American history book. They would dismiss it as an oddity, a typically American piece of patriotic fluff – quite unsuitable for the more refined British way of life. I kept the book by my bed and my thoughts to myself.
I also began work on my idea. As a television executive with experience in factual programmes including current affairs, history and the arts, I wanted to find a way to transfer the approach to history I’d found in that American book into a television series and a book about British history. They would have to run counter to current ingrained social attitudes. They would have more to do with the sort of history I read as a child – G. M. Trevelyan’s
