Hi, I’m an American. But I do know some things about Not-America. So today on Knowing Better we’re going international
and talking about the history of the United Kingdom. Since the history of Britain is like, five
times longer than that of America, I’m going to have to skate over some stuff, but mostly
just everything that happened before 1066. Just to set the scene for you, before the
Romans showed up, the island was inhabited by the Celts, which came to the islands between
500 and 400 BC. There’s actually some dispute over whether
these people were actually Celts or whether the Romans just called them that in a situation
similar to American Indians, because they had just conquered the Celts in Gaul, but
if you ask anyone from their whether they’re Celtic or not, they will say yes… so for
our purposes they were Celts. 800 years ish later, the Angles from the Jutland
Peninsula, in what we call Denmark now, and the Saxons from… Saxony in modern day northern Germany came… The Angles are where the name – look I shouldn’t
have to spell everything out for you right? Like you can figure it out… Anglish… English. It’s not that far of a jump. Anyway, the two together are the Anglo-Saxons
and they’re usually what we think of when we think of white English people. They landed on the eastern half of Britannia,
which would later become England. And around the same time, the Britons from
Brittany, in France, landed on the western half, which would later become Wales and still
strongly identifies as Celtic. There were some small kingdoms here and there
blah blah, that doesn’t matter. What does matter is how many there were, but
I’ll get back to that, remind me. Anyway, our story begins when William the
Conqueror, a Norman, from Normandy, in France, did the thing that he’s named for. He conquered all of the kingdoms and created
the Kingdom of England. Somewhat fun fact, he was the Duke of Normandy
when he did this, so for a brief moment the King of England was a vassal of the King of
France… but let’s not overcomplicate things. But this is where our story begins. Map of the world. England. Side note, England and France are like the
Real Housewives of Europe. They hate each other, talk smack about each
other, and even get in the occasional fight which can last up to 100 years. But if any outsider comes around looking to
start something, they become BFFs so fast it’ll make your head spin. England and France have a crazy complicated
and intertangled history, but there’s one bit that’s always annoyed me so let’s
clear that up right now. How do you say this? If you said Ye, you’re wrong, and you should
backhand yourself in the face. The English didn’t have the letter Y. All of the typesets were manufactured in France,
which did have the letter y. The th sound in Old English was represented
by a letter known as thorn. The French typesets didn’t have that letter,
so the English substituted this weird character that had no use to them. So how do you pronounce this? The olde inn. The letter was used everywhere, including
the King James bible… as in, thou shalt not mispronounce the word ye any longer. There are other fun crossovers though. Like this, what is this animal called? Good job, it’s a chicken, ten points. What is its meat called? This… this isn’t a trick question, it’s
also chicken. That’s how it should be, there’s the animal,
and you kill it and eat it, and it’s still that animal. But since the English and French invaded each
other so many times, English is confused. What is this animal? Yeah, and it’s meat is beef, which is a
French word. Or this? Pork, another French word. And mutton, the list goes on. Anyway, sorry, you know how I get with tangents. Wales was brought into the picture pretty
quickly. William the Conqueror established a frontier
with several lordships surrounding the principality of Wales. Wales didn’t have a King, it had a Prince,
and it kind of still… I’m getting ahead of myself. That lasted around 500 years and Wales was
officially brought into the fold in 1536. It was given everything equal to England,
representation in parliament, lordships, everything was equal. Which is why England and Wales are like this
son *cross fingers*. I mean look at this map of the Brexit vote
and try to tell me you can see the difference between England and Wales. Wales really didn’t start their identity
thing until the 1950s and 60s, when they thought that their language and culture might die
out so they started to try and preserve it. The Welsh are very much still Celtic and you
can definitely see it in their language. This is a very common Welsh first name, Llewellyn,
it’s not that difficult to pronounce, it’s actually kind of cool, but then there’s
also towns like this. Just up the road from …..
