Title: Timeline for the United Kingdom
Subject: 
Publisher: 
Description:  You'd think they'd stick with one name.
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Effective_date: None
Expiration_date: 9998-12-31 00:00:00
Type: Document
Format: text/plain
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SafetyBelt: 1071588625.62



 .1914 - Outbreak of World War I. UK enters hostilities against Germany. Gruelling trench warfare in Belgium and France.

 .1918 - War ends in November with armistice. The number of UK war dead runs to several hundred thousand.

 .1921 - UK agrees to the foundation of the Irish Free State. Northern Ireland remains part of the UK.

 .1924 - First UK government led by the Labour party under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.

 .1926 - General Strike arising from coal dispute.


 .1929 - World stock market crash. Unemployment begins to rise in UK.

 .1931 - Economic crisis. Millions are unemployed. National Government coalition formed.

 .1936 - King Edward VIII abdicates over relationship with an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.

 .1938 - Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain meets the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, in Munich. Chamberlain says he has averted war with Germany.

 .1945 - The UK becomes a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

 .1947 - The former colony India wins independence.

 .1948 - National Health Service is established.

 .1949 - The UK becomes a founder member of Nato.

 .1953 - Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

 .1956 - UK intervenes in Suez Canal Zone, but withdraws under pressure from the US.

 .1961 - UK application to join European Economic Community vetoed by French President Charles de Gaulle.

 .1962 - The Beatles have their first Top 20 hit in the UK with 'Love Me Do'.

 .1969 - British troops sent to quell unrest in Northern Ireland.

 .1973 - The UK joins the European Economic Community.

 .1975 - EEC membership is endorsed in a referendum. North Sea oil begins to be pumped ashore.

 .1988 - Flight Pan Am 103 explodes in mid-air over Scotland and plunges onto the town of Lockerbie. All 259 people on board as well as a further 11 on the ground are killed.

 .1990 - Thatcher resigns as prime minister after she fails to defeat a challenge to her leadership of the Conservative party. John Major becomes prime minister.

 .1991 - UK takes part in US-led military campaign to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. 

 .1997 May - With the Conservative Party deeply divided over policy towards Europe, Labour under Blair wins landslide election victory.

 .1997 August - Diana, Princess of Wales, is killed in a car crash in Paris.

 .1997 September - Referenda in Scotland and Wales back the creation of separate assemblies in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

 .1998 - The Good Friday Agreement on a political settlement for Northern Ireland is approved by voters in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland.

 .1999 - UK forces take part in the air war with Yugoslavia and the consequent multinational force in Kosovo.

 .1999 - Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly inaugurated.

 .2000 - UK forces intervene in Sierra Leone to protect and evacuate foreign citizens caught up in the civil war. They subsequently stay on to help train the government army.

 .2001 - A Libyan intelligence agent, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, is found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and sentenced at a court in the Netherlands to life in prison which he will serve in Scotland. His co-accused is found not guilty.

 .2001 April - Blair postpones country-wide municipal elections due in May as an outbreak of foot and mouth disease amongst cattle, sheep and pigs continues to spread.

 






 


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