Seán Lang

British history is full of wonderful people (quite a few of whom were clearly stark raving mad, but that’s history for you) and exciting events – all of which helped make Britain the sort of place it is today. This Cheat Sheet sets out the lie of the land, and identifies the leaders and the events that mattered.

Getting a bit lost in the battles and events of the First World War isn’t hard, so this Cheat Sheet offers up a handy timeline that puts some of the war’s key events into order for you. It shows how events in different theaters of war related to each other and gives you a bird’s-eye view of the way the war developed as a whole.

The islands of Britain and Ireland are normally referred to as ‘the British Isles’ – not a politically accurate term (Ireland is not ‘British’) but no-one has yet come up with a workable alternative.

The history of Britain is usually divided by historians into a series of periods. This list gives you some of the highlights of each period. Ancient Britain Neolithic Britain c12,000 BC–c2,750 BC The Beaker people and the Bronze Age c2,750 BC–750 BC Iron Age and La Tène culture c750 BC–43 AD Roman Br

In some ways, the Second World War was even more terrible than the First World War: It introduced the world to heavy bombing, mass murder, genocide and the atomic bomb. Most of the leaders in the Second World War had served in the First World War. So what exactly was the relationship between the two world wars?

The office of Prime (or ‘first’) Minister developed in the eighteenth century, when the First Lord of the Treasury came to be regarded as the official head of the government. The first person who is generally regarded as having acted as Prime Minister was Sir Robert Walpole. Sir Robert Walpole 1721–1742 Whig

The first king acknowledged as king of all England was the Saxon King of Wessex, Athelstan, who came to the throne in 924. Later, Edward I brought Wales under English rule and Henry VIII incorporated it into England. Elizabeth I, who died in 1603, was the last ruler of England not to rule Scotland as well. Ho

King James VI of Scotland inherited the throne of England in 1603. Although this is called ‘the Union of the Crowns’, in fact the crowns of England and Scotland remained separate until the Act and Treaty of Union of 1707 joined them in the new Kingdom of Great Britain. House of Stuart James I (James VI of Sco

The first king who is generally regarded as having ruled over all of Scotland was Kenneth MacAlpin, who had managed to conquer both the Picts and the Scots by 842. No-one knows exactly when he was declared king, so 843 is an approximation. All the kings of Scotland until the thirteenth century were descended from Kenneth MacAlpin whether through the male or female line, though different branches of the royal house were often deadly rivals for the throne.