UK History Without The Boring Bits ~

~ The First Few Years ~

I've tried to make these dates as accurate as possible but don't base your homework on them.

• ~ 1,400,000 BC ~ An unknown apeman lit the first fire.
  
  
• ~ 500,000 BC~ First "upright" man made a sort of tool out of flint.
• ~ 25,000 BC~ Someone dropped a bit of meat in the fire and discovered it tasted better.
• ~ 20,000 BC~ Wheel invented.
• ~ 10,000 BC~ Weapons used for killing animals and each other.
• ~ 8600 BC~ Someone planted a seed and discovered that they could eat what it grew into.
• ~8400 BC~ First domesticated dog in North America.
• ~ 8000 BC~ Nomadic tribes drift over from Africa and Europe and settle in Britain. So you see, there is no "True Britains" we're all immigrants
• ~ 5000 BC~ Land between Britain and Europe fills up with water and Britain becomes an island.
• ~ 4000 BC~ More people over from Europe. They introduced proper clothing, the wheel and very sharp spears.
• ~ 2500 BC~ Skis invented in Norway.
• ~ 2400 BC~ Bronze Age hits Britain.
• ~ 1400 BC~ Pharaoh Amenophis engineers build the first water clock.
• ~650 BC~ Celts arrived from central Europe looking for tin. They established themselves in what is now Surrey and Kent and built proper houses and forts.

Apparently, England wasn't too bad a place to live for the next few hundred years until Julius Caesar turned up in 55 BC with a couple of legions from Italy. The Celts, covered in a blue dye called woad, repulsed them, so he came back a year later with a bigger army and, again, was sent packing.

Getting a bit peeved about being beaten by what they considered savages, the Romans decided to infiltrate peacefully rather than invade.

Over the next few years, they managed to take over much of southern England and installed a ruler called Rex. His idea was to turn the natives into slaves to make money for the Empire.

In 43 AD the Roman emperor Claudiius decided that the takeover was taking too long, so he sent more legions to conquer us properly this time ~ which they did!

• ~ 43 AD ~ Claudian invasion.
• ~ 47 AD ~ Conquest of south and east of England completed.
• ~ 49 AD ~ Colchester founded.
• ~ 50 AD ~ London founded.
• ~ 61 AD ~ Revolt by Boadica. Boadica was a warrior woman of the Iceni's. She burnt London to the ground and went on to kill 70,000 Romans. When things started to go against her, she poisoned herself.
• ~ 70 ~ 84 AD ~ Conquest of Wales and the north completed. The Lowlands of Scotland were also conquered but they never managed to defeat the Picts and the Highland Scots...
• ~ 100 AD ~ Scotland temporarily lost ~ the new frontier is on the Tyne ~ Solway line.
• ~ Hadrian arrives in Britain and decides to build a dirty great wall across the north of England.
• ~ 140-3 AD ~ Antonine advances into Scotland and he decides that he would like a wall as well.
• ~ 158 AD ~ Serious trouble in the north: Antonine loses his wall and the Picts and Scots make big holes in Hadrians nice new wall.
• ~ 160 AD ~ Temporary reoccupation of Antonine's Wall.
• ~ 163 AD ~ Hadrian's wall restored.
• ~ 193 AD ~ Clodius Albnus proclaimed in Britain.
• ~ 196 ~ 213 AD ~ Britain becomes two provinces.
• ~ 208 ~ 211 AD ~ Campaigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla in Scotland. Didn't do them a lot of good, though.

By all accounts, the next couple of centuries were among the most peaceful and prosperous in our history ~ unless you were a surf or slave.

The Romans brought with them such things as: central heating, postcards, glass windows,swimming pools, aquaducts, proper writing, children's dolls, straight roads and decent wine.

They established "mini-Romes like Bath and St.Albans that became centres of culture. Most of the Brits became "associate citizens" of the Roman empire, with all the benefits that entailed.

Couldn't last, though..

• ~ 296 AD ~ Britan becomes a civil diocese of four provinces.
• ~ 306 AD ~ Constantius has another attempt at bashing the Scots into line. Constantine the Great proclaimed at York ~ He's the one Constantinople is named after.
• ~ 340 ~69 AD ~ Period of severe stress and internal troubles and harassment by "barbarians" ~ the Scots fight back!
• ~ 367 ~ 9 AD ~ "Barbarian Conspiracy" discovered. Recovery and restoration of Britan by the elder Theodosius.
• ~ 383 AD ~ Magnus Maximus proclaimed in Britain: victory over the Picts.
• ~ 398 ~ 400 AD ~ Victories over the Picts, Scots and Saxons. A fat lot of good it did them, though.
• ~ 406 AD ~ Britain revolts from Honorius: two emperors proclaimed.
• ~ 407 AD ~ Constantine 111 proclaimed in Britain.
• ~ 409 AD ~ Britain revolts from Constantine 111. The Romans get so fed up with trying to keep the Brits, Scots, Saxons and everybody else in order that they pack it all in and go home.

After the Romans left Britain, the Scots and Picts started being beastly to everyone they met up north.

Meanwhile the Angles, from Denmark, and the Jutes from Germany were busy looting and plundering anything the Scots and Picts had left.

A lot of the Celts, many of whom had converted to Christianity when it became the official Roman religion, packed up and went to live in Wales and on the Cornish peninsula.

