Greece Will Never Die !!!!!

[aekgate21]

Greece has been around for over 4000 years outlasting all its balkans niehbours, as matter of fact all of europe, you can not help but fall in love with its history and wisdom.

THE CREATORS OF DEMOCRACY, MATHEMATICS, OLYMPICS, AND THE WESTERN WORLD AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. !

ZHTO MARCH 25TH 1821 DEATH BEFORE FREEDOM
ATHENS 2004 HOME OF THE OLYMPICS.

[zenden9]

Greece has been around for over 4000 years outlasting all its balkans niehbours, as matter of fact all of europe, you can not help but fall in love with its history and wisdom.

THE CREATORS OF DEMOCRACY, MATHEMATICS, OLYMPICS, AND THE WESTERN WORLD AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. !

ZHTO MARCH 25TH 1821 DEATH BEFORE FREEDOM
ATHENS 2004 HOME OF THE OLYMPICS.

Question! Will Greece qualify for WC2006? So far Greece has not master a single win in the qualifying games in 3 games.

[PAO_HELLAS]

Greece has been around for over 4000 years outlasting all its balkans niehbours, as matter of fact all of europe, you can not help but fall in love with its history and wisdom.

THE CREATORS OF DEMOCRACY, MATHEMATICS, OLYMPICS, AND THE WESTERN WORLD AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. !

ZHTO MARCH 25TH 1821 DEATH BEFORE FREEDOM
ATHENS 2004 HOME OF THE OLYMPICS.

It is not only 4.000 years.... The known history says that the first Greek civilization flourished at 3.000 B.C. but it is a lot more that it is not very known and the Jewish propaganda hides it.

Many precious documents about I believe were at Alexandria liblary.

[Karadjordje]

Greece has been around for over 4000 years outlasting all its balkans niehbours, as matter of fact all of europe, you can not help but fall in love with its history and wisdom.

THE CREATORS OF DEMOCRACY, MATHEMATICS, OLYMPICS, AND THE WESTERN WORLD AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. !

ZHTO MARCH 25TH 1821 DEATH BEFORE FREEDOM
ATHENS 2004 HOME OF THE OLYMPICS.

ok man no one said they would die so what r u shitting about?

[poutismalakas]

What is up with all the anti-jewish propaganda??? or the jews hating greeks propaganda stuff?????

[FORZA_PIRLO]

You are forgetting the Italian

[AstonVillaFan 2]

I love nationalists.... Greece inventing mathmatics ya right :rolleyes: Greece has 30 years of interesting history and then pretty much getting freedom from turkey... That is about greek history and i guess Olympics, but that is a sporting even like any other. No offense but nationalists simply need to shut up and stop being racist.

[_TURK_]

f*** greece...

[PAO_HELLAS]

f*** greece...

lol! A Turk is talking...

Then don't enter the Greek forum to post your shitty pictures. Why you don't post them in your boring forum?

[PAO_HELLAS]

Greece has 30 years of interesting history.

When these 30 years started and when ended? Maybe your field of education can go only 30 years back :rolleyes: .

and i guess Olympics, but that is a sporting even like any other.

Greece didn't created Olympics only. Created sports. Really do yopu know when Olympics started?

[AstonVillaFan 2]

You cannot create sport... sports have always been around the period just after saving themseleves from persian slaughter and then pretty much destroying themselves and then being controlled by the persians... ya thats the 30 years im talking about.... dude siriously don't talk like this it makes you look like an idiot Greece has interesting history no doubt but don't blow it out of the water likes it is the greatest country ever... By the way most of your gods come from bulgarian gods... just telling ya...... look i created sport where it says hit greek people in the head whoever wins gets a trophy.... see thats not a sport get the point.

[ItalianBoy]

HAHAHA What bunch of BS!
Too bad it took us Romans to kick your ass in 3 minutes tops!
We were and are and will be always better than you! :rolling:

Serisously if this thread is not stupid, I dont know what is!

[AstonVillaFan 2]

Can you close it because it will become is a flame war....

[ItalianBoy]

I dont have that power but I dont see why this thread should be alive, I mean just shows you how cocky and low this Greeks are. To open a thread on how good they are? I mean is it a joke?

[Gennadios]

I believe this thread is stupid too,

Close the biatch

[poutismalakas]

HAHAHA What bunch of BS!
Too bad it took us Romans to kick your ass in 3 minutes tops!
We were and are and will be always better than you! :rolling:

Serisously if this thread is not stupid, I dont know what is!
What happend in WWII when Mousolli invanded Greece we KICK YOUR ASS my PaPou kicked your granfather's ass!!!!!!!!!!! and chased him half way up Albania.

[aekgate21]

There have alot of surprises in this first 3 rounds of soccer same ofthe bigger teams falling prey to the smaller teams here are some of the results

albania 2 greece 1

slovenia 1 italy 0

lechenstein 2 portugal 2

luxemburg 0 lieptenstein 4

andorra 1 fyrom macedonia 0 {thier first ever win}

lithuania 0 spain 0

moldova 1 scotland 1

And to the dickhead who thinks greeks did not invent mathematics then the ***k is PYTHAGARIS, EVER HEARD OF PYTHAGARIS THEORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EVER STUDIED MATHEMATICS MY FRIEND.

[PAO_HELLAS]

By the way most of your gods come from bulgarian gods...

What??? You must be kidding. Greek gods founded many thousand of years B.C. Bulgarians is a Turko-mongol race that came in the Balkan much later A.D...

[PAO_HELLAS]

HAHAHA What bunch of BS!
Too bad it took us Romans to kick your ass in 3 minutes tops!
We were and are and will be always better than you! :rolling:


LOL Todays Italians are not clear descedants of Romans. It is sure a mixture with Longobards that lived in Italy later.

[PAO_HELLAS]

I believe this thread is stupid too,

Close the biatch

Yes, we all think that this thread will become a flame war that is why aekgate21 posted it at the anger forum. I cannot find a reason why must be closed.

[Kosova_2004]

Albania beat Greece not a surprise

[ItalianBoy]

There have alot of surprises in this first 3 rounds of soccer same ofthe bigger teams falling prey to the smaller teams here are some of the results

albania 2 greece 1

slovenia 1 italy 0

lechenstein 2 portugal 2

luxemburg 0 lieptenstein 4

andorra 1 fyrom macedonia 0 {thier first ever win}

lithuania 0 spain 0

moldova 1 scotland 1

And to the dickhead who thinks greeks did not invent mathematics then the ***k is PYTHAGARIS, EVER HEARD OF PYTHAGARIS THEORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EVER STUDIED MATHEMATICS MY FRIEND.

Yeah too bad for you that we are first of the group and that you dont know anything about Math. Pitagora is not the ONLY mathematician ever. Plus, whats up with this war thing? You won one stupid battle and you act like you were great. We still had Albania and many other countries. You kicked no one ass and compared to what the Romans did to you it was nothing! :rolling:
LOL Todays Italians are not clear descedants of Romans. It is sure a mixture with Longobards that lived in Italy later.
What type of weed you on man? Romans conquered the world! Greece too, it was Spartans and then Athens. You got no point.
:rolleyes:

[ItalianBoy]

This thread is stupid because its not about anger about something but its just some moron that wanted to say that they are great, when clearly aint, thats what it is. :rolleyes:

[AstonVillaFan 2]

How about just saying that all countrys are suck that we are all happy I believe the first mathmatician was the hunter in africa who was deciding how much meat everyone should get.... Italy conqured Europe and North Africa and Turkey.... India is about the size of Europe not counting Russia and most of eastern Europe....

