---
node: britain
type: region
slug: britain
title: "Britain"
lead: "Britain's recorded history runs from the Roman invasion of AD 43 through the making of England, the United Kingdom, and a global empire, to today's parliamentary democracy. Its monuments reach back far earlier, to Stonehenge around 3000 BC."
published: 2026-07-11
updated: 2026-07-11
---

## Overview

The island's story is one of successive arrivals — Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans — each layer reshaping language, law, and kingship. From the seventeenth century Britain built a maritime empire and pioneered the Industrial Revolution, and its parliament, common law, and language left marks far beyond the island.

## The major eras

Prehistory raised Stonehenge; Rome ruled the south for nearly four centuries; Anglo-Saxon kingdoms became England, conquered by the Normans in 1066. The medieval centuries produced Magna Carta and Parliament, the Tudors the break with Rome, the Stuarts civil war and constitutional monarchy, and the Georgian and Victorian eras industry and empire, before two world wars and the postwar transformation into modern Britain.