UNITED KINGDOM

The Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland had existed as separate sovereign and independent states with their own monarchs and political structures since the 9th century. The once independent Principality of Wales fell under the control of English monarchs from the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. Under the Acts of Union 1707, England (including Wales) and Scotland, which had been in personal union since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, agreed to a political union in the form of a unified Kingdom of Great Britain.[11] The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1541 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.[12] Independence for the Republic of Ireland in 1922 followed the partition of the island of Ireland two years previously, with six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster remaining within the UK, which then changed to the current name in 1927 of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.[13] (The term Great Britain in a political sense still refers to the three of the four constituent countries, namely England, Scotland and Wales, on the island of Great Britain. The United Kingdom however always formally includes Northern Ireland).

Britain was an important part of the Age of Enlightenment with philosophical and scientific input and an influential literary and theatrical tradition.]].[citation needed] Over the next century the United Kingdom played a leading role in developing Western ideas of parliamentary democracy with significant contributions to literature, the arts and science.[14] The wealth of the British Empire, like other Great Powers, was also partly generated by colonial exploitation, including the industrialisation after 1750 of the slave trade, with Britain's 18th century shipping fleet, the largest in the world, taking African slaves to the Americas as part of the infamous triangular trade. At the beginning of the 19th however, Britain passed the Slave Trade Act and became the first nation to permanently prohibit trade in slaves.

After the Industrial Revolution and the defeat of Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain became the principal power of the 19th century. At its peak, the British Empire, which is considered to be both the United Kingdom and areas that are legally separate entities from, but controlled by, the U.K., stretched to almost one-third of the earth and encompassed a third of its population, making it in terms of population and territory the largest in history. The British Empire has been described as "The Sun never sets on the British Empire".[citation needed]

Over the 19th century the country played an important role in the development of parliamentary democracy, partly via the emergence of a multi-party system and expansion of suffrage. Developments of science and the arts, building on an 18th century inheritance of figures such as Isaac Newton, and particularly its earlier tradition of literature, were influential.
 
The British Empire in 1897. The empire became the largest and most extensive empire in history.

At the end of the Victorian era, however, the United Kingdom lost its industrial leadership, particularly to the United States, which surpassed the UK in industrial production and trade in the 1890s, as well as to the German Empire. Britain remained the pre-eminent superpower, and its empire expanded to its maximum size by 1921, gaining the League of Nations mandate over former German and Ottoman colonies after World War I.

After emergence from the war, the world's first large-scale international broadcasting network, the BBC, was created. The country's Labour movement had been in expansion since the late 19th century, and in 1924 the first labour government came to power. Britain fought Nazi Germany in World War II, with its Commonwealth allies including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, later to be joined by further allies. Wartime leader Winston Churchill and his successor Clement Atlee helped plan the post-war world as part of the "Big Three". World War II, however, left the United Kingdom financially and physically damaged. Economically costly wartime loans, loans taken in 1945 from the United States and from Canada, combined with post-war Marshall Plan aid from the United States started the United Kingdom on the road to recovery.
 
1945 saw the emergence of the British Welfare State and one of the world's first and most comprehensive Health Services, while the demands of a recovering economy brought people from all over the Commonwealth to create a multiethnic Britain. Although the new postwar limits of Britain's political role were confirmed by the Suez Crisis of 1956, the international currency of the language meant the continuing impact of its literature and culture, while at the same time from the 1960s its popular culture found an influence abroad. Following a period of economic stagnation and industrial strife in the 1970s after a global economic downturn, the 1980s saw the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, under whom a marked break with the post-war political and economic consensus saw, for her supporters, economic recovery, and, for her critics, greater social division. From the mid-1990s onward these trends have largely continued under the leadership of Tony Blair.

The United Kingdom has been a member of the European Union since 1973. The attitude of the present Labour government towards further integration with this organisation is mixed,[15] with the Conservative Party favouring a return of some powers and competencies to the state,[16] and the Liberal Democrats supportive of current engagement.