[Gennadios]

Yes, we all think that this thread will become a flame war that is why aekgate21 posted it at the anger forum. I cannot find a reason why must be closed.

Some people tend to take these arguements to other forums as well tho :)

[ZabbaZibba]

GREECE will never die!,...''just like they will never win another tounament!!!!'' :smoking:

[SRBIJA]

I believe this thread is stupid too,

Close the biatch


HAHAH FOR ONCE GENNADIOS CANT DO SHIT :rolling: all u do is close threads and change others posts

[PAO_HELLAS]

Italy conqured Europe and North Africa and Turkey....


What type of weed you on man? Romans conquered the world! Greece too, it was Spartans and then Athens. You got no point.
:rolleyes:

If you want to start thie kind of dialogue, Greece owned Italy two times. At the time of the Greek colonization through Europe some centuries B.C. and at the time of the Byzantine Empire. :ronaldo:

[PAO_HELLAS]

India is about the size of Europe not counting Russia and most of eastern Europe....

''not counting Russia and most of eastern Europe''

LOL

[PAO_HELLAS]

This thread is stupid because its not about anger about something but its just some moron that wanted to say that they are great, when clearly aint, thats what it is. :rolleyes:

Haha, yeah, and Italy is great... lol! :ronaldo: :ronaldo: :ronaldo: :silly: :silly: :p

[arminius]

How about just saying that all countrys are suck that we are all happy I believe the first mathmatician was the hunter in africa who was deciding how much meat everyone should get.... Italy conqured Europe and North Africa and Turkey.... India is about the size of Europe not counting Russia and most of eastern Europe....
the romans conqured most of europe but not all.

[AstonVillaFan 2]

discluding 4 countries in eastern europe.... ya im not gonna argue with greeks since they are the most hated in well any soccer forum.... talentless soccer players as well.... Siriously Im not gonna debate you on Greek history you guys barely colonized Italy I would give the Etruscans most of the credit if you guys are saying you are the founger of the Roman Empire. My opinion on Greek history is pretty accurate wait its not opinion its FACT!!!!

[aekgate21]

listen guys i started this thread for greeks only if you do not like being patriotic or you dont like your own history then dont come here no-one is forcing you to come here but for the aston villa fan who pumped 3-1 by arsenal let me ask you this

Democracy
pythagarus theory
olympics {just remeber where the flame comes from that should be enough}
And the western world that we know today !!!!! my friend

And i dont give a ***k what you know because its obvious that you you are in denial or you dont know what you talking about, you remind me of italian boy who still thinks that they did not lose the war in ww2.haha you guys really make me laugh.!!!!!!

[MARADONA]

I´m into ancient history mate.

I´m Argentinian but I love your country.

Hail to Greece and Italia!!!

[AstonVillaFan 2]

thats 1 guy!!!! You guys have much better mathmaticians than him Persia and India produced much higher levels of Math..... The western world as we know it today emerged in Italy during the Renaccaince(I know thats wrong spelling don't get onto me about it) Greece was long forgotten sice it has been pretty much lost in the Islamic empire. The Olympics were revived simply because people wanted to create unity, but all it has become is an embarrasment.... Don't deny this it's not Greeces fault well this Olympics it is :D . Anyway Im not saying Greece is bad country but honestly if I was to rate your importance in the world I would say it would miss top 100 most important nations... This is just opinoin what I said about Greek soccer player is true you guys got to stop acting like your all that and simply say hey we won 1 soccer competition and we should build up on that. I can not make it any more simple thatn that... This thread is not only for Greeks. I hope we can be friends but if your gonna have your nationalist attitude then you should understand that well your gonna be laughed by everyone in your life....

[arminius]

discluding 4 countries in eastern europe.... ya im not gonna argue with greeks since they are the most hated in well any soccer forum.... talentless soccer players as well.... Siriously Im not gonna debate you on Greek history you guys barely colonized Italy I would give the Etruscans most of the credit if you guys are saying you are the founger of the Roman Empire. My opinion on Greek history is pretty accurate wait its not opinion its FACT!!!!
also discluding germany, the romans tried on various occasions to conquer germany and failed each time, never penetrating any farther than the rhein, probably the most famous battle was the battle of the teutoburg forest in 9AD when the romans led by varus with 20,000 to 30,000 troops were ambushed and decisivly defeated by german tribes led by arminius,who up to that time had been hired by romans as a foriegn mercenary. Following this defeat the romans decided to conquer britain instead...smart move.

[aekgate21]

In a way your right about the soccer but i do think we are emerging out to be a lot better than what were in soccer,national level that is. Panathinakos have alsways been consistent performers in the chamions league

but as far as importance in the world goes i think we are within top 20 in the world not the 100, but one thing is for sure our olympics in 2004 were a lot better than most predicted. what i state is the truth.

[Esmeron]

Just for the record greece didn't invent Maths. Mathematics has its roots in ancient India, Egypt, China, Babylon and somewhat Greece.

[PAO_HELLAS]

Greece was long forgotten sice it has been pretty much lost in the Islamic empire.

What do you mean ''Islamic empire''? Greece conquered by Ottoman empire if you mean the Arab Islamic empire you are a little confused. :rolleyes:

I would say it would miss top 100 most important nations...

Just #1 by far.... :D :D :evil:

The western world as we know it today emerged in Italy during the Renaccaince(I know thats wrong spelling don't get onto me about it)

Hahaha! And what the people bringed renaicance did? They just started learning again the old Greek ideas and history.

[PAO_HELLAS]

Democracy
pythagarus theory
olympics {just remeber where the flame comes from that should be enough}
And the western world that we know today !!!!! my friend


Don't try to count what civilization Greece given to the world. They are a lot of things we can not say them.

[AstonVillaFan 2]

OK this is mostly all opinion but I think byzantium aided more with helping the italians during the renicasinnce

[bboy treble]

asia is older

but greece will be around

unless a meteor smashes into earth in witch case we are all ***ked

[aekgate21]

aston villa fan have you ever asked yourself why the christian churches split in 1066ad why we become orthodox and the west of europe became catholic. If constandinaple {which as the name inplies is greek} was as you state italian dominated why didn't they help us against the ottoman empire. !!!!

After sustaining many attacks from the bulgarians, vikings and of course the ottoman empire why didn't they stay and fight, they knew it would be hard for anyone to stay there so they were not that stupid were they, but then again they had no honour to the christian faith there is no dought in my mind that the byzantine empire was greek dominated with some italian infleunce.

The churches split because there was no backing from the italians during 1066-1453

[ItalianBoy]

Once again aek you fail to speak the truth just like all of your Greek fellas. Number, Greece conquered Italy 2 times? Is this the history they teach you in school? I feel sorry for you guys, no wonder you came out like this! Second of all, truth is that the Romans layeth the smacketh on your sorry philosophical ass and conquered you. Truth is that Greece was yes a great country and gave (except pao and aek) great thinkers to the world but it’s also renown that the “best� empire ever, (Greece never had an empire because it was all city states, and I cheer for Sparta) was the Romans. Period.

