MONGOL ULAANBAATAR UNIVERSITY

BRITISH & AMERICAN CULTURE STUDY

LECTURE 11

Lecturer : Ts.DAGIIMAA, Ph.D, Prof

The History of the UK

Until the English Channel was formed, Britain was

linked by land to Europe. Many different peoples lived in Britain as hunter gatherers. By 4000 BC, the land was being farmed and we have evidence of settlements. From about 2500 onwards, the Ancient Britons began constructing huge stone monuments.

Avebury a village in Wiltshire, England, where there is an important prehistoric

monument. This consists of Silbury

Hill and a circle of standing stones that is much larger than Stonehenge.

Avebury was made a World Heritage Site in 1986.

From 400 AD Anglo-Saxon invaders settled in Britain and ruled over much of England. The languages of these invaders form the basis of what developed into modern English.

 

Anglo-saxon plate Anglo-saxon thanes

From 800 AD raids by Vikings from Denmark and Norway were followed in 865 by an invasion of Danes who by 877 controlled the eastern half of England.

The Viking Invasions. Alfred the Great was a Viking leader. Danelaw years.Wessex King of from 871 to 899.

The Norman duke who came to be known as William the Conqueror invaded England and defeated the English king, Harold. For the next few centuries England was ruled by Normans, and French became the language of the court.

William the Conqueror (1066-1087) William, Duke of Normandy. The British Monarchy.

Nature of the UK

Nature conservation areas are areas of the countryside which have special protection under law because they have interesting or unusual wild plants or animals in them.In Britain there are now about 400 national nature reserves and 9000 local natures reserves and marine nature reserves. Many contain species that are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

In addition, some relatively small pieces of land get special protection as sites of special scientific interest because rare or endangered plants or animals are to be found there, or because they have special geological features.

There are over 6000 sites of special scientific interests in Britain, many of which are not open to the public. In theory, sites of special scientific interests are safe from the threat of commercial development, but this is not always the case in fact.

Despite protects, several sites of special scientific interests have been lost in recent years to make way for new roads.

Nature conservation areas in Britain are managed by English Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage, the Countryside Council for Wales and the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, with the help of local naturalists’ trusts and natural history societies.

The Population of UKIn 2003 the United Kingdom had a total population of 59.6 million people. About 49.8 million live in England, 5 million in Scotland, 3 million in Wales and 1.7 million in Northern Ireland. Around 4.5 million of the population belong to ethnic minorities, of which the largest groups are Indian (1 million), Pakistan (0.7 million) and Caribbean (0.5 million) in origin. Much of the immigration from Commonwealth countries took place during the 1960s.

Since then immigration regulations have made it much more difficult for people from the Commonwealth to settle in Britain.

In 2003 in Britain around 695000 babies were born.

On average, males born in 2001 in both Britain and the US can expect to live 74 years and females 80 years.

The main causes of death are heart disease and cancer.

Around 75% of the population of the UK live in cities, so that although people think of the British Isles as being crowded compared to some other parts of the world, much of the countryside is relatively empty. The most densely populated regions are the south-east, especially London, which has a population of nearly 7 million, and the regions around the industrial cities of Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. Most of the population of Scotland lives in the lowlands, where the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh are.

National Parks and protected areas

National parks are also important as recreation areas in Britain. The land is not in national ownership but is mostly owned by farmers and other private landowners.

The first two to be established were the Lake District and Peak District in 1951 and there are now 15 national parks, which attract many thousands of visitors each year.

The New Forest and the South Downs are the most recent additions to the list.

The aim is to keep the National Parks as far as possible in their natural state, while balancing the different needs of agriculture, industry, housing and tourism.

Many of the people who live in national parks depend on tourists for their living and are used to crowded roads in summer.

A more serious problem is that some visitors who go regularly to a national park buy cottages in the area as second homes.

Each park is managed by a National Park Authority. The government provides 75% of the money to run the parks.

National Park Authorities control development within each park, look after public footpaths and run information and study centres.

Some of the land in national parks is owned by the National Trust but a lot is privately owned.

Some other areas, such as the Gower Peninsula and the Malverns, are officially protected as areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs). They tend to be less developed than national parks but still attract many visitors. There are 41 AONBs in England and Wales, and another nine in Northern Ireland. Scotland has 40 national scenic areas, including the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond.

Religion in Britain

In the Census of 2001, British people were asked for the first time to answer a question about their religion, although they were not forced to answer the question. 77% replied that they had a religion and 71% of them said that they were Christian, 3% Muslim and 1% Hindu, with smaller groups replying that they were Sikh, Jewish or Buddhist.

Although the majority of the population describe themselves as Christian, only a small proportion, about 4%, go to church regularly. British people rarely discuss religion and feel that a person’s religious beliefs are a private matter.

The established (= official) church in England is the Church of England. Members of the Church describe themselves informally as ‘C of E’.

In Scotland it is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, known by Scots as ‘the kirk’. There is no established church in Wales and Northern Ireland. In Wales the Church of England is known as the Church in Wales. The Church is involved in political life as archbishops and some bishops are members of the House of Lords and are chosen by the Queen following the advice of the Prime Minister. The monarch must be a member of the Church of England and is its official head.

Christian religious education is provided in state schools but children do not have to take part. About 10% of the population are Roman Catholic and there are also Catholic schools.

Protestant groups other than the church of England are called Free or Nonconformist Churches.

The Free churches include the United Reformed Church, the Baptist Church and the Methodist Church. Nonconformist churches are also sometimes called chapels.

Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus in Britain are mainly from families who came to Britain after World War II from India and Pakistan, although there has been a Muslim community in Britain since the 16th century. Many Jews are from families who came to Britain as refugees from other countries in Europe at various times in the 19th and 20th centuries. Synagogues, mosques, Hindu temples and gurdwaras are found in cities and many towns.

Northern Ireland Eire the official name for Ireland

between 1937 and 1949, when it became the Republic of Ireland. The name Eire is still sometimes used outside Ireland.

Irish Free State a state consisting of the whole of Ireland except North Ireland. It was created by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.

Its name was changed to Eire in 1937 and to the Republic of Ireland in 1949.

Dublin is the capital city of the Republic of Ireland, situated on its east coast on the River Liffey. Dublin was the scene of the 1916 Easter Rising against the British, who ruled Ireland from Dublin’s 13th century castle until the south of Ireland became an independent state in 1922. Many great writers and poets have come from Dublin, including Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, WB /Yeats and James Joyce.

Belfast is the capital city of Northern Ireland.

Its main industries were making ships and aircraft, but the last ship was built in 2003 and the city has suffered greatly in recent times from unemployment and the troubles.

Two streets are often mentioned in the news, the Falls Road where mainly -Roman Catholic people live, and the Shankhill Road, which is mainly Protestant.