The chapter 3 drill
15 questions in learn mode: answer one, see if you were right and why, then the next.
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Key facts
Key facts to learn
- The first people to live in Britain were Stone Age hunter-gatherers, at a time when a land bridge still joined Britain to the rest of Europe. Britain became an island, cut off from the continent for good, about 10,000 years ago.
- The first farmers reached Britain about 6,000 years ago, probably with ancestors from south-east Europe. Farmers of this time built Stonehenge, in what is now Wiltshire, which was probably a meeting place for ceremonies linked to the seasons.
- Skara Brae on Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, is the best-preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe. It shows archaeologists how people lived near the end of the Stone Age.
- The Bronze Age began about 4,000 years ago: people lived in roundhouses, buried their dead in round barrows and made fine objects in bronze and gold. In the Iron Age that followed, people built hill forts such as Maiden Castle in Dorset, spoke a Celtic language and made the first coins in Britain, some showing the names of Iron Age kings.
- Julius Caesar led a Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC, but it did not succeed. Nearly 100 years later, in AD 43, the Emperor Claudius led an invasion that did succeed.
- Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe in what is now eastern England, fought against the Romans. A statue of her stands near Westminster Bridge in London.
- The Romans never conquered parts of what is now Scotland. The Emperor Hadrian built a wall across the north of England to keep out the Picts, who were ancestors of the Scottish people. Parts of Hadrian's Wall, including the forts at Housesteads and Vindolanda, can still be seen, and the wall is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- The Romans stayed in Britain for about 400 years. Roman rule brought roads, public buildings, a system of law, and plants and animals that were new to Britain, and the first Christian communities appeared in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Romans left in AD 410 to defend other parts of their empire.
- After the Romans left, tribes from northern Europe, the Jutes, Angles and Saxons, invaded Britain, and their languages are the basis of modern English. By about AD 600 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had been set up, mainly in what is now England, while much of Wales and Scotland stayed free of their rule. One Anglo-Saxon king was buried in a ship with treasure and armour at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk.
- The Anglo-Saxons were not Christian when they arrived, but missionaries from Ireland and Rome brought the faith. St Patrick became the patron saint of Ireland, St Columba founded a monastery on the island of Iona, off what is now Scotland, and St Augustine led missionaries from Rome to the south and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
- The Vikings came from Denmark and Norway. Their first raids, on towns along the coast, came in AD 789, and they carried off goods and slaves; later some of them settled in communities in eastern England and Scotland.
- King Alfred the Great united the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and defeated the Vikings. Many Vikings stayed on in an area called the Danelaw, and place names such as Grimsby and Scunthorpe come from Viking languages. For a short time England was ruled by Danish kings; the best known is Cnut, also called Canute, whom the handbook names as the first.
In our own words, from the official handbook. The full course turns the dates, people, places and numbers into flashcards: see the full course.
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