I still think some of you are on the wrong weed.

[davor_suker]

honestly who cares, you are acting as if your glorious past centuries ago makes you great now. Just look at Mongolia, they had a great empire, look at them now. This thread is stupid and pointless and was always going to start a 3 way war between greeks(we invented the olympics so that makes us great now!), turks(greece is gay...greece is gay....) and italians.(we are the best, we are the best...)

Close this stupid thread, its pointless.

[lsgworldl]

what has it done this century?

look at Englands history

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/History-of-England

History of England
Sponsored links:

England is the largest and most populous of the four main divisions of the United Kingdom. The division dates from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century. The territory of England has been politically united since the tenth century. This article centers on that territory. However, before the tenth century and after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, it is difficult to distinguish English from British history.


Pre-Roman England
See also: Ancient Britain

Pre-Roman England may be determined by the following periods (all dates are approximations):

8th millennium BC Mesolithic Period begins
2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
1600 BC Bronze Age begins
900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
400 BC Early Iron Age

Much evidence remains of pre-Roman England. The Bronze Age Stonehenge around the 15th century BC, near the much earlier stone circle at Avebury, is an extremely large although atypical example. The remains of an extensive Iron Age hill fort are still visible at Wincobank in Sheffield in the North of England and the south of England also contains many such hill forts, surviving as systems of concentric earthworks, from the huge Maiden Castle in Dorset down to much smaller ones like Grimsbury Castle in Berkshire. Dartmoor National Park, in Devon is said to contain the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom, with some 5,000 hut-circles still surviving, plus standing stones, stone rows, kistvaens, stone circles and cairns. Many of these are in an excellent state of preservation, notably the Bronze Age settlement at Grimspound.

The pre-Roman inhabitants of England are believed to have been Celts, and to have spoken an extinct Insular Celtic language known as Brythonic, which probably had no written form. Some examples of the Oghamic [http://ogham.lyberty.com/mackillop.html] script used in Ireland have been found on the west coast of England, but this script is now believed to be a modified form of the Roman alphabet used to represent Celtic personal names, and was used only in isolated instances such as boundary and grave markers.


Roman Britain
See also: Roman invasion of Britain, Roman Britain, Celtic tribes in the British Isles

The Romans, led by Julius Caesar, landed, in 55 and 54 BC, in the part of Great Britain which was later to become England. Nevertheless, they did not come as conquerors at that time. It was only a century later, in 43, under the emperor Claudius, that the Romans occupied England. In order to protect themselves from the depredations of the Picts, the inhabitants of Scotland at that time, the Romans under the emperor Hadrian had a wall built from east to west, Hadrian's Wall, to defend England.

The Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to cement their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on London. The indigenous, mostly Celtic population were suppressed with efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred all through their occupation. The most notable uprising was that of the Iceni (and other tribes) led by Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in 61. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 4th century their hold was tenuous.



The Anglo-Saxon Conquest
In the wake of the Romans, who had largely abandoned the islands by 410 in order to concentrate on more pressing difficulties closer to home, what is now England was progressively settled by successive, and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen. Among them were the (more commonly mentioned) Angles,Saxons and Jutes together with undoubtedly large numbers of Frisians and Ripuarian Franks who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe. Increasingly the erstwhile Celtic population was pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement of England (alternately, the invasion of England) is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") settlement.

In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577, the Celtic people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall and Devon) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons.

Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.

The Saxons founded a settlement beside the River Sheaf, which was called Scafield or Escafeld (later to become Sheffield in South Yorkshire) and it was at Dore (now a suburb of the modern city) that Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.

Having started with plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. There are many traces of Vikings in England today, for instance many words in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. One Viking settlement was in York (which they called Jorvik).


See also:

Hengest (Saxon leader, arrived in England in 449, died 488)
The Venerable Bede (c672-735)
Offa (reign 757 - 796)
Egbert of Wessex (770 - 839)
Alfred the Great (848 - 900)
Dark Ages
Anglo-Saxon Kings


England during the Middle Ages
''See also Medi val Britain''

The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William of Normandy, later styled William I of England and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes.

The English Middle Ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite.

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (on account of his education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.

During the disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135 - 1154), there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: she bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).

Stephen was captured and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, a year after reaching an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) in which peace between them was guaranteed on the condition that the throne would be his by succession.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and the French, with the principal notable battles being the Battle of Cr cy and the Battle of Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try to make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV lay the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII.


See also:

Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century, writer of History of the Kings of Britain stretching from 1100 BC to AD 689)
The Bayeux Tapestry commemorating the battle of 1066.


Tudor England
''See also Early modern Britain, English Renaissance The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy for us to say that the Wars of the Roses were now over, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders would try to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown) and the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the King for a decade.

In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. On June 17, 1497 they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503.

King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.

Henry VIII had three children, all of whom would wear the Crown. The first to reign was Edward VI of England. Although he showed the piety and intelligence which was the hallmark of all Tudors, he was only a boy of ten when he took the throne in 1547. His uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIII's will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch in March of that year. He took the title of Protector. Whilst some see him as a high-minded idealist, his stay in power culminated in a crisis in 1549 when many counties of the realm were up in protest. Kett's Rebellion in Kent and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis during a time when invasion from Scotland and France were feared. Somerset, disliked by the Regency Council for his autocratic methods, was removed from power by John Dudley, who is known as Lord President Northumberland. Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself, but his methods were more concilliatory and the Council accepted him.

When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son, so that he could remain the power behind the throne. His putsch failed and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary, a devout Catholic who had been influenced greatly by the Catholic King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, tried to reimpose Catholicism on the realm. This led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II caused much resentment around Court. Mary lost Calais, the last English possession on the Continent, and became increasingly more unpopular (except among Catholics) as her reign wore on. She successfully repelled a rebellion by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the turbulence of the reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of the latter in 1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which created the Church of England in much the same form we see it today. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans (extreme Protestants) and "die-hard" Catholics. She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.

Elizabeth maintained relative internal peace apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569, which was really a sign of how effective she was being in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. One of the most famous events in English martial history occurred in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was repelled by Sir Francis Drake, but the war that followed was very costly for England and only ended after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII, that is in expanding the role of the government and in effecting common law and administration throughout the realm of England.

In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War. These were questions of the relative power of Monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other. Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell effected a "Tudor Revolution" in government and it is certain that Parliament became a lot more important during his Chancellorship. Other historians say the "Tudor Revolution" really extended to the end of Elizabeth's reign when the work was all consolidated. Although the Privy Council, which was the mainstay of Tudor government, declined after the death of Elizabeth, whilst she was alive it was very effective.


Religious conflict and the Civil War
An assassination attempt on the Protestant King James I on 5th November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, served as further fuel for antipathy in England to the Catholic faith.

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between the then King Charles I and Parliament. The Parliamentarian army was commanded by Oliver Cromwell, which after much bloodshed and destruction, was ultimately victorious. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles I led to his execution by beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.

