9781422285916

The monument known as Stonehenge was once thought to be incomplete, but a dry summer in 2014 revealed the remaining stones that completed the circle.

With the Romans gone, the country had no strong army to defend itself. Tribes called the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes rowed across the North Sea from their homelands to settle in Britain. In 793 another invasion began: the Vikings arrived from Scandinavia and took Northumbria in the north, as well as eastern England. In 1066 the English army marched to Hastings on the south coast to take on the forces of the Normans from France, led by William Duke of Normandy (later known as William the Conqueror), who defeated the English. William became king of England that year and ruled until 1087. The House of Normandy reigned until 1135 when it was succeeded by the House of Blois, followed by the House of Plantagenet. ROYAL NUMBERS It was only afterWilliam the Conqueror (William I) that Britain started using regnal numbers to distinguish monarchs from others with the same name. Before 1066, kings were known by nicknames such as Aethelred “the Unready,” who was son of Edgar “the Peaceful,” or Sweyn “Forkbeard,” the son of Harald “Bluetooth.” Even William I was sometimes known by his nickname, “William the Bastard”! Starting with Henry II in 1154, the House of Plantagenet, also called the House of Anjou, was unusual in that the kings ruled from France. The Angevins included Richard I—“the Lionheart”—who was a great warrior and military

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MAJOR NATIONS IN A GLOBAL WORLD: UNITED KINGDOM

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