Chapter 3 · A long and illustrious history

The 20th century: Life in the UK test study notes

Britain began the century as a confident global power, introducing reforms such as old-age pensions, free school meals and help for the unemployed. That confidence was shattered by the First World War (1914–18), triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Britain and its Empire fought with the Allied Powers against the Central Powers and suffered more than two million casualties before the fighting stopped on 11 November 1918. In Ireland, the promise of Home Rule, the 1916 Easter Rising and a guerrilla war ended in partition. Northern Ireland stayed in the UK, and in 1922 the rest became the Irish Free State. Disagreement over the split later fuelled the Troubles. Between the wars many people's living conditions improved, but the Great Depression from 1929 hit heavy industry while car-making, aviation and broadcasting grew. Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939 started the Second World War. Led by Winston Churchill, Britain survived Dunkirk, won the Battle of Britain and endured the Blitz. After D-Day in 1944, Germany was beaten in May 1945 and the war with Japan ended in August 1945.

Key facts to remember

Early 1900s – a period of reform: old-age pensions, free school meals, financial help for the unemployed and, for the first time, pay for MPs.
Other early 20th-century reforms – safer workplaces, stricter planning rules to stop new slums being built, and more democratic local government.
28 June 1914 – Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated, which sparks the First World War (1914–18).
Allied Powers: Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Belgium and Serbia, later joined by Greece, Italy, Romania and the USA. Central Powers: chiefly Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, with Bulgaria joining later.
More than a million Indians fought for Britain (the handbook says about 40,000 were killed; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records about 74,000 Indian war dead); Britain suffered more than two million casualties in all.
July 1916 – the British attack on the Somme; its opening day alone brings about 60,000 British casualties.
11am, 11 November 1918 – the First World War ends in victory for Britain and its allies.
1913 – Home Rule promised for Ireland but opposed by Protestants in the north; 1916 – the Easter Rising in Dublin; 1921 – a peace treaty is signed.
1922 – Ireland becomes two countries: six mainly Protestant counties stay in the UK as Northern Ireland; the rest becomes the Irish Free State (a republic from 1949). The later conflict is known as 'the Troubles'.
1929 – the Great Depression begins; shipbuilding suffers while the car and aviation industries grow, and the number of car owners doubles, from 1 million in 1930 to 2 million by 1939.
Inter-war culture: novelists Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh and the economist John Maynard Keynes. The BBC begins radio broadcasting in 1922 and, in 1936, the world's first regular (high-definition) TV service.
1933 – Hitler comes to power; 1939 – Germany invades Poland and Britain and France declare war on Germany. The Axis powers are Germany, Italy and Japan.
May 1940 – Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister; he loses the 1945 election, returns in 1951 and, in 2002, is voted the greatest ever Briton.
Churchill's 1940 speeches – 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' as the new Prime Minister, and 'so much owed by so many to so few' during the Battle of Britain.
1940 – more than 300,000 men are rescued from Dunkirk ('the Dunkirk spirit'); in summer the RAF wins the Battle of Britain with Spitfires and Hurricanes, planes designed and built in Britain.
The Blitz – after the Battle of Britain, German night bombing raids hit London and other cities across Britain, almost totally destroying Coventry and badly damaging London's East End.
June 1941 – Germany invades the Soviet Union; until then, for a year from June 1940, Britain and its Empire had faced Nazi Germany with almost no allies.
December 1941 – Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and the USA enters the war. 6 June 1944 – D-Day landings in Normandy.
May 1945 – Germany is defeated; August 1945 – the USA drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war with Japan.
Ernest Rutherford – the New Zealand-born scientist who led the Manchester and Cambridge team that was the first to 'split the atom'.
Manhattan Project – the American-led project that built the first atomic bombs; several British scientists contributed to it.
1928 – Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin while researching influenza; Howard Florey and Ernst Chain develop it into a usable drug, and in 1945 Fleming receives the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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These notes summarise the official handbook, Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents (3rd edition), which all the test questions come from. Try the free chapter 3 questions.