In 1664/65 England was swept by a visitation of the Great Plague, and then, in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by the Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings.

In the late 1600s, the Dutch Protestant William of Orange, William III replaced the Catholic King James II. This became known as the Glorious Revolution or 'Bloodless Revolution'. However, in Scotland and Ireland, Catholics loyal to James II were not so content, and a series of bloody uprisings resulted. These Jacobite Rebellions continued until the mid-18th century.

The union of Scotland with England in the Act of Union 1707, saw Scotland 'united' with England and Wales (Wales had already been assimilated in the Act of Union 1536 by Henry VIII). This was no process of harmonisation, for Scotland had effectively capitulated to English economic pressure after the failure of the Dari n scheme. This process was lubricated in the Scottish parliament by the self-interested political manoeuverings of the English puppets, John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry. (NB: After the 1707 Act, the histories of Great Britain and England overlap heavily. Since England was the dominant hegemony, it is assumed for the purposes of this article that the two are largely coterminous.'')


The Industrial Revolution
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanisation, which was the Industrial Revolution. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut the traditional cottage industries, due to economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre working age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangments), crime, and social deprivation.

The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.


Recent history
The Act of Union of 1801 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process, and created a new country "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland", uniting England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

Since then England has not existed as an independent political entity, but as a region it has remained highly dominant in the United Kingdom. The majority of the political and economic leadership the UK is English. London has remained the economic and centre of Britain and one of the world's great cities.

During the early 1800s, the working classes began to find a voice. Concentrations of industry led to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist.

Chartism is thought to have originated from the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill, which gave the vote to the majority of the (male) middle classes, but not to the 'working class'. Many people made speeches on the 'betrayal' of the working class and the 'sacrificing' of their 'interests' by the 'misconduct' of the government. In 1838, six members of Parliament and six workingmen formed a committee, which then published the People's Charter The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

England bore the full brunt of German bombing during the Second World War, many of its cities were badly damaged and huge amounts of infrastructure destroyed. England rapidly recovered after the war, while internationally the relative wealth and power and Britain has faded England still remains paramount in the British Isles. While in 1999 Scotland and Wales were given local parliaments, England does not have one. In part his is a reflection of the hold England has on the British government.


Greece has been around for over 4000 years outlasting all its balkans niehbours, as matter of fact all of europe, you can not help but fall in love with its history and wisdom.

THE CREATORS OF DEMOCRACY, MATHEMATICS, OLYMPICS, AND THE WESTERN WORLD AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. !

ZHTO MARCH 25TH 1821 DEATH BEFORE FREEDOM
ATHENS 2004 HOME OF THE OLYMPICS.

[poutismalakas]

what has it done this century?

look at Englands history

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/History-of-England

History of England
Sponsored links:

England is the largest and most populous of the four main divisions of the United Kingdom. The division dates from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century. The territory of England has been politically united since the tenth century. This article centers on that territory. However, before the tenth century and after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, it is difficult to distinguish English from British history.
THank you!!! very interesting!!!!!!!!!

[PAO_HELLAS]

it’s also renown that the “best� empire ever, (Greece never had an empire because it was all city states, and I cheer for Sparta) was the Romans. Period. I still think some of you are on the wrong weed.

You are right about that. I don't think we said that Greece was the greatest empire ever. We just say that builded the greatest civilization and gave a lot of ideas and inventions to the world.

[PAO_HELLAS]

OK this is mostly all opinion but I think byzantium aided more with helping the italians during the renicasinnce

And what was Byzantium?

Most of Byzantine emperors(if not all): Greek
Official language of Byzantium: Greek
Centre of Byzantine development: Greek area

[PAO_HELLAS]

what has it done this century?

look at Englands history



I didn't knew you were English. I thought you just live there.

I have more than 5.000 years of history. How many you have??? 500?

[ItalianBoy]

You are right about that. I don't think we said that Greece was the greatest empire ever. We just say that builded the greatest civilization and gave a lot of ideas and inventions to the world.
And they did, I agree but ranting like aek did making this thread is stupid. Its pointless. Isg, get out man! We are talking Empires here! :rolling:

[lsgworldl]

as you can see from below, it says 2500 years before christ, so 2500 + 2000 years after christ makes 45000 and there is history before that so years over 5,000 years

8th millennium BC Mesolithic Period begins
2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
1600 BC Bronze Age begins
900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
400 BC Early Iron Age

I didn't knew you were English. I thought you just live there.

I have more than 5.000 years of history. How many you have??? 500?

[ItalianBoy]

You know, the Romans were the ones that gave you the first colonization, that is why London was founded by us and was called Londinium.

[lsgworldl]

British Timeline
Neolithic and Bronze Ages
8300 - 750 BC

Iron Age
751 BC - AD 42

Romano Britain
AD 43 - 409

Invaders
410 - 1065

Anglo-Normans
1066 - 1215

The Middle Ages
1216 - 1347

Late Medieval
1348 - 1484

Tudors
1485 - 1602

Stuarts
1603 - 1713

Georgians
1714 - 1836

Victorians
1837 - 1900

Early 20th Century
1901 - 1944

Post WWII
1945 - 2002

[lsgworldl]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/neo_migration.shtml

[PAO_HELLAS]

as you can see from below, it says 2500 years before christ, so 2500 + 2000 years after christ makes 45000 and there is history before that so years over 5,000 years

8th millennium BC Mesolithic Period begins
2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
1600 BC Bronze Age begins
900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
400 BC Early Iron Age

We are talking about civilization and organized society. Not for when humans started to inhabit the area. If it is like that Greece is inhabited tens if not hundreds of thousands of years.

[ZabbaZibba]

:( what has it done this century?

look at Englands history

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/History-of-England

History of England
Sponsored links:

England is the largest and most populous of the four main divisions of the United Kingdom. The division dates from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century. The territory of England has been politically united since the tenth century. This article centers on that territory. However, before the tenth century and after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, it is difficult to distinguish English from British history.


Pre-Roman England
See also: Ancient Britain

Pre-Roman England may be determined by the following periods (all dates are approximations):

8th millennium BC Mesolithic Period begins
2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
1600 BC Bronze Age begins
900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
400 BC Early Iron Age

Much evidence remains of pre-Roman England. The Bronze Age Stonehenge around the 15th century BC, near the much earlier stone circle at Avebury, is an extremely large although atypical example. The remains of an extensive Iron Age hill fort are still visible at Wincobank in Sheffield in the North of England and the south of England also contains many such hill forts, surviving as systems of concentric earthworks, from the huge Maiden Castle in Dorset down to much smaller ones like Grimsbury Castle in Berkshire. Dartmoor National Park, in Devon is said to contain the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom, with some 5,000 hut-circles still surviving, plus standing stones, stone rows, kistvaens, stone circles and cairns. Many of these are in an excellent state of preservation, notably the Bronze Age settlement at Grimspound.

The pre-Roman inhabitants of England are believed to have been Celts, and to have spoken an extinct Insular Celtic language known as Brythonic, which probably had no written form. Some examples of the Oghamic [http://ogham.lyberty.com/mackillop.html] script used in Ireland have been found on the west coast of England, but this script is now believed to be a modified form of the Roman alphabet used to represent Celtic personal names, and was used only in isolated instances such as boundary and grave markers.


