British culture and civilization

The first thing that strikes when one looks at the map of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland is that it is in fact an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean situated off the coast
of north-west Europe. Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the North Sea to the East,
the English Channel to the South, the largest island i.e., Great Britain is divided into the
historical provinces of England, Scotland and Wales.

England stretches from the English Channel (that separates the island from the European
continent) to the Scottish Border represented by the Cheviot Hills (the scene of many battles
between the Scots and the English) and it is subdivided into the South, the Midlands and the
North.

The South (from the English Channel to the River Severn in the west and the Bay of
Wash in the east) is distinguished by its green pastures, natural beauty, green-shouldered
hills, churches, cathedrals, schools and universities.

The Midlands (from the SevernWash line to the Mersey estuary in the west and the
Humber estuary in the east) display a mixture of large industrial areas (the so-called
Black Country in the West Midlands, developing since the eighteenth-century Industrial
Revolution) and farming land (the counties of Shropshire and Worcestershire).

The North (from the Mersey-Humber line to the Cheviot Hills) is characterised by the
same contrast between green pastures and beautiful hilly countryside, and large industrial
towns and coal mining areas.

Scotland, a once independent kingdom, which lost its political independence and was united
to England in 1707, covers the northern, mainly mountainous part of the island (the
Grampian Mountains), and it is subdivided into the Highlands and the Lowlands. Along its
rocky, highly-indented shores1 , there are three large archipelagos, i.e., the Inner and Outer
Hebrides, the Orkney Islands, and the Shetland Islands. The Highlands and the Islands are
thinly populated; people lead a hard and lonely life and many of them still speak Erse, a
Scottish form of Gaelic, a Celtic dialect.

Wales, a rebellious region in the past, united to England under the first Tudors (Henry VII
and Henry VIII), stretches in the eastern part of the island, in a largely mountainous area (the
 Cambrian Mountains). One fifth of its inhabitants speak both English and Welsh, which is
also a Celtic dialect

As for Northern Ireland , a province of Celtic origin torn by religious (the Catholic Irish versus
the Protestant English) and political unrest, it lies across the Irish Sea, in the north-east of
Ireland. Several other islands should be included to complete the picture of the British
archipelago, i.e., the Isle of Man and Anglesey in the Irish Sea, the Isle of Wight in the south,
Jersey and Guernsey, also called the Channel Islands, off the European coast, and the Scilly
Islands in the south-west of Cornwall, which is the largest peninsula of Great Britain. The Isle of
Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom, but self-governing Crown
Dependencies that possess their own administrative structures.

Battles of Britain

The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588): In the 1570s-1580s, Anglo-Spanish relations had
become particularly tense. On the one hand, Spain ruled over the Protestant Netherlands that
fought for independence and England supported the Dutch Protestant rebels. On the other hand,
Spanish ships were systematically harassed by English privateers. As a result, Spain refused
to allow England to trade freely with the Spanish American colonies. In addition, the conflict
between the two countries was fuelled by religious differences: Spain was a Catholic power,
whereas England favoured Protestantism. On that account, the English queen Elizabeth I was
excommunicated by Pope Pius V in 1570 and loyal Catholics were urged to depose her.

Fighting the German Luftwaffe (1940): In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and
Britain entered the war. The next year, the German army invaded the Netherlands, attacked and
defeated the French. France capitulated within 11 days on June 10, 1940. The British army was
driven into the sea and was saved by thousands of private boats which crossed the English
Channel at Dunkirk. Over the next months, the German air forces (Luftwaffe) launched a major
bombing and raiding campaign over Britain. Their targets were coastal shipping convoys,
shipping centres, Royal Air Force (RAF) airfields and infrastructure, aircraft factories and
ground infrastructure. Finally, the Lufwaffe resorted to attacks on strategic town areas which
culminated in the serial bombing of London that killed thousands of civilians and destroyed most
of central London.