Modern Britain — two world wars to the present

This is the chapter where the UK becomes the country it is now. Two world wars hollow out the old social order. The welfare state is built. The Empire is dismantled. Late in the century, the UK joins and then renegotiates its relationship with Europe, and devolution reshapes the union itself. A handful of dates carry the bulk of the testable content.

The First World War — 1914 to 1918

1914–1918 — First World War. Britain enters the war in 1914 alongside France and Russia, against Germany and the other Central Powers. The defining campaign for British memory is the Western Front — the trench war in northern France and Belgium.

Two specific 1916 events the test sometimes asks about:

Easter Rising in Dublin (April 1916) — Irish republicans declare an independent Irish republic during the war. The rising is suppressed, but it changes the politics of Ireland for good.
Battle of the Somme — one of the costliest battles in British history. Around 60,000 British casualties on the first day alone.

1918 — the war ends. The handbook gives the precise time — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (11:00 am, 11 November 1918). This is why Remembrance Day is on 11 November.

1918 also — women over 30 get the vote. First time. The age threshold is higher than for men because — among other reasons — there were fears that giving women the vote at 21 would outnumber men, who had been depleted by the war.

Inter-war Britain — 1918 to 1939

A handful of inter-war facts surface in test questions:

1921 — Irish peace treaty signed. 1922 — Ireland is partitioned. The 26 southern counties become the Irish Free State; the 6 northern counties remain part of the UK as Northern Ireland.
1922 — BBC starts radio broadcasts.
1928 — women get the vote at 21, on the same terms as men. The handbook describes this as the moment Britain becomes “fully democratic” — a phrase the test sometimes asks for verbatim.
1929 — Great Depression begins (the global one, originating with the Wall Street crash).
1933 — Hitler comes to power in Germany.
1936 — BBC starts the world’s first regular television service.

The franchise milestones: 1918 (women 30+) → 1928 (women 21+, “fully democratic”) → 1969 (voting age lowered to 18). Three steps over half a century.

The Second World War — 1939 to 1945

1939 — Hitler invades Poland; Britain and France declare war.

1940 packs in a famous run of events:

Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister.
Dunkirk evacuation — over 300,000 Allied troops are pulled off French beaches as France falls.
Battle of Britain — the RAF holds off the German air force, and the planned German invasion of Britain is shelved.
The Blitz — sustained German bombing of British cities, especially London.

1941 — Hitler invades the Soviet Union; Pearl Harbor brings the United States into the war.

1944 — D-Day, 6 June. Allied troops land in Normandy and begin the liberation of western Europe. The same year sees the Butler Education Act, which establishes free secondary education.

1945 — VE Day (Victory in Europe). The war in Asia ends after atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clement Attlee and the Labour Party win the post-war general election; Churchill is voted out almost immediately after victory.

The welfare-state chain. 1942 Beveridge Report (the blueprint for the welfare state). 1945 Attlee elected (the politicians who will build it). 1948 NHS founded by Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, Minister for Health. Plan → election → execution. If a question asks for “the founder of the NHS,” the answer is Bevan, not Attlee.

Post-war Britain — 1945 to 1979

The Empire dismantles quickly:

1947 — India, Pakistan, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) granted independence.
1948 — NHS established, and at almost the same moment West Indians are invited to come and work in Britain to fill post-war labour shortages — the start of the Windrush generation.
1949 — the Irish Free State becomes the Republic of Ireland and leaves the Commonwealth.
1952 — Elizabeth II becomes Queen.
1957 — Treaty of Rome. The European Economic Community (EEC) is founded. The UK is not a founding member.
1958 — life peers are introduced into the House of Lords (peerages that aren’t inherited).
1966 — England wins the FIFA World Cup — the only time. (Also: Sir Francis Chichester is the first person to sail solo around the world, the same year or the next.)
1969 — voting age reduced to 18. Same year, the Northern Ireland Troubles begin.
1972 — the Northern Ireland Parliament is suspended; direct rule from Westminster begins.
1973 — the UK joins the EEC. Sixteen years late.
1976 — Concorde begins commercial flights.
1978 — first “test-tube baby” (IVF) born in Oldham.

Modern Britain — 1979 to the present

1979–1990 — Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. First woman PM, longest-serving of the 20th century. 1982 — Falklands War with Argentina.

1990 — Tim Berners-Lee transfers information through the World Wide Web for the first time (25 December 1990). British contribution to the internet, often tested.

1996 — Dolly the sheep cloned in Edinburgh — the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. 1984 — Turner Prize is established. 2003 — Concorde retired.

The late-1990s political reorganisation is dense and often asked about as a cluster:

1997 — Tony Blair / Labour win. Devolution begins.
1998 — Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement. The framework for ending the Northern Ireland Troubles.
1999 — Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are formed; Northern Ireland Assembly is elected. The same year, hereditary peers lose the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords.

1973 (UK joins EEC) → 1997 (Blair, devolution begins) → 1999 (devolved bodies sit). A late-20th-century sequence of political reorganisation. They cluster in memory because they are all about re-drawing the structure of UK politics.

A handful more for the run-up to today:

2002 — NI Assembly is suspended (returns later).
2007 — Gordon Brown becomes PM; NI Assembly is reinstated.
2009 — UK combat troops leave Iraq.
2010 — coalition government under David Cameron — first hung Parliament since February 1974.
2012 — London Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (60 years on the throne).

What to take from this chapter

WWI 1914–1918. Ends 11 am, 11 November 1918. Same year, women 30+ get the vote.
1928 women 21+ vote — “fully democratic” — same terms as men.
WWII 1939–1945. Churchill 1940. D-Day 6 June 1944. VE Day + atomic bombs 1945.
1948 NHS — Nye Bevan. Beveridge planned, Attlee won, Bevan built.
1957 EEC formed; UK joins 1973.
1969 voting age reduced to 18.
1979–1990 Thatcher. 1982 Falklands.
1997 Blair / devolution; 1998 Good Friday Agreement; 1999 Scottish Parliament + Welsh Assembly + NI Assembly.