Roman Londinium
There is evidence of scattered
Celtic settlements
along the Thames, but no firm proof that central London was permanently settled by the Celts before the arrival of the
Romans
in 43 AD. Although the Romans' principal settlement was...
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Saxon Lundenwic and the Danes
By the fourth century, the Roman Empire was on its last legs, and the Romans officially abandoned the city in 410 AD (when Rome was sacked by the Visigoths), leaving the country - and Londinium - at the mercy of marauding Saxon pirates. The
Saxon
...
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From 1066 to the Black Death
On his deathbed, the celibate Edward appointed Harold, Earl of Wessex, as his successor. Having crowned himself in the new Abbey - establishing a tradition that continues to his day - Harold was defeated by
William of Normandy
(William the...
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Tudor London
Under the
Tudor royal family
, London's population, which had remained constant at around 50,000 since the Black Death, increased dramatically, trebling in size during the course of the century.
The most crucial development of the...
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Stuart London
In 1603, James VI of Scotland became
James I
of England (1603-25), thereby uniting the two crowns and marking the beginning of the
Stuart dynasty
. His intention of exercising religious tolerance was thwarted by the public outrage...
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Georgian London
With the accession of
George I
(1714-27), the first of the Hanoverian dynasty, London's expansion continued unabated. The shops of the newly developed
West End
stocked the most fashionable goods in the country, the volume of trade...
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The nineteenth century
The
nineteenth century
witnessed the emergence of London as the capital of an empire that stretched across the globe. The city's population grew from just over one million in 1801 to nearly seven million by 1901. The world's largest enclosed
...
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From World War I to World War II
During
World War I
(1914-18), London experienced its first aerial attacks, with Zeppelin raids leaving some 650 dead, but these were minor casualties in the context of a war that destroyed millions of lives and eradicated whatever remained of...
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Postwar London
To lift the country out of its postwar gloom, the
Festival of Britain
was staged in 1951 on derelict land on the south bank of the Thames, a site that was eventually transformed into the
South Bank Arts Centre
. Londoners turned up...
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Thatcherite London
In 1979,
Margaret Thatcher
won the general election for the Conservative Party, and the country and the capital would never be quite the same again. The Conservatives were to remain in power for seventeen years, steering the country into a...
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Millennium London
On the surface at least, twenty-first century London has come a long way since the bleak Thatcher years. Redevelopment has begun again apace, partly fuelled by money from the National Lottery, which has funded a series of prestigious new
millennium...
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