Hello Linda and All, This is my ideas only so if you think I've got anything wrong please let me know. Somebody has already nabbed the title 'A Brief History of Time' but here goes: BC Celts arrive in the British Isles, replacing people already here. Arguments over how many waves of Celts there are; 2, 3, ? AD43 Roman troops sent by Emperor Claudius from Gaul (modern-day France; Gaul=Gael) mount a successful invasion of England. Julius Caesar had led 2 unsuccessful ones a hundred years earlier. At this time the main island was split into areas controlled by tribes like the Iceni and Brigante. AD410 Roman Empire falling apart. Tribes from modern North Germany, South Denmark and Holland arrive. They are known as the Anglo-Saxons but there were at least 4 groups, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians. Arguments over whether they came as peaceful settlers, invaders or traders who settled here. These tribes began to dominate what is now England (Angleland) while the Celts dominated the fringes of the main island, what is now Cornwall in England and what are now Wales and Scotland. The Anglo-Saxons did not attempt to take any part of the isle of Ireland although Irish pirates had raided the west coast of the main island for many years; abducting Patrick in one raid, so it is said. AD793 1st Viking raid on the main island. At one point the Vikings from Denmark, Norway and Sweden will control nearly half of England (the Danelaw) and will also control parts of Ireland, setting up places like Dublin. AD901 the Irish ask the Angle Queen of Mercia to give a home to the Vikings they want to kick out. She agrees and the Vikings are given the Wirral peninsula on the west bank of the River Mersey. AD1016-42 The Vikings are so powerful that there are 3 Danish Kings of England in succession. The borders of England, Wales and Scotland are fluid at this time. AD1042 The Anglo-Saxon Edward the Confessor regains the English throne from the Danes. AD1066 The year of 3 Kings. Edward dies and is replaced by Harold Godwinson, Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king. In September he rushes north to York as a Norwegian invasion threatens England. He wins but then has to race south to fight William of Normandy at Senlac Hill, just outside Hastings, in October. William wins and becomes the first Norman king of England. The Normans are descended from the Norsemen or Vikings. No English king will speak English for the next 250 years. They will speak Norman French. 1169 Dermot of Leinster comes over to England seeking help from the Norman barons to get his kingdom back. With the Pope's blessing, Richard (nickname Strongbow), Earl of Pembroke in South Wales, forms an army to help Dermot. When the Norman lords arrive they think Ireland is so good they decide to stay. Within a few generations many will be more Irish than the Irish. King Henry II of England is worried by what these Norman Lords could get up to and doesn't trust their loyalty to him so he invades in 1171 and makes sure he becomes 'King of Ireland'. The Norman kings and their henchmen will rule over part of Ireland, known as The Pale, for the next few hundred years but will not make any serious attempt at total conquest. Hence the phrase 'beyond the pale' for anything or anyone outside civilisation. 1282/3 Edward I defeats Llywelyn the Last, the one and only true Prince of Wales. Wales had been a country of groups owing allegiance to overlords who sometimes fought each other but could never agree to form one group to fight the Norman invaders. From the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 England and Wales are run very much as one country. 1536 Act of Union between England and Wales. Also, about this time Henry VIII proclaims himself head of the Church of England, the beginning of Anglicanism and the break from Rome.. 1603 Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII, dies childless. The end of the Tudor dynasty. The throne is offered to her nearest blood relative, King James VI of Scotland. So begins the Stuart dynasty. In England he will be known as James I. Scotland keeps many of its own laws, education system and so on (and does so today) but over time the three countries will grow closer together. King James is responsible for the King James Bible and for the Plantation of Ulster. 1641 The massacre of English and Scottish Protestants in Ireland. Some sources suggest up to three quarters of the Protestants were killed. 1650s Cromwell in Ireland. Great argument over how brutal he was. 1690 Battle of the Boyne, July 1st under the old calendar but celebrated today on July 12th under the new calendar. Defeat of the forces of James II, the ousted Catholic King, by William III, a Protestant who replaced him. 1700s the beginning of mass Scotch-Irish migration to British North America because of big rent rises, famine and religious persecution of those who weren't Anglicans. 1707 The official union of England, Scotland and Wales as Great Britain. 1798 Rebellion in Ireland against British rule, led by Wolfe Tone, a Protestant. 1801 The official setting up of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1922 The Irish Free State is formed. 1922-24 The Irish Civil war between the 'Free-Staters' and 'Die Hards' branches of the IRA. 1927 The name is altered to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A very quick way to get through 2000 years of British history - I hope it helps. One odd thing is that many British people prefer to be known by the name of their country within the UK, as English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh. If you want to start an argument just say "You English"... Those who aren't will get annoyed. Those who are English, like me, will point out that in the famine years our ancestors were in Ireland and suffering along with everybody else. As my mother used to say, "The English are a Heinz race, made up of 57 varieties". Please, please, do not follow President Bush who asked Charlotte Church, the famous and proudly Welsh singer, which part of England was Wales in. The nearest equivalent I can think of would be asking a Bostonian what part of Texas Massachusetts was in. Rob Doragh Liverpool UK Born in England of Ulster stock, before that, Scotland, before that Pictish and nobody knows where they came from. <merle@mail.fea.net> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 I'm talking to largely Americans and I'm trying to get across a point about Ireland. The audience again is Americans who never studied any history of Britain or Ireland, so if we can get the big picture across here, and thereby help people understand Ireland a little better, I'm happy.