United Kingdom uk or U. K

Treaty of Union

Main article: History of the United Kingdom



The Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all of Great Britain.

On 1 May 1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed, the result of Acts of Union being passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland to ratify the 1706Treaty of Union and so unite the two kingdoms.^[87][88][89]

In the 18th century, cabinet government developed under Robert Walpole, in practice the first prime minister (1721–1742). A series of Jacobite Uprisings sought to remove the Protestant House of Hanover from the British throne and restore the Catholic House of Stuart. The Jacobites were finally defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, after which the Scottish Highlanders were brutally suppressed. The British colonies in North America that broke away from Britain in the American War of Independence became the United States of America, recognised by Britain in 1783. British imperial ambition turned towards Asia, particularly to India.^[90]

During the 18th century, Britain was involved in the Atlantic slave trade. British shipstransported an estimated two million slaves from Africa to the West Indies. Parliament banned the trade in 1807, banned slavery in the British Empire in 1833, and Britain took a leading role in the movement to abolish slavery worldwide through the blockade of Africa and pressing other nations to end their trade with a series of treaties. The world's oldest international human rights organisation, Anti-Slavery International, was formed in London in 1839.^[91][92][93]

From the union with Ireland to the end of the First World War



Infantry of the Royal Irish Riflesduring the Battle of the Somme. More than 885,000 British soldiers died on the battlefields of the First World War.

The term "United Kingdom" became official in 1801 when the parliaments of Britain and Ireland each passed an Act of Union, uniting the two kingdoms and creating theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.^[94]

In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed the country; political power began shifting away from the old Tory and Whig landowning classes towards the new industrialists. An alliance of merchants and industrialists with the Whigswould lead to a new party, the Liberals, with an ideology of free trade and laissez-faire. In 1832 Parliament passed the Great Reform Act, which began the transfer of political power from the aristocracy to the middle classes. In the countryside,enclosure of the land was driving small farmers out. Towns and cities began to swell with a new urban working class. Few ordinary workers had the vote, and they created their own organisations in the form of trade unions.^{[citation needed]}

After the defeat of France at the end of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815), the United Kingdom emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830).^[95] Unchallenged at sea, British dominance was later described as Pax Britannica ("British Peace"), a period ofrelative peace among the Great Powers (1815–1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemon and adopted the role of global policeman.^{[96][97][98][99]} By the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Britain was described as the "workshop of the world".^[100] The British Empire was expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, British dominance of much of world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many regions, such as Asia and Latin America.^[101][102]Domestically, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies and a gradual widening of the voting franchise. During the century, the population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, causing significant social and economic stresses.^[103] To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party underDisraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, and elsewhere. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions.^[104] After the turn of the century, Britain's industrial dominance was challenged by Germany and the United States.^[105] Social reform and home rule for Ireland were important domestic issues after 1900. The Labour Party emerged from an alliance of trade unions and small socialist groups in 1900, and suffragettescampaigned from before 1914 for women's right to vote.^[106]

Britain fought alongside France, Russia and (after 1917) the United States, against Germany and its allies in the First World War (1914–1918).^[107] British armed forces were engaged across much of the British Empire and in several regions of Europe, particularly on the Western front.^[108] The high fatalities of trench warfare caused the loss of much of a generation of men, with lasting social effects in the nation and a great disruption in the social order.

After the war, Britain received the League of Nations mandate over a number of former German and Ottoman colonies. The British Empire reached its greatest extent, covering a fifth of the world's land surface and a quarter of its population.^[109] Britain had suffered 2.5 million casualties and finished the war with a huge national debt.^[108]

Interwar years and the Second World War

Main articles: Interwar Britain and Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II

The rise of Irish nationalism, and disputes within Ireland over the terms of Irish Home Rule, led eventually to the partition of the island in 1921.^[110] The Irish Free State became independent, initially with Dominion status in 1922, and unambiguously independent in 1931. Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.^[111] The 1928 Act widened suffrage by giving women electoral equality with men. A wave of strikes in the mid-1920s culminated in the General Strike of 1926. Britain had still not recovered from the effects of the war when the Great Depression (1929–1932) occurred. This led to considerable unemployment and hardship in the old industrial areas, as well as political and social unrest in the 1930s, with rising membership in communist and socialist parties. A coalition government was formed in 1931.^[112]

