The British History - Resume

THE 5 NAMES OF ENGLAND
• The British Isles
• Britannia
• England
• Great Britain
• United Kingdom
The oldest name of England is “The British Isles”. This name is used today mainly for geographic purposes.

Apparently, the name was given by the Greek geographer “Pytheas”, who must have lived in about 400 B.C. He must have been a great explorer and navigator. He must have come in contactwith a Celtic tribe called “The Brythons”, who must have lived near the coast.

The Celts were the first historical people to occupy the British Isles and formally they occupied nearly the whole Europe and they were a small part of The Aryan invasions that affected Europe after 2000 B.C. They seem to have settled originally in the area between The Upper Rhine and The Upper Danube. It is here thatthe Iron age in Europe seriously begun. The Celts produced iron in Europe for the first time and made weapons, for example, swords and spears, and conquered their enemies. They also made luxury articles like combs, mirrors and rings. They were divided into tiny kingdom, which often had queens more than kings.

In the 1st millennium B.C. the Celts began to abandon Europe and entered to TheBritish Isles. In the East of Europe, they were expelled by the generals of Alexander the Great and in the West of Europe, they were conquered by Julio Cesar, the great roman general, who founded the Roman Empire.
During all this time, they were emigrated to Britain and Ireland. “The British Isles” is an exact translation for the Greek name.

In 43 A.D. Emperor Claudius began the roman conquest ofBritain. The Romans never conquered the whole Britain. In the year 125 A.D., the Emperor Hadrian built a great wall across half of the British Isles. This was the Northern limit of The Roman Empire and for a long time it was approximately the frontier between England and Scotland.

The Romans built military camps and perfectly straight roads. This part of The British Isles was called “TheProvince of Britain”
The Romans occupied England for approx. 400 years. During this time, the Empire entered into a period of decline, partly because the Barbarians on the frontiers were learning their military techniques.

In the 4th Century, the Empire became Christian under Constantine and finally divided into 2 parts: East and West. In the 5th Century, the Western Roman Empire was conquered by thebarbarians, who founded kingdoms in the formal provinces of the Roman Empire.
The Angles and Saxons conquered the province of Britain and formed 7 kingdoms. In the 7th century, these kingdoms became Christians. In the 9th century, the Vikings invasions reduced the 7kingdoms to one, and finally in the 11th century the Normans from the North of France conquered England and established theircapital at London.

A large part of the Celtic population of the South of England immigrated to Northwest France and founded the Kingdom of Brittany, which is now the province of France. The people here, or at least some of them, still speak a Celtic language which is similar to Welsh.

Brittany was sometimes called “little Britain”, and the people sometimes refer to England as “Great Britain”.This name has become the 4th name of England and is used for political purposes but is not directly connected with the British Empire.

During the middle ages, there were 2 kingdoms in the British Isles: England and Scotland. They were enemies most of the time because the English invaded Scotland on many occasions.

Scotland, however, had an alliance with the King of France. When QueenElizabeth I die without children in 1603, the only person with a legitimate claim to the English tone was the king of Scotland because his grandmother had been an English princess.

James VI of Scotland became James I of England and, England and Scotland were politically united. England received a new name. The British Isles was called the United Kingdom.

There was attempt to incorporate Ireland...