Roman Britain
See also: Roman invasion of Britain, Roman Britain, Celtic tribes in the British Isles

The Romans, led by Julius Caesar, landed, in 55 and 54 BC, in the part of Great Britain which was later to become England. Nevertheless, they did not come as conquerors at that time. It was only a century later, in 43, under the emperor Claudius, that the Romans occupied England. In order to protect themselves from the depredations of the Picts, the inhabitants of Scotland at that time, the Romans under the emperor Hadrian had a wall built from east to west, Hadrian's Wall, to defend England.

The Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to cement their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on London. The indigenous, mostly Celtic population were suppressed with efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred all through their occupation. The most notable uprising was that of the Iceni (and other tribes) led by Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in 61. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 4th century their hold was tenuous.



The Anglo-Saxon Conquest
In the wake of the Romans, who had largely abandoned the islands by 410 in order to concentrate on more pressing difficulties closer to home, what is now England was progressively settled by successive, and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen. Among them were the (more commonly mentioned) Angles,Saxons and Jutes together with undoubtedly large numbers of Frisians and Ripuarian Franks who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe. Increasingly the erstwhile Celtic population was pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement of England (alternately, the invasion of England) is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") settlement.

In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577, the Celtic people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall and Devon) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons.

Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.

The Saxons founded a settlement beside the River Sheaf, which was called Scafield or Escafeld (later to become Sheffield in South Yorkshire) and it was at Dore (now a suburb of the modern city) that Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.

Having started with plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. There are many traces of Vikings in England today, for instance many words in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. One Viking settlement was in York (which they called Jorvik).


See also:

Hengest (Saxon leader, arrived in England in 449, died 488)
The Venerable Bede (c672-735)
Offa (reign 757 - 796)
Egbert of Wessex (770 - 839)
Alfred the Great (848 - 900)
Dark Ages
Anglo-Saxon Kings


England during the Middle Ages
''See also Medi val Britain''

The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William of Normandy, later styled William I of England and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes.

The English Middle Ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite.

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (on account of his education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.

During the disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135 - 1154), there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: she bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).

Stephen was captured and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, a year after reaching an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) in which peace between them was guaranteed on the condition that the throne would be his by succession.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and the French, with the principal notable battles being the Battle of Cr cy and the Battle of Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try to make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV lay the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII.


See also:

Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century, writer of History of the Kings of Britain stretching from 1100 BC to AD 689)
The Bayeux Tapestry commemorating the battle of 1066.


Tudor England
''See also Early modern Britain, English Renaissance The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy for us to say that the Wars of the Roses were now over, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders would try to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown) and the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the King for a decade.

In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. On June 17, 1497 they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503.

King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.

Henry VIII had three children, all of whom would wear the Crown. The first to reign was Edward VI of England. Although he showed the piety and intelligence which was the hallmark of all Tudors, he was only a boy of ten when he took the throne in 1547. His uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIII's will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch in March of that year. He took the title of Protector. Whilst some see him as a high-minded idealist, his stay in power culminated in a crisis in 1549 when many counties of the realm were up in protest. Kett's Rebellion in Kent and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis during a time when invasion from Scotland and France were feared. Somerset, disliked by the Regency Council for his autocratic methods, was removed from power by John Dudley, who is known as Lord President Northumberland. Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself, but his methods were more concilliatory and the Council accepted him.

When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son, so that he could remain the power behind the throne. His putsch failed and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary, a devout Catholic who had been influenced greatly by the Catholic King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, tried to reimpose Catholicism on the realm. This led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II caused much resentment around Court. Mary lost Calais, the last English possession on the Continent, and became increasingly more unpopular (except among Catholics) as her reign wore on. She successfully repelled a rebellion by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the turbulence of the reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of the latter in 1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which created the Church of England in much the same form we see it today. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans (extreme Protestants) and "die-hard" Catholics. She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.

Elizabeth maintained relative internal peace apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569, which was really a sign of how effective she was being in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. One of the most famous events in English martial history occurred in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was repelled by Sir Francis Drake, but the war that followed was very costly for England and only ended after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII, that is in expanding the role of the government and in effecting common law and administration throughout the realm of England.

In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War. These were questions of the relative power of Monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other. Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell effected a "Tudor Revolution" in government and it is certain that Parliament became a lot more important during his Chancellorship. Other historians say the "Tudor Revolution" really extended to the end of Elizabeth's reign when the work was all consolidated. Although the Privy Council, which was the mainstay of Tudor government, declined after the death of Elizabeth, whilst she was alive it was very effective.


Religious conflict and the Civil War
An assassination attempt on the Protestant King James I on 5th November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, served as further fuel for antipathy in England to the Catholic faith.

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between the then King Charles I and Parliament. The Parliamentarian army was commanded by Oliver Cromwell, which after much bloodshed and destruction, was ultimately victorious. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles I led to his execution by beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.

In 1664/65 England was swept by a visitation of the Great Plague, and then, in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by the Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings.

In the late 1600s, the Dutch Protestant William of Orange, William III replaced the Catholic King James II. This became known as the Glorious Revolution or 'Bloodless Revolution'. However, in Scotland and Ireland, Catholics loyal to James II were not so content, and a series of bloody uprisings resulted. These Jacobite Rebellions continued until the mid-18th century.

The union of Scotland with England in the Act of Union 1707, saw Scotland 'united' with England and Wales (Wales had already been assimilated in the Act of Union 1536 by Henry VIII). This was no process of harmonisation, for Scotland had effectively capitulated to English economic pressure after the failure of the Dari n scheme. This process was lubricated in the Scottish parliament by the self-interested political manoeuverings of the English puppets, John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry. (NB: After the 1707 Act, the histories of Great Britain and England overlap heavily. Since England was the dominant hegemony, it is assumed for the purposes of this article that the two are largely coterminous.'')


The Industrial Revolution
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanisation, which was the Industrial Revolution. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut the traditional cottage industries, due to economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre working age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangments), crime, and social deprivation.

The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.


Recent history
The Act of Union of 1801 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process, and created a new country "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland", uniting England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

Since then England has not existed as an independent political entity, but as a region it has remained highly dominant in the United Kingdom. The majority of the political and economic leadership the UK is English. London has remained the economic and centre of Britain and one of the world's great cities.

During the early 1800s, the working classes began to find a voice. Concentrations of industry led to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist.

Chartism is thought to have originated from the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill, which gave the vote to the majority of the (male) middle classes, but not to the 'working class'. Many people made speeches on the 'betrayal' of the working class and the 'sacrificing' of their 'interests' by the 'misconduct' of the government. In 1838, six members of Parliament and six workingmen formed a committee, which then published the People's Charter The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

England bore the full brunt of German bombing during the Second World War, many of its cities were badly damaged and huge amounts of infrastructure destroyed. England rapidly recovered after the war, while internationally the relative wealth and power and Britain has faded England still remains paramount in the British Isles. While in 1999 Scotland and Wales were given local parliaments, England does not have one. In part his is a reflection of the hold England has on the British government.