Nonetheless, "Britain was a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests and sitting at the heart of a global production system."^[113] After Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Britain entered the Second World War by declaring war on Germany in 1939. Winston Churchill became prime minister and head of a coalition government in 1940. Despite the defeat of its European allies in the first year of the war, Britain and its Empire continued the fight alone against Germany. Churchill engaged industry, scientists and engineers to advise and support the government and the military in the prosecution of the war effort.^[113] He formed a Special Relationship with the United States, and won their agreement to aEurope first grand strategy for the Allies. In 1940, the Royal Air Force defeated the German Luftwaffe in a struggle for control of the skies in the Battle of Britain. Urban areas suffered heavy bombing during the Blitz. There were also eventual hard-fought victories in the Battle of the Atlantic, the North Africa campaign and the Burma campaign. British forces played an important role in the Normandy landings of 1944, achieved with its United States ally, and British scientists contributed to the Manhattan Project.

Postwar 20th century

Main articles: Political history of the United Kingdom (1945–present) and Social history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)



Map showing territories that were at one time part of the British Empire, with the United Kingdom and its current British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies underlined in red

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the UK was one of the Big Four powers (along with the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China) who met to plan the post-war world;^[114][115] it was an original signatory to the Declaration of the United Nations. The UK became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Counciland worked closely with the United States to establish theIMF, World Bank and NATO.^[116][117] The war left the UK severely weakened, but it was spared the total war that devastated eastern Europe,^[118] and it depended financially on the Marshall Plan.^[119] In the immediate post-war years, the Labour government initiated a radical programme of reforms, which had a significant effect on British society in the following decades.^[120] Major industries and public utilities were nationalised, a welfare state was established, and a comprehensive, publicly funded healthcare system, the National Health Service, was created.^[121] The rise of nationalism in the colonies coincided with Britain's now much-diminished economic position, so that a policy of decolonisation was unavoidable. Independence was granted to India and Pakistan in 1947.^[122] Over the next three decades, most colonies of the British Empire gained their independence, with all those that sought independence supported by the U.K, during both the transition period and afterwards. Many became members of the Commonwealth of Nations.^[123]

The UK was the third country to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal (with its first atomic bomb test in 1952), but the new post-war limits of Britain's international role were illustrated by the Suez Crisis of 1956. The international spread of the English language ensured the continuing international influence of its literature and culture.^[124][125] As a result of a shortage of workers in the 1950s, the government encouraged immigration from Commonwealth countries. In the following decades, the UK became a more multi-ethnic society than before.^[126] Despite rising living standards in the late 1950s and 1960s, the UK's economic performance was less successful than many of its main competitors such as France, West Germany and Japan.



Leaders of member states of theEuropean Union in 2007. The UK entered the European Economic Community in 1973. In a referendum held in 1975, 67 per cent of voters voted to remain in the EEC,^[127] but 52 per cent voted to leave the EU in 2016.^[128]

In the decade-long process of European integration, the UK was a founding member of the alliance called the Western European Union, established with theLondon and Paris Conferences in 1954. In 1960 the UK was one of the seven founding members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), but in 1973 it left to join the European Communities (EC). When the EC became the European Union (EU) in 1992, the UK was one of the 12 founding members. The Treaty of Lisbon was signed in 2007, which forms the constitutional basis of the European Union since then.

From the late 1960s, Northern Ireland suffered communal and paramilitary violence (sometimes affecting other parts of the UK) conventionally known as the Troubles. It is usually considered to have ended with the Belfast "Good Friday" Agreement of 1998.^{[129][130][131]}

Following a period of widespread economic slowdown and industrial strife in the 1970s, the Conservative government of the 1980s under Margaret Thatcherinitiated a radical policy of monetarism, deregulation, particularly of the financial sector (for example, Big Bang in 1986) and labour markets, the sale of state-owned companies (privatisation), and the withdrawal of subsidies to others.^[132] From 1984, the economy was helped by the inflow of substantial North Sea oil revenues.^[133]

Around the end of the 20th century there were major changes to the governance of the UK with the establishment ofdevolved administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.^[134] The statutory incorporation followed acceptance of the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK is still a key global player diplomatically and militarily. It plays leading roles in the EU, UN and NATO. Controversy surrounds some of Britain's overseas military deployments, particularly inAfghanistan and Iraq.^[135]