CitizenReadyEra 1 · Romans & Vikings to 1066
Britain before England existed: stones, invaders, and the slow birth of kingdoms.
The stone builders
Farming peoples raise the great stone circles at Stonehenge and Avebury — Britain’s first famous landmarks, built long before writing reaches the island.
🧠 The timeline starts with stones, not kings: Stonehenge is older than the pyramids’ fame in Britain.
Rome arrives
The Romans invade under the Emperor Claudius and stay for nearly 400 years: towns, roads, baths, coins and — from AD 122 — Hadrian’s Wall to guard the northern frontier. Queen Boudicca’s revolt in AD 60/61 burns Roman towns but cannot shift them. In AD 410 the legions leave for good.
🧠 43 arrive, 410 leave: Rome bookends the era — and the wall still marks the border country.
The Vikings
Norse raiders become settlers across the north and east — the Danelaw. King Alfred of Wessex halts their advance and begins pulling the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms together into something recognisably England.
Hastings — the last successful invasion
William, Duke of Normandy, defeats King Harold at the Battle of Hastings and becomes William the Conqueror. French-speaking Normans take over; castles rise everywhere, and in 1086 the Domesday Book surveys the whole kingdom — who holds what, down to the last village.
🧠 1066 is the most tested date in the book. Everything after it is a different country.
Era 2 · Medieval Britain 1066–1485
Kings push against barons, parliaments and plagues — and the nations of Britain take shape.
Magna Carta
Cornered by his barons, King John seals Magna Carta — the Great Charter — limiting the king’s power and planting the idea that even kings answer to the law. Parliaments grow from the councils kings summon for advice and money.
🧠 1215: the king is put in a cage of paper. British liberty starts as a barons’ bargain.
Bannockburn
Robert the Bruce defeats the English at Bannockburn and Scotland’s independence holds — the union of the crowns is still three centuries away. Wales, by contrast, was annexed in 1284 (the story is told in the Four Nations).
The Black Death
Plague reaches Britain and kills around a third of the population. With labour scarce, surviving workers can demand better pay and conditions — the old feudal order never fully recovers.
🧠 One catastrophe, huge consequences: too few hands means every hand costs more.
Agincourt
Henry V’s outnumbered army beats the French at Agincourt during the Hundred Years War — English archers and mud undo French knights. England will eventually lose the war, but the legend sticks.
Bosworth — the Roses end
After thirty years of the Wars of the Roses between York (white rose) and Lancaster (red rose), Henry Tudor wins at Bosworth Field. The medieval story hands over to the Tudors.
🧠 1485 closes this era and opens the most dramatic one.
Era 3 · Tudors & Stuarts 1485–1714
Reformation, civil war and a revolution that tames the monarchy for good. The Tudors have their own storyline — here is the century that follows them.
The Gunpowder Plot
Guy Fawkes and fellow plotters try to blow up Parliament and James I. The plot is foiled; Bonfire Night still marks it every 5 November.
A king executed
After a civil war between Charles I and Parliament, the king is tried and executed in 1649 — a shockwave across Europe. Britain becomes a republic under Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, until the monarchy is restored with Charles II in 1660.
🧠 1649 is the era’s hinge: the one time Britain tried life without a king.
Fire and rebirth in London
A year after a terrible plague, the Great Fire of London destroys much of the old city. London is rebuilt in stone, with St Paul’s Cathedral — Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece — at its heart.
The Glorious Revolution settles it
James II flees; William and Mary take the throne, and the Bill of Rights (1689) confirms that the monarch rules by Parliament’s consent — no taxes or army without it. In 1707 the Act of Union joins Scotland to England as Great Britain.
🧠 After 1689 the argument is over: Parliament is in charge, the monarch reigns within the law.
Era 4 · Empire & Industry 1714–1901
Steam, factories and a worldwide empire — Britain becomes the workshop of the world.
America breaks away
Britain’s thirteen American colonies declare independence. Losing America stings — and pushes British attention towards Canada, India, Australia and Africa instead.
Nelson and Wellington
Admiral Nelson dies winning Trafalgar (1805), ending Napoleon’s sea power; a decade later the Duke of Wellington beats Napoleon himself at Waterloo (1815). Two heroes, two elements: sea and land.
🧠 Trafalgar = navy, Waterloo = army. The test loves the pair.
The slave trade ends, then slavery itself
Parliament bans the slave trade in 1807 after campaigns led by William Wilberforce; in 1833 the Slavery Abolition Act frees enslaved people across most of the British Empire.
🧠 Trade first (1807), slavery itself a generation later (1833).
Victoria and the steam age
Queen Victoria comes to the throne in 1837 and reigns for almost 64 years. James Watt’s improved steam engine, the Stephensons’ railways and Brunel’s bridges and ships remake the country; factories and cities boom, and the Great Exhibition of 1851 shows off British industry to the world.
🧠 One long reign covers the whole transformation — that’s why it’s “Victorian”.
Era 5 · The World Wars 1901–1945
Two world wars in one generation — and a society changed by both.
The Somme
The First World War (1914–1918) grinds through battles like the Somme (1916), where Britain loses some 60,000 men killed or wounded on the first day. Pals battalions mean whole streets lose their young men together. The war ends at 11 am on 11 November 1918.
Votes for women
Women over 30 win the vote in 1918 — war work has made the old arguments untenable — and in 1928 voting becomes fully equal, at 21 for everyone.
🧠 1918 opens the door; 1928 walks through it.
The Battle of Britain
In the Second World War, after the evacuation from Dunkirk, the RAF holds off the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain — invasion is called off. Churchill, Prime Minister from May 1940, gives the country its soundtrack: speeches of defiance through the Blitz that follows.
🧠 1940 is Britain’s loneliest and proudest year: the island holds.
D-Day
On 6 June 1944 Allied forces land in Normandy — the largest seaborne invasion in history — and begin the liberation of Europe. The war in Europe ends in May 1945.
Era 6 · Modern Britain 1945–today
The welfare state, the end of empire, Europe — in, then out.
The NHS is born
Labour’s 1945 election win builds the welfare state from the Beveridge Report’s blueprint: the National Health Service opens in 1948 under Aneurin Bevan, free at the point of use. The same year, the Empire Windrush brings Caribbean workers to help rebuild.
🧠 1948 is the modern era’s anchor date: free healthcare for all.
You can vote at 18
The voting age falls from 21 to 18 — one of a string of reforms in a decade that also relaxes the old rules on theatre censorship, divorce and much more.
Europe — in, then out
Britain joins the European Community in 1973. In the 2016 referendum the country votes to leave the EU, and Brexit takes effect in 2020 — closing, for now, a fifty-year European chapter that began in this era.
🧠 1973 in, 2020 out: the timeline’s first and last dates rhyme.