[ZabbaZibba]

:smallpig: what has it done this century?

look at Englands history

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/History-of-England

History of England
Sponsored links:

England is the largest and most populous of the four main divisions of the United Kingdom. The division dates from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century. The territory of England has been politically united since the tenth century. This article centers on that territory. However, before the tenth century and after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, it is difficult to distinguish English from British history.


Pre-Roman England
See also: Ancient Britain

Pre-Roman England may be determined by the following periods (all dates are approximations):

8th millennium BC Mesolithic Period begins
2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
1600 BC Bronze Age begins
900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
400 BC Early Iron Age

Much evidence remains of pre-Roman England. The Bronze Age Stonehenge around the 15th century BC, near the much earlier stone circle at Avebury, is an extremely large although atypical example. The remains of an extensive Iron Age hill fort are still visible at Wincobank in Sheffield in the North of England and the south of England also contains many such hill forts, surviving as systems of concentric earthworks, from the huge Maiden Castle in Dorset down to much smaller ones like Grimsbury Castle in Berkshire. Dartmoor National Park, in Devon is said to contain the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom, with some 5,000 hut-circles still surviving, plus standing stones, stone rows, kistvaens, stone circles and cairns. Many of these are in an excellent state of preservation, notably the Bronze Age settlement at Grimspound.

The pre-Roman inhabitants of England are believed to have been Celts, and to have spoken an extinct Insular Celtic language known as Brythonic, which probably had no written form. Some examples of the Oghamic [http://ogham.lyberty.com/mackillop.html] script used in Ireland have been found on the west coast of England, but this script is now believed to be a modified form of the Roman alphabet used to represent Celtic personal names, and was used only in isolated instances such as boundary and grave markers.


Roman Britain
See also: Roman invasion of Britain, Roman Britain, Celtic tribes in the British Isles

The Romans, led by Julius Caesar, landed, in 55 and 54 BC, in the part of Great Britain which was later to become England. Nevertheless, they did not come as conquerors at that time. It was only a century later, in 43, under the emperor Claudius, that the Romans occupied England. In order to protect themselves from the depredations of the Picts, the inhabitants of Scotland at that time, the Romans under the emperor Hadrian had a wall built from east to west, Hadrian's Wall, to defend England.

The Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to cement their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on London. The indigenous, mostly Celtic population were suppressed with efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred all through their occupation. The most notable uprising was that of the Iceni (and other tribes) led by Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in 61. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 4th century their hold was tenuous.



The Anglo-Saxon Conquest
In the wake of the Romans, who had largely abandoned the islands by 410 in order to concentrate on more pressing difficulties closer to home, what is now England was progressively settled by successive, and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen. Among them were the (more commonly mentioned) Angles,Saxons and Jutes together with undoubtedly large numbers of Frisians and Ripuarian Franks who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe. Increasingly the erstwhile Celtic population was pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement of England (alternately, the invasion of England) is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") settlement.

In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577, the Celtic people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall and Devon) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons.

Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.

The Saxons founded a settlement beside the River Sheaf, which was called Scafield or Escafeld (later to become Sheffield in South Yorkshire) and it was at Dore (now a suburb of the modern city) that Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.

Having started with plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. There are many traces of Vikings in England today, for instance many words in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. One Viking settlement was in York (which they called Jorvik).


See also:

Hengest (Saxon leader, arrived in England in 449, died 488)
The Venerable Bede (c672-735)
Offa (reign 757 - 796)
Egbert of Wessex (770 - 839)
Alfred the Great (848 - 900)
Dark Ages
Anglo-Saxon Kings


England during the Middle Ages
''See also Medi val Britain''

The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William of Normandy, later styled William I of England and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes.

The English Middle Ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite.

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (on account of his education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.

During the disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135 - 1154), there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: she bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).

Stephen was captured and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, a year after reaching an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) in which peace between them was guaranteed on the condition that the throne would be his by succession.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and the French, with the principal notable battles being the Battle of Cr cy and the Battle of Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try to make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV lay the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII.


See also:

Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century, writer of History of the Kings of Britain stretching from 1100 BC to AD 689)
The Bayeux Tapestry commemorating the battle of 1066.


Tudor England
''See also Early modern Britain, English Renaissance The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy for us to say that the Wars of the Roses were now over, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders would try to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown) and the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the King for a decade.

In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. On June 17, 1497 they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503.

King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.

Henry VIII had three children, all of whom would wear the Crown. The first to reign was Edward VI of England. Although he showed the piety and intelligence which was the hallmark of all Tudors, he was only a boy of ten when he took the throne in 1547. His uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIII's will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch in March of that year. He took the title of Protector. Whilst some see him as a high-minded idealist, his stay in power culminated in a crisis in 1549 when many counties of the realm were up in protest. Kett's Rebellion in Kent and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis during a time when invasion from Scotland and France were feared. Somerset, disliked by the Regency Council for his autocratic methods, was removed from power by John Dudley, who is known as Lord President Northumberland. Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself, but his methods were more concilliatory and the Council accepted him.

When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son, so that he could remain the power behind the throne. His putsch failed and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary, a devout Catholic who had been influenced greatly by the Catholic King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, tried to reimpose Catholicism on the realm. This led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II caused much resentment around Court. Mary lost Calais, the last English possession on the Continent, and became increasingly more unpopular (except among Catholics) as her reign wore on. She successfully repelled a rebellion by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the turbulence of the reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of the latter in 1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which created the Church of England in much the same form we see it today. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans (extreme Protestants) and "die-hard" Catholics. She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.

Elizabeth maintained relative internal peace apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569, which was really a sign of how effective she was being in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. One of the most famous events in English martial history occurred in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was repelled by Sir Francis Drake, but the war that followed was very costly for England and only ended after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII, that is in expanding the role of the government and in effecting common law and administration throughout the realm of England.

In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War. These were questions of the relative power of Monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other. Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell effected a "Tudor Revolution" in government and it is certain that Parliament became a lot more important during his Chancellorship. Other historians say the "Tudor Revolution" really extended to the end of Elizabeth's reign when the work was all consolidated. Although the Privy Council, which was the mainstay of Tudor government, declined after the death of Elizabeth, whilst she was alive it was very effective.


Religious conflict and the Civil War
An assassination attempt on the Protestant King James I on 5th November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, served as further fuel for antipathy in England to the Catholic faith.

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between the then King Charles I and Parliament. The Parliamentarian army was commanded by Oliver Cromwell, which after much bloodshed and destruction, was ultimately victorious. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles I led to his execution by beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.

In 1664/65 England was swept by a visitation of the Great Plague, and then, in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by the Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings.

In the late 1600s, the Dutch Protestant William of Orange, William III replaced the Catholic King James II. This became known as the Glorious Revolution or 'Bloodless Revolution'. However, in Scotland and Ireland, Catholics loyal to James II were not so content, and a series of bloody uprisings resulted. These Jacobite Rebellions continued until the mid-18th century.

The union of Scotland with England in the Act of Union 1707, saw Scotland 'united' with England and Wales (Wales had already been assimilated in the Act of Union 1536 by Henry VIII). This was no process of harmonisation, for Scotland had effectively capitulated to English economic pressure after the failure of the Dari n scheme. This process was lubricated in the Scottish parliament by the self-interested political manoeuverings of the English puppets, John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry. (NB: After the 1707 Act, the histories of Great Britain and England overlap heavily. Since England was the dominant hegemony, it is assumed for the purposes of this article that the two are largely coterminous.'')


