From the first hunter-gatherers and Stonehenge to the Celtic tribes the Romans encountered.
British HistoryThe Roman invasion under Claudius, Hadrian's Wall, and the legacy that lasted long after the legions left.
British HistoryThe Angles, Saxons and Jutes who arrived after the Romans and gave England its name.
British HistoryRaiders, traders and settlers from Scandinavia, the Danelaw, and the long struggle that ended in 1066.
British HistoryWilliam the Conqueror, the Battle of Hastings, and the year that changed England forever.
British HistoryEngland from the Norman Conquest to the Tudors — a long period of feudalism, plague, war and Parliament.
British HistoryHow a quarrel over taxes between King John and the barons produced the world's most famous charter.
British HistoryA thirty-year civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York, settled at Bosworth Field.
British HistoryHow Henry VII restored stable royal government after the civil wars and founded one of England's most famous dynasties.
British HistoryA king famous for breaking with Rome — and for the divorces, beheadings and deaths of his queens.
British HistoryHenry VIII's break with Rome, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the birth of the Church of England.
British HistoryThe "Virgin Queen", the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and a golden age of theatre and exploration.
British HistoryThe first king of both England and Scotland, the gunpowder plot and the most-read book in English history.
British HistoryA Catholic queen of Scotland, prisoner in England for nineteen years and executed in 1587.
British HistoryKing against Parliament, Cavaliers against Roundheads, and the trial and execution of Charles I.
British HistoryThe country gentleman who became Lord Protector and ruled the Commonwealth of England.
British HistoryHow the monarchy returned in 1660 — and the plague, fire and Royal Society that followed.
British HistoryHow James II was replaced by William and Mary in a (mostly) peaceful change of king and the Bill of Rights of 1689.
British HistoryHow the parliaments of England and Scotland combined to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.
British HistoryBonnie Prince Charlie, the battle of Culloden in 1746, and the end of clan Scotland.
British HistoryAdam Smith, David Hume and the Scottish thinkers who reshaped economics, science and philosophy.
British HistorySteam, iron, railways and factories — the transformation that began in Britain in the 1760s.
British HistoryWilliam Wilberforce, the 1807 Slave Trade Act and the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.
British HistoryTrafalgar, Waterloo and the long struggle that defined Britain in the nineteenth century.
British HistoryA 63-year reign that defined an era of empire, industry, railways and reform.
British HistoryPrince Albert, the Crystal Palace, and the world's first international exhibition of industry.
British HistoryHow the right to vote was extended to most adult men through the Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1884.
British HistoryEmmeline Pankhurst, the Women's Social and Political Union and the long struggle for the female vote.
British HistoryThe "Lady with the Lamp", the Crimean War and the founding of modern nursing.
British HistoryIndia, Africa, Australia and Canada — how the Empire grew to cover a quarter of the world.
British HistoryThe Western Front, the Somme, and the Armistice on 11 November 1918.
British HistoryWhy the island of Ireland was divided into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.
British HistoryMass unemployment, the General Strike of 1926 and the road to war.
British HistoryBritain stands alone in 1940, the Battle of Britain, D-Day and victory in Europe.
British HistoryThe wartime Prime Minister, his speeches, and a life that spanned the Boer War to the Cold War.
British HistoryEight months of German bombing of British cities — and how they kept calm and carried on.
British HistoryHow the post-war Labour government created a National Health Service free at the point of use in 1948.
British HistoryThe Empire Windrush, South Asian migration and the rebuilding of Britain after 1945.
British HistoryA 70-year reign that saw the end of empire, the first moon landing, fifteen Prime Ministers and the Platinum Jubilee.
British HistoryThree decades of conflict in Northern Ireland and the 1998 peace agreement that largely ended them.
British HistoryBritain's first female Prime Minister, the Falklands War, privatisation and the miners' strike.
British HistoryThe 1997 referendums and the new parliaments and assemblies that opened in 1999.
British HistoryThe Stratford-upon-Avon playwright whose plays still define English literature.
British HistoryThe seventeenth-century mathematician who laid the foundations of modern physics.
British HistoryThe Scottish engineer whose improved steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
British HistoryA short overview of England as a separate kingdom from 927 to the Act of Union with Scotland.
British HistoryFrom Kenneth MacAlpin to the Stuart kings — Scotland as an independent kingdom for almost a thousand years.
British HistoryHow Wales became a principality of England in 1284 and a partner in the modern UK.
British HistoryHow a baker's shop in Pudding Lane destroyed most of the medieval City of London.
British HistorySir Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe and Sir Walter Raleigh founds an English colony in America.
British HistoryCharles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Thomas Hardy and the Brontë sisters — Britain's great Victorian writers and thinkers.
British HistoryBritten, Hockney, Henry Moore and the writers, artists and composers who defined modern British culture.
British HistorySir Roger Bannister, Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Steve Redgrave and the country's most celebrated athletes.
British HistoryA short timeline from the Millennium Dome to the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the reign of Charles III.
British HistoryThe Duke of Normandy who became King of England — and changed it forever.
British HistoryCrécy, Poitiers and the long English campaign for the throne of France.
British HistoryHow the Tudor monarchs — themselves of Welsh descent — fully integrated Wales into the English state.
British HistoryHow Parliament rebuilt the monarchy on its own terms after the death of Cromwell.
British HistoryHow the Bill of Rights of 1689 ensured that no future monarch could be a Roman Catholic.
British HistoryFour kings called George, Robert Walpole as the first Prime Minister, and the rise of cabinet government.
British HistoryHow the thirteen American colonies broke away from British rule between 1775 and 1783.
British HistoryFrom the Reform Acts to the rise of universal suffrage and the modern political parties.
British HistoryA short list of the monarchs every Life in the UK candidate should be able to place.
British HistoryThe pious Anglo-Saxon king whose death in 1066 set off the Norman Conquest.
British HistoryA short, doomed Dublin rebellion that helped change the course of Irish history.
British HistoryHow the British Empire dissolved peacefully into a voluntary association of independent states.
Hand-picked guides, explainers and official references our readers ask about most often. We update this list as new resources go live.