Life in the UK test questions: A long and illustrious history

By hunting animals and gathering plants

Britain's earliest inhabitants lived in the Stone Age and were hunter-gatherers. Farming only reached Britain about 6,000 years ago, and coins and Roman traders came much later.

True

Stone Age people could reach Britain on foot across land that connected it to the continent. Rising sea levels later covered this land and turned Britain into an island.

The first farmers arrived in Britain about 6,000 years ago.

Farming reached Britain about 6,000 years ago, thousands of years before the Romans. These early farming communities built houses, tombs and monuments.

Wiltshire

Stonehenge, the famous prehistoric stone monument, is in Wiltshire. It is thought to have been a place where people gathered for ceremonies linked to the seasons.

Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland

Skara Brae is a Stone Age village on Orkney, a group of islands off the north coast of Scotland. Its stone houses survive so well that they show how early farming people lived.

Stonehenge and Skara Brae

Stonehenge in Wiltshire and the village of Skara Brae on Orkney were built thousands of years before the Romans arrived. Hadrian's Wall is Roman, and Caernarfon Castle was built for Edward I in the Middle Ages.

Edward I

Edward I's Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 made Wales part of the lands ruled by the English Crown. He built huge castles in Wales to hold on to his power there.

Conwy and Caernarfon

Edward I built great castles in north Wales, including Conwy and Caernarfon, to maintain English power. Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hill fort in Dorset, and Edinburgh Castle is in Scotland.

Robert the Bruce

Robert the Bruce led the Scottish army that defeated the English at Bannockburn in 1314. The poet John Barbour later wrote about the battle.

False

It was the other way round. The Scots, led by Robert the Bruce, defeated the English at Bannockburn, and Scotland remained unconquered by the English.

The Pale

The English first went to Ireland as troops helping an Irish king and stayed to build their own settlements. They came to rule an area around Dublin known as the Pale.

Wars in which European Christians fought for control of the Holy Land

Many English knights took part in the Crusades, in which Christians from across Europe fought for control of the Holy Land. The long wars with France are known as the Hundred Years War.

He strengthened central government and reduced the power of the nobles

Henry VII, the first Tudor king, wanted peace and a secure throne, so he built up the central administration and cut back the nobles' power. He was also careful with money, which left the Crown financially strong.

Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

Anne Boleyn, the mother of Elizabeth I, and her cousin Catherine Howard were both executed. Henry ended his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and Jane Seymour died shortly after giving birth to his son Edward.

True

Jane Seymour died less than two weeks after giving birth to Edward in 1537. Edward was Henry VIII's only legitimate son to survive infancy, and he later reigned as Edward VI.

The Pope refused to let him end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon

Henry wanted to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, who had not given him a surviving son, but the Pope would not agree. Henry responded by setting up the Church of England, with the king rather than the Pope in charge.

In Henry VIII's new Church of England, the king rather than the Pope had the power to appoint bishops.

When Henry VIII broke with Rome, the Pope lost his authority in England. The king took the power to appoint bishops and to decide how people should worship.

False

The laws that formally united Wales with England were passed under Henry VIII in the 1530s and 1540s. Wales was brought under English law and began sending representatives to the House of Commons.

People should be able to read the Bible in their own language and A person's own relationship with God mattered more than submitting to the Church's authority

The Reformation challenged the Pope's authority and many Roman Catholic practices. Protestants wanted the Bible in their own language rather than Latin, stopped praying to saints and at shrines, and stressed each person's own relationship with God.

Sir Robert Walpole

Sir Robert Walpole led the government from 1721 to 1742 and is usually seen as the first Prime Minister. The role grew out of the monarch's most important minister in Parliament taking on more power.

After 1688 the monarch remained important but could no longer insist on policies that Parliament would not support.

The Glorious Revolution began a constitutional monarchy in which Parliament limited the monarch's powers. Over time, ministers led by the Prime Minister took on more of the work of running the government.

Culloden

Charles Edward Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed in Scotland in 1745 and raised an army of Highland clansmen to restore the Stuarts to the throne. George II's army defeated the Jacobites at Culloden in 1746, and Charles escaped to Europe.

Landlords evicted many people from small farms to make way for large-scale sheep farming

After Culloden the clans lost much of their power, and many chieftains became landlords. From the late 18th century many Highland families were cleared from their small farms, mainly to make way for sheep, and many emigrated to North America.

Auld Lang Syne

Robert Burns (1759–96), often called 'The Bard', reworked many traditional Scottish songs. Auld Lang Syne, based on an old song he revised, is sung at New Year celebrations, including Hogmanay in Scotland.

False

Burns wrote in the Scots language, in Scottish English and in standard English. His poems and songs are still widely loved in Scotland and beyond.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith developed influential ideas about economics during the 18th-century Enlightenment. Other leading Scottish figures of the period included the philosopher David Hume and the engineer James Watt. Robert Louis Stevenson was a 19th-century novelist.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated on 28 June 1914, triggering the First World War (1914–18). Deeper causes included nationalism, militarism, imperialism and the split of Europe's great powers into two rival camps.

True

The guns fell silent at 11am on 11 November 1918, and Britain and its allies were victorious. The date is still marked every year as Remembrance Day.

The Somme

The British attack on the Somme began in July 1916 and cost about 60,000 British casualties on its opening day. Trafalgar, Waterloo and Culloden were battles of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Japan and Serbia

Britain's side included France, Russia, Japan, Belgium and Serbia, with Greece, Italy, Romania and the USA joining later. Ranged against them were the Central Powers: chiefly Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and, later, Bulgaria.

True

The whole Empire was drawn in: over a million Indians served in many different countries, and tens of thousands of them died. Soldiers from Africa, the West Indies, Canada, Australia and New Zealand served with the British too.

The handbook says around 40,000 Indian soldiers were killed. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorates about 74,000 Indian servicemen who died in the First World War.

Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee, Churchill's deputy in the wartime coalition, led the Labour government from 1945 to 1951. His government created the NHS, nationalised major industries and put much of the Beveridge Report into effect.

Aneurin (Nye) Bevan

Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan, Minister for Health in Attlee's Labour government, led the creation of the NHS in 1948.

The NHS was set up to guarantee a minimum standard of health care for everyone, free at the point of use.

The NHS, founded in 1948, promised a basic standard of health care for all, free when it is used. Alongside it, a national system of benefits aimed to protect people 'from the cradle to the grave'.

True

Taking industries into public ownership is called nationalisation. Attlee's government nationalised the railways, the coal mines and the gas and electricity supplies, among other industries.

The handbook also lists water supplies among the industries nationalised after 1945. In reality, water supply stayed mainly with local councils and private water companies until regional water authorities took over in 1974.

Disease and Idleness

William Beveridge's 1942 report named five 'Giants': Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. It laid the foundations of the modern welfare state.

Overseeing the Education Act 1944, which introduced free secondary education in England and Wales

Conservative MP R A Butler became responsible for education in 1941 and oversaw the Education Act 1944, often called 'the Butler Act'. It brought in free secondary education in England and Wales.

Pakistan

India and Pakistan became independent in August 1947. Many more colonies followed over the next two decades, including Nigeria in 1960, Jamaica in 1962 and Kenya in 1963.

The handbook says nine countries were granted independence in 1947, including India, Pakistan and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In fact Ceylon became independent in February 1948.