The Industrial Revolution
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanisation, which was the Industrial Revolution. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut the traditional cottage industries, due to economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre working age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangments), crime, and social deprivation.

The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.


Recent history
The Act of Union of 1801 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process, and created a new country "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland", uniting England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

Since then England has not existed as an independent political entity, but as a region it has remained highly dominant in the United Kingdom. The majority of the political and economic leadership the UK is English. London has remained the economic and centre of Britain and one of the world's great cities.

During the early 1800s, the working classes began to find a voice. Concentrations of industry led to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist.

Chartism is thought to have originated from the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill, which gave the vote to the majority of the (male) middle classes, but not to the 'working class'. Many people made speeches on the 'betrayal' of the working class and the 'sacrificing' of their 'interests' by the 'misconduct' of the government. In 1838, six members of Parliament and six workingmen formed a committee, which then published the People's Charter The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

England bore the full brunt of German bombing during the Second World War, many of its cities were badly damaged and huge amounts of infrastructure destroyed. England rapidly recovered after the war, while internationally the relative wealth and power and Britain has faded England still remains paramount in the British Isles. While in 1999 Scotland and Wales were given local parliaments, England does not have one. In part his is a reflection of the hold England has on the British government.

[ZabbaZibba]

:boo: what has it done this century?

look at Englands history

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/History-of-England

History of England
Sponsored links:

England is the largest and most populous of the four main divisions of the United Kingdom. The division dates from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century. The territory of England has been politically united since the tenth century. This article centers on that territory. However, before the tenth century and after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, it is difficult to distinguish English from British history.


Pre-Roman England
See also: Ancient Britain

Pre-Roman England may be determined by the following periods (all dates are approximations):

8th millennium BC Mesolithic Period begins
2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
1600 BC Bronze Age begins
900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
400 BC Early Iron Age

Much evidence remains of pre-Roman England. The Bronze Age Stonehenge around the 15th century BC, near the much earlier stone circle at Avebury, is an extremely large although atypical example. The remains of an extensive Iron Age hill fort are still visible at Wincobank in Sheffield in the North of England and the south of England also contains many such hill forts, surviving as systems of concentric earthworks, from the huge Maiden Castle in Dorset down to much smaller ones like Grimsbury Castle in Berkshire. Dartmoor National Park, in Devon is said to contain the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom, with some 5,000 hut-circles still surviving, plus standing stones, stone rows, kistvaens, stone circles and cairns. Many of these are in an excellent state of preservation, notably the Bronze Age settlement at Grimspound.

The pre-Roman inhabitants of England are believed to have been Celts, and to have spoken an extinct Insular Celtic language known as Brythonic, which probably had no written form. Some examples of the Oghamic [http://ogham.lyberty.com/mackillop.html] script used in Ireland have been found on the west coast of England, but this script is now believed to be a modified form of the Roman alphabet used to represent Celtic personal names, and was used only in isolated instances such as boundary and grave markers.


Roman Britain
See also: Roman invasion of Britain, Roman Britain, Celtic tribes in the British Isles

The Romans, led by Julius Caesar, landed, in 55 and 54 BC, in the part of Great Britain which was later to become England. Nevertheless, they did not come as conquerors at that time. It was only a century later, in 43, under the emperor Claudius, that the Romans occupied England. In order to protect themselves from the depredations of the Picts, the inhabitants of Scotland at that time, the Romans under the emperor Hadrian had a wall built from east to west, Hadrian's Wall, to defend England.

The Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to cement their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on London. The indigenous, mostly Celtic population were suppressed with efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred all through their occupation. The most notable uprising was that of the Iceni (and other tribes) led by Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in 61. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 4th century their hold was tenuous.



The Anglo-Saxon Conquest
In the wake of the Romans, who had largely abandoned the islands by 410 in order to concentrate on more pressing difficulties closer to home, what is now England was progressively settled by successive, and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen. Among them were the (more commonly mentioned) Angles,Saxons and Jutes together with undoubtedly large numbers of Frisians and Ripuarian Franks who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe. Increasingly the erstwhile Celtic population was pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement of England (alternately, the invasion of England) is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") settlement.

In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577, the Celtic people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall and Devon) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons.

Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.

The Saxons founded a settlement beside the River Sheaf, which was called Scafield or Escafeld (later to become Sheffield in South Yorkshire) and it was at Dore (now a suburb of the modern city) that Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.

Having started with plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. There are many traces of Vikings in England today, for instance many words in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. One Viking settlement was in York (which they called Jorvik).


See also:

Hengest (Saxon leader, arrived in England in 449, died 488)
The Venerable Bede (c672-735)
Offa (reign 757 - 796)
Egbert of Wessex (770 - 839)
Alfred the Great (848 - 900)
Dark Ages
Anglo-Saxon Kings


England during the Middle Ages
''See also Medi val Britain''

The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William of Normandy, later styled William I of England and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes.

The English Middle Ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite.

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (on account of his education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.

During the disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135 - 1154), there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: she bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).

Stephen was captured and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, a year after reaching an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) in which peace between them was guaranteed on the condition that the throne would be his by succession.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and the French, with the principal notable battles being the Battle of Cr cy and the Battle of Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try to make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV lay the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII.


See also:

Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century, writer of History of the Kings of Britain stretching from 1100 BC to AD 689)
The Bayeux Tapestry commemorating the battle of 1066.


Tudor England
''See also Early modern Britain, English Renaissance The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy for us to say that the Wars of the Roses were now over, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders would try to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown) and the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the King for a decade.

In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. On June 17, 1497 they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503.

King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.

Henry VIII had three children, all of whom would wear the Crown. The first to reign was Edward VI of England. Although he showed the piety and intelligence which was the hallmark of all Tudors, he was only a boy of ten when he took the throne in 1547. His uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIII's will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch in March of that year. He took the title of Protector. Whilst some see him as a high-minded idealist, his stay in power culminated in a crisis in 1549 when many counties of the realm were up in protest. Kett's Rebellion in Kent and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis during a time when invasion from Scotland and France were feared. Somerset, disliked by the Regency Council for his autocratic methods, was removed from power by John Dudley, who is known as Lord President Northumberland. Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself, but his methods were more concilliatory and the Council accepted him.

When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son, so that he could remain the power behind the throne. His putsch failed and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary, a devout Catholic who had been influenced greatly by the Catholic King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, tried to reimpose Catholicism on the realm. This led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II caused much resentment around Court. Mary lost Calais, the last English possession on the Continent, and became increasingly more unpopular (except among Catholics) as her reign wore on. She successfully repelled a rebellion by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the turbulence of the reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of the latter in 1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which created the Church of England in much the same form we see it today. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans (extreme Protestants) and "die-hard" Catholics. She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.

Elizabeth maintained relative internal peace apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569, which was really a sign of how effective she was being in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. One of the most famous events in English martial history occurred in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was repelled by Sir Francis Drake, but the war that followed was very costly for England and only ended after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII, that is in expanding the role of the government and in effecting common law and administration throughout the realm of England.