C’mon man I mean… there’s four L’s in a row there you can’t do that. Anyway Wales didn’t get their own parliament
until 1998. So while people always say that Wales is a
country… c’mon. Anyway under those same Acts of Union in 1536,
the Prince of Wales became a title given to the heir apparent to the King or Queen of
England. They have almost no power there and it’s
almost entirely symbolic, but still, even though Wales was more or less conquered by
the King of England, they still have a Prince. Which if you watch… since you watch Game
of Thrones, this should remind you of somewhere. Dorne. In fact, Westeros is very much modeled after
the British Isles. Here’s the British Isles, Great Britain
and Ireland. And here’s Westeros. Take Ireland, flip it around and enlarge it. Then take Great Britain, flip it, *bop it,
twist it*… and there you go, Westeros. The similarities don’t end there though. Aside from the fact that there is a Prince
of Wales and a Prince of Dorne – you already forgot to remind me didn’t you? Guess how many kingdoms were in England before
William the Conqueror came along. I’ll give you a hint, it was called the
Heptarcy. Seven, there were seven kingdoms. Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex,
Essex, Sussex, and Kent. But wait, there’s more. In Westeros, the northern border of the Seven
Kingdoms is known as the Wall. And it separates the civilized realm from
the wildlings and grumpkins and snarks. In the real world, it was called Hadrian’s
Wall, and it likewise separates the civilized realm from the wildlings, grumpkins, and snarks. Although, while The Wall looks like this,
Hadrian’s Wall looks like this. I’m pretty sure even Wheatley could scale
that wall but hey, I’m not judging. It was built in 122 AD they probably did the
best they could. Hadrian’s Wall isn’t actually the border
between England and Scotland, it’s pretty close, in some places it’s only half a mile
off, and in others it’s 60 or 70. But still it’s pretty close alright? So Scotland. How Scotland came to be part of the UK is…
complicated. James VI, the King of Scotland, inherited
the throne of England (1603) by being the second cousin of- Look like Westeros, all
the lords and dukes and kings and queens married each other and they’re all related to each
other somehow. The family tree looks like an overly complicated
web, CGP Grey has a video where he does his best explaining all of this, link in the description. Anyway so he became James I, King of England,
while also being James VI, King of Scotland. They weren’t united, so he was king of two
separate places and had two different numbers after his name. Scotland then tried to start a few colonies
in the New World that didn’t go so well so they ended up in a lot of debt. England offered to forgive and assume that
debt if they united, which they did, forming the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. So their flag went from looking like this,
to looking like this. Like Wales, it got its own parliament in 1998,
but unlike Wales, Scotland has always been pretty independent… and may be again if
the UK goes through with Brexit. Again, look at this map, it should be pretty
obvious where Scotland is. But while we’re looking at this map, see
that bit in Northern Ireland? How did that get there? Ireland is its own country with its own crazy
history and will likely get its own video at some point, just like many of the others
I will be talking about, so forgive me if I skate over a few things for now. The Irish call their island this… which
if you’re like me, your first inclination is to pronounce it like - My life for Aiur
- but really, their language is also Celtic, so they pronounce it like this… So that’s kind of a buzzkill… Anyway, in 1542, the Kingdom of Ireland was
established and King Henry VIII of England was named the King of Ireland. Much like the situation with Scotland, he
was King of both places but not one united kingdom. That happened in 1800, when the Kingdoms of
England, Scotland, and Ireland were all joined together to form the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland. Ireland is famously hyper-Catholic and England
is…. Not. So there were a lot of wars and fights between
the native Irish and the British settlers on the island. In 1920 they divided Ireland up unto Northern
and Southern Ireland, which was renamed the Irish Free State in 1922 when it broke away
from the UK but was still part of the commonwealth. Thus renaming the UK to the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and (just) Northern Ireland. Again, glossing over some things, in 1949
Ireland also broke away from the British Commonwealth and became its own independent republic. So what is this commonwealth thing? You’ve heard me say it a few times in this
video and in previous videos. It’s the much nicer, more modern term for
the former British Empire. The first bits of the British Empire were
on islands in the Caribbean, but more famously, in America. In 1607 Jamestown, Virginia was established
and later became the colony of Virginia. Just to shatter the American myth that the
first colonists were Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution… no. The first Americans were here looking for
profit. Shortly afterwards though, various religious
groups like the Pilgrims came to America forming the colonies of Plymouth, Maryland, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut. The English and the Dutch were in a lot of
fights with each other over establishing overseas territories, they butted heads quite a few
