The history of the formation of the United Kingdom has involved personal and political union across Great Britain and the wider British Isles. The United Kingdom is the most recent of a number of sovereign states that have been established in Great Britain at different periods in history, in different combinations and under a variety of polities. Norman Davies has counted sixteen different states over the past 2000 years.
By the start of the 16th century, the number of states in Great Britain had been reduced to two: the Kingdom of England (which included Wales and controlled Ireland) and the Kingdom of Scotland. The Union of Crowns in 1603, the accidental consequence of a royal marriage one hundred years earlier, united the kingdoms in a personal union, though full political union in the form of the Kingdom of Great Britain required a Treaty of Union in 1706 and Acts of Union in 1707 (to ratify the Treaty). A further Act of Union in 1800 included Ireland in the Union to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. From the late 19th century, a growth in support for nationalist political parties, firstly in Ireland, and much later in Scotland and Wales, resulted in independence for most of the island of Ireland in 1922 and the establishment of devolved parliaments or assemblies for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Read more about History Of The Formation Of The United Kingdom: Background
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history, formation, united and/or kingdom:
“The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful—the formation of fixed habits of work.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation,—a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God,—he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)