In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War. These were questions of the relative power of Monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other. Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell effected a "Tudor Revolution" in government and it is certain that Parliament became a lot more important during his Chancellorship. Other historians say the "Tudor Revolution" really extended to the end of Elizabeth's reign when the work was all consolidated. Although the Privy Council, which was the mainstay of Tudor government, declined after the death of Elizabeth, whilst she was alive it was very effective.


Religious conflict and the Civil War
An assassination attempt on the Protestant King James I on 5th November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, served as further fuel for antipathy in England to the Catholic faith.

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between the then King Charles I and Parliament. The Parliamentarian army was commanded by Oliver Cromwell, which after much bloodshed and destruction, was ultimately victorious. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles I led to his execution by beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.

In 1664/65 England was swept by a visitation of the Great Plague, and then, in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by the Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings.

In the late 1600s, the Dutch Protestant William of Orange, William III replaced the Catholic King James II. This became known as the Glorious Revolution or 'Bloodless Revolution'. However, in Scotland and Ireland, Catholics loyal to James II were not so content, and a series of bloody uprisings resulted. These Jacobite Rebellions continued until the mid-18th century.

The union of Scotland with England in the Act of Union 1707, saw Scotland 'united' with England and Wales (Wales had already been assimilated in the Act of Union 1536 by Henry VIII). This was no process of harmonisation, for Scotland had effectively capitulated to English economic pressure after the failure of the Dari n scheme. This process was lubricated in the Scottish parliament by the self-interested political manoeuverings of the English puppets, John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry. (NB: After the 1707 Act, the histories of Great Britain and England overlap heavily. Since England was the dominant hegemony, it is assumed for the purposes of this article that the two are largely coterminous.'')


The Industrial Revolution
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanisation, which was the Industrial Revolution. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut the traditional cottage industries, due to economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre working age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangments), crime, and social deprivation.

The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.


Recent history
The Act of Union of 1801 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process, and created a new country "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland", uniting England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

Since then England has not existed as an independent political entity, but as a region it has remained highly dominant in the United Kingdom. The majority of the political and economic leadership the UK is English. London has remained the economic and centre of Britain and one of the world's great cities.

During the early 1800s, the working classes began to find a voice. Concentrations of industry led to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist.

Chartism is thought to have originated from the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill, which gave the vote to the majority of the (male) middle classes, but not to the 'working class'. Many people made speeches on the 'betrayal' of the working class and the 'sacrificing' of their 'interests' by the 'misconduct' of the government. In 1838, six members of Parliament and six workingmen formed a committee, which then published the People's Charter The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

England bore the full brunt of German bombing during the Second World War, many of its cities were badly damaged and huge amounts of infrastructure destroyed. England rapidly recovered after the war, while internationally the relative wealth and power and Britain has faded England still remains paramount in the British Isles. While in 1999 Scotland and Wales were given local parliaments, England does not have one. In part his is a reflection of the hold England has on the British government.

[aekgate21]

first thing if you dont like the thread then dont come here {davor sucker},{italian boy] no-one is forcing to come here, and in case you did not get it this is a greek forum.

Italian boy eachtime you open your mouth you always speak shit and never answer my questions with using facts or evidence thats why i speak to you with no respect, and believe me i do respect other italians in other chatrooms.

Answer me this

Why did the churches split in 1066ad

Is it true that constandinople is a greek name not italian

thease are just two examples that it is greek if you get thease wrong then its not worth me talking to you its obvious that you have no clue

As far as greece winning just one war is concerned, in recent times there have been 3 the revolution in 1821, the balken war with bulgaria 1912-1918, and of course with italy ww2, who can forget that hey!!!!

In ancient times there were many wars fought and won there are too many to list, but the sticks out for memory in which they just lost was the 300 spartans vs 10000 persians now that my friend is a battle to be proud of.

romour has it that it my be hollywood movie done on it, but its too early to call i will keep you all informed.

[rafa]

You guys have some serious issues remember this is only a sport!!! So don't let ot go to your heads have fun!!!! LOL jajajajaajajaj!

[ItalianBoy]

I actually always answered yo,u yet truth is you dont want to read it, and go around it and then post that I dont answer you. Get a clue.

[rafa]

Are you talking to me son????

[ItalianBoy]

No man. I am talking to aek, I know its a sport, but this guy makes thigns up and posts like a 12 year old.

[ZabbaZibba]

Are you talking to me son????
''hi''...amigo :D :D

[rafa]

Hey guacho 101 honestly I'm not going to rag on you dude but how old are you? Seriously i bet you about 16 or 17 am I right?

[AstonVillaFan 2]

Their is a movie being made about Alexander of Macedon and around 30 years after that battle the Persian Empire controlled of Greece.....

[PAO_HELLAS]

Their is a movie being made about Alexander of Macedon and around 30 years after that battle the Persian Empire controlled of Greece.....

lol

[Kosova_2004]

Hey Italian Boy I Bet That Dumass Greek ***k Is 12

[PAO_HELLAS]

Hey Italian Boy I Bet That Dumass Greek ***k Is 12

Your brain is for 5

[kram]

The Mongolian Empire was the greatest empire in history. The west learned it's system of currency from them. They had a very advanced system of government that was able to govern vast amounts of land. If you ever read the travels of Marco Polo you will discover some very interesting things.

[poutismalakas]

The Mongolian Empire was the greatest empire in history. The west learned it's system of currency from them. They had a very advanced system of government that was able to govern vast amounts of land. If you ever read the travels of Marco Polo you will discover some very interesting things.
What is the exact title ????? I have a History degree but I never studied in depth the Mongol Empires!!!

[AstonVillaFan 2]

The Europeans got the money system from the Persians. The mongols they were great in military but they were horrible rulers usually the people ruled the rulers into changing and eventually leaving. Anyway they also happened 2 slaughter a lot of people

[roma]

''hi''...amigo :D :D
yeh

[Aggelos001]

I can't understand why we are taking this too seriously. All countries play an equal part in this world and in my opinion not a single one is better than another.

Another thing, this going to everybody, I wouldn't judge a country by a single/couple of persons. Just because Albanian's come into my country and shit on the streets and our basketball courts, I won't bad-mouth every one of them I see.

As for ItalianBoy, I can't understand who you are a moderator, you are meant to set a good example.

[UNITED ALBANIA]

I can't understand why we are taking this too seriously. All countries play an equal part in this world and in my opinion not a single one is better than another.

Another thing, this going to everybody, I wouldn't judge a country by a single/couple of persons. Just because Albanian's come into my country and shit on the streets and our basketball courts, I won't bad-mouth every one of them I see.

As for ItalianBoy, I can't understand who you are a moderator, you are meant to set a good example.
wait a minute, your country and which1 would that be , greece??? greece belongs to albania, all albanian ppl in greece r in their land. wtf

[UNITED ALBANIA]

Their is a movie being made about Alexander of Macedon and around 30 years after that battle the Persian Empire controlled of Greece.....
u from birmingham??

[Aggelos001]

They are not welcome from where I live (Athens)

I am not a pers