The United Kingdom has extensive influence throughout the world, reinforced by its historical links forged over the past five centuries.[citation needed] The United Kingdom is one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It is also a large member state of the European Union, and is one of the three 'big powers' along with Germany and France, meaning that it is pivotal in the development of European integration.[citation needed] Britain's close allies outside of Europe include the United States and Australia, as well as Canada and New Zealand. With its membership of the G8 and NATO, British influence is high in international institutions. Britain's global presence is amplified further through its extensive trading relations and its renowned armed forces, and it has approximately eighty military installations and other deployments around the globe.[citation needed]

 
The Royal Navy's CVF Aircraft Carriers with F-35 fighter jets, replacements for the UK's Invincible class aircraft carriers and [BAe Systems Harrier GR7/GR9] aircraft. When built, they will be the largest aircraft carriers outside the US Navy.

The Army, Navy and Air force are collectively known as the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces and officially the Armed Forces of the Crown. The Commander-in-Chief is the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II and they are managed by the Ministry of Defence. The armed forces are controlled by the Defence Council currently headed by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup.

The United Kingdom fields one of the most powerful, efficient and comprehensive armed forces in the world. Its global power projection capabilities are deemed second only to the United States military, and its navy is the world's second strongest.[64] Amongst the NATO allies, the Royal Navy's total naval tonnage is second only to the United States military and has the third largest share of tactical combat aircraft to the US and France.[65] According to the British Ministry of Defence, the UK has the second highest military expenditure in the world.[66]

The United Kingdom possesses a comprehensive nuclear arsenal (one of the small number of countries to do so), utilising the submarine-based Trident II ballistic missile system with nuclear warheads. These Vanguard class submarines were designed and built by VSEL (now BAE Systems Submarines) at Barrow-in-Furness.

The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, promoting the United Kingdom's wider security interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular participants in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and other coalition operations.
 
A Trident SLBM being launched from a submerged submarine, as a test launch. The Royal Navy operates four nuclear Vanguard class submarines armed with Trident II nuclear missiles.

The British Army had a reported strength of 102,440 in 2005[67] and the Royal Air Force a strength of 49,210. The 36,320-member Royal Navy operates the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent, which consists of four Trident missile-armed submarines, while the Royal Marines are the Royal Navy's Light Infantry units for amphibious operations and for specialist reinforcement forces in and beyond the NATO area. This puts total active duty military personnel in the range of 190,000 deployed in over eighty countries.

There are also reserve forces supporting the regular military. These include an army reserve, the Territorial Army (TA), the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR), Royal Marines Reserve (RMR) and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF). About 9% of the regular armed forces is made up of women, a figure that is higher for the reserve forces.

The United Kingdom Special Forces, principally the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS), provide troops trained for quick, mobile, military responses in counter-terrorism, land, maritime and amphibious operations, often where secrecy or covert operations are required.

Despite the United Kingdom's wide-ranging capabilities, recent pragmatic defence policy has a stated assumption that "the most demanding operations" would be undertaken as part of a coalition.[68] Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan (Operations VERITAS, FINGAL and HERRICK), Iraq (Ops GRANBY, DESERT FOX, TELIC and the no-fly zones) may all be taken as precedent; the last war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982, with full-scale combat operations lasting almost three months.

The United Kingdom contains some of the world's leading seats of higher education, such as the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, along with Imperial College, the London School of Economics and University College of the University of London.[69]

In 2007 there are 112 universities/university colleges in the UK. This amounts to 138 university-level institutions if the distinct constituent colleges of the University of London and University of Wales are defined as separate universities. Most of the UK's major cities are home to two or more universities.

Parts of the United Kingdom use a segregation system in their state-sector schooling. In these areas parents may choose to enter their children into the Eleven Plus, an entrance test to a specific group of elite state Grammar schools. Those who do not take the test, or do not reach the mark necessary for entrance to these schools, are usually allocated a place at a comprehensive school, where children are not selected on the basis of academic aptitude.

The United Kingdom also has an extensive private education system, with some of these independent schools confusingly known as Public Schools.