times, but the first was in 1664, when the English captured New Netherlands and its main
city, New Amsterdam… Which if you ever watched Animaniacs, you
should know what they renamed it to… Even Old New York was once new Amsterdam,
why they changed it I can’t say, people just liked it better that way. I should probably do a video on the rest of
that song… it’s actually a pretty interesting story. I wonder if it has anything to do with why
Oklahoma has a panhandle? Anyway, that’s enough about the thirteen
colonies, it’s not like anyone lives there anyway right? So in the North, in 1670, they established
the Hudson’s Bay Company in Rupert’s Land. This is important because it, along with the
thirteen colonies, became a flashpoint between Britain and France in the Seven Years’ War. When France lost, they gave up their colony
of New France… which was made up of Quebec and Ontario. In 1867, most of the British territories in
North America were united to form the Dominion of Canada. Except Newfoundland, which was its own country
all the way up until 1949 when it joined Canada. During World War 2, there were still Newfoundland
regiments in the British Army. Anyway, since Quebec and Ontario used to be
New France, that’s why Canada’s official languages are both English and French… and
why every once in a while Quebec toys around with the idea of secession. Canada didn’t become a fully independent
country until 1982, though it remains part of the Commonwealth, with the Queen as its
head of state. In 1606, the Dutch found a new continent in
the southern hemisphere and named it New Holland, a few years later they found some islands
to the east of it and named them New Zealand. Holland and Zealand are both provinces of
the Netherlands, so like the British, they didn’t really venture too outside of the
box when it came to coming up with creative names for things. Anyway, in 1783 the British lost their penal
colonies in North America and wanted to make up for it by establishing new colonies for
prisoners elsewhere. So that very same year, they established the
colony of New South Wales on the continent of New Holland…. Which they mistakenly renamed Australia. *Would you like to know more?* I made a video
about that a while back. They also just sort of took New Zealand from
the Dutch at the same time with little resistance. Australia is still part of the Commonwealth,
and like Canada, became fully independent in 1986, again with the Queen still being
the head of state. New Zealand on the other hand is not fully
independent, but is a self-governing Dominion, still recognizing the Queen as head of state. But that wasn’t the last time those troublesome
American colonies forced the British to look elsewhere. America was by far the largest exporter of
cotton, especially to the British. In 1861, most of America’s cotton-growing
states went into rebellion and the subsequent blockade stopped any American cotton from
reaching Britain. So they were forced to look elsewhere. Namely India… and later Egypt, but… India. The British already controlled a good portion
of India under the East India Company, but their control greatly expanded once… cotton
happened. In 1876, the Queen of England was declared
the Empress of India… and since slavery had been illegal in the British Empire since
1833, they just brutalized the Indians instead. Here’s a throwback to your elementary school
history class… what was the British colonial trade system
that said that all raw goods had to be shipped to England for manufacturing, and then sold
back to the colonies that it came from? Mercantilism. If you got that wrong you have to hit the
like button or something I dunno, saying that stuff usually works for other youtubers right? So all of the raw cotton was exported from
India, manufactured in England, and then sent back to India as finished textiles. Which is why Gandhi, during India’s independence
movement, said, “Machinery in the past has made us dependent on England, and the only
way we can rid ourselves of the dependence is to boycott all goods made by machinery. This is why we have made it the patriotic
duty of every Indian to spin his own cotton and weave his own cloth.” Gandhi’s movement successfully got India
its independence in 1947, along with Pakistan – and everything has been peaceful ever
since. Neither country has any tie to Britain, not
even with the Queen being head of state. They are as fully independent as the United
States. So there you have it, a very very brief history
of how the United Kingdom came to be and how losing America forced them to form the British
Empire… At one point governing over a quarter of the
world’s population with territory on every continent. Sorry world… our bad. But hey it all worked out in the end right? So the next time someone tells you that Wales
is its own country or that the sun never sets on the British empire, hopefully now, you’ll
know better. Oi mate, that was well wicked. Do you think we’ll ever see the likes of
the British Empire again? Let me know down in the comments. And don’t forget to colonize that subscribe
button… by clicking it. I know a lot of you have been asking about
the return of Psychology videos, and if you followed me on facebook, twitter, or reddit,
you would know what’s coming up next so… do that.
Did they also lack “T” and “h”?
Is that why we have “thou” and “you”
They lacked the a letter called "thorne" that makes the th-sound. Keep your titles straight.
I often read it looks similar to a y but it really doesn't
FrenchGermanRemember that Gutenberg was in Germany. Getting reproducible letters meant Germanic letters.
Theet