The rest of us heathens stayed around, not bothering to retain much of Roman culture ~ except for the roads.

• ~ 500 AD ~ King Arthur ~ Not much is known about King Arthur and whether he existed at all is in doubt. He did manage to unite the former Roman province for a few years before it collapsed into a patchwork of British and Anglo-Saxon states.
  He had a magic sword called Excalibur. After he spent ages pulling it from a rock, he went and threw it into a lake.
• ~ 520 AD ~ The Saxons eventually ran out of people to fight with and divided the country up into kingdoms ~ Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex in the south, and Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia in the midlands.

If you were a peasent the next couple of centuries were fairly peaceful and relatively uneventful.

In 597 AD St. Augustine was sent by Pope Gregory to convert us back to Christianity ~ which he managed to do over about 50 years. This meant we were friends with Europe again and everybody was happy.

The rulers and those with a bit of power spent a lot of time plotting and fighting each other to extend their kingdoms and increase their power.

• ~ 450 AD ~Hengest and Horsa settle in Kent.
• ~ 455 AD ~ Hengest rebels against Vortigern.
• ~ 477 AD ~ Saxon settlement of Sussex.
• ~ 495 AD ~ Saxons settlment of Wessex.
• ~ 500 AD ~ Battle of Mons Badonicus.
• ~ 560 AD ~ Ethelberht, later to be over-king, becomes king of Kent.
• ~ 577 AD ~ The West Saxons capture Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath.
• ~ 597 AD ~ St. Augustine's mission arrives in Kent.
• ~ 616 AD ~ Raedwald of East Anglia, as over-king, makes Edwin king of Northumbria.
• ~ 624 AD ~ Death of Raedwald ~ he's suppossedly buried in Sutton the Hoo barrow.
• ~ 627 AD ~ Conversion to Christianity of Edwin and the Northumbrian court.
• ~ 633 AD ~ Battle of Heavenfield; Oswald of Northumbria becomes over-king. Conversion of King Cynegils of Wessex.
• ~ 642 AD ~ Oswald is killed at Oswestry by King Penda of Mercia.
• ~ 655 AD ~ Penda is defeated and killed at the Winwaed by Oswy of Northumbria, who becomes over-king.
• ~ 664 AD ~ Synod of Whitby.
• ~ 699 AD ~ Arrival of Archbishop Theodore.

• ~ 672 AD ~ Synod of Hertford. Battle of the Trent marking the beginnings of the rise of Mercia.

• ~ 685 ~ 8 AD ~ Caedwalla of Wessex captures Kent, Surrey and sussex.
• ~ 716 AD ~ Ethelbald becomes King of Mercia.
• ~ 757 AD ~ Death of Ethelbald; Offa becomes king of Mercia.

It was around this time that Vikings and Danes, with the funny hats with points on and a tendency to going berserk ~ thought to be drug induced, started to raid the coast towns.

The Vikings from Norway started in the north of Scotland and worked down; while the Danes, from Denmark, hit the east and went west.

• ~ 793 ~ 5 AD ~ Danish raids on Lindisfarne, Jarrow and Iona.
• ~ 796 AD ~ Death of Offa ~ not before he built a dyke, though.
• ~ 825 AD ~ Egbert of Wessex defeats Mercia and annexes Kent, Essex, Surrey and Sussex.
• ~ 835 AD ~ Big Danish raid on Kent.
• ~ 865 AD ~ The Danish "Great Army" lands.
• ~ 867 AD ~ Northumbria falls to the Danes.
• ~ 870 AD ~ East Anglia falls to the Danes: murder of St. Edmund.
• ~ 871 AD ~ The Danes attack Wessex. Alfred becomes king.
• ~ 878 AD ~ In March, The Danes drive Alfred into the Somerset marshes. In May, Alfred defeats the Danes at Edington; Guthrum is babtized.
• ~ 899 AD ~ Alfred dies and Edward "the elder" becomes king of Wessex.
• ~ 910 ~ 20 AD ~ Edward and Ethelflaed reconquer most of the "Danelaw" ~ the areas controlled by the Danes.
• ~ 919 AD ~ Norse kingdom of York is founded by Raegnald.
• ~ 924 AD ~ Death of Edward. Athelstan becomes king.
• ~ 937 AD ~ Athelstan defeats the Norse, Scots and Strathclyde Welsh at Brunanburh.
• ~ 939 AD ~ Death of Athelstan, Edmund becomes king.
• ~ 940 AD ~ Dunstan refounds Glastonbury as a regular monastic house.
• ~ 946 AD ~ Death of Edmund.
• ~ 954 AD ~ The last king of York is deposed.
• ~ 959 AD ~ Edgar becomes king.
• ~ 960 AD ~ Dunstan decomes Archbishop of Canterbury.
• ~ 973 AD ~ Edgar is crowned and consecrated, and receives the submission of the British princes.
• ~ 975 AD ~ Death of Edgar. Edward "the Martyr" becomes king.
• ~ 979 AD ~ Murder of Edward. Ethelred "the Unready" becomes king.
• ~ 991 AD ~ The Danes defeat Alderman Byrhtnoth and the Essex levies at Maldon: treaty between England and Normandy.
• ~ 1002 AD ~ Ethelred orders the massacre of all the Danes in England. This was a pretty stupid thing to do and really upset the Danish King Swein, who led an invasion against us a year later.