How a K Became the UK

How did a small kingdom become united and then come to control over a quarter of the world's population? Let's explore the story of the United Kingdom and the British Empire!

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Photo Credits -
UK and World Maps made by Me
Stick figures and Real Housewives Logo by Poethewondercat

Video Credits -

Sound Credits -

Music Credits -
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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Hashtags: #history #britain #uk #england #london #brexit #canada #australia #india #ireland #scotland #america #wales #empire #royal

[SpecialEDy]

Easter Egg, the intro video had a UK electric outlet instead of a North American for the fork clip

[MichaelSidneyTimpson]

William the Conquer was not the first person to unite England. It had already been united for some time under various Anglo-Saxon and Danish Kings. He was the first Norman king, even though he was related to both of the previous bloodlines.

[Wildstag]

That was quite the simplification on the Hadrian's Wall, the tallest remaining section of the wall is, like, 17 feet tall, and the largest stretch is nearly 6 feet wide, 10 feet tall, and pretty dang long. It used to be an imposing wall, and in some parts where it is less run down, it still looks pretty dang impressive.

[WelshBathBoy]

You misspelled Llewelyn and when Wales was absorbed into the Kingdom of England following the Statute of Rhuddlan (1284), Wales continued to have it's own legal system. Following the Glyndwr Uprising in 1400, the Enlgish imposed the Penal Laws against Wales (1402), these made Welsh people second class citizens in their own country, these laws were not repealed until 1624. The Laws in Wales Acts (1535 and 1542) removed Welsh Law and effectively made Wales a part of the Kingdom of England. Even so, of all the Celtic Nations, Wales is the only one to have held on to its language, Ireland is trying to bring Irish back and is using how Wales kept Welsh alive as an example.

[OverRideGeneration]

The Celtic Britons inhabited the isles before the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, they didn't come from Brittany - in fact they migrated there.

[Andrew]

I’m gonna say, actually being from Britain (England to be exact) I can categorically tell you without a doubt in my mind that Wales is a different country (that is also a part of the larger country of the UK... but definitely not England).

Having many friends who are Welsh people, I can tell you their culture is not just an extension of England’s but it’s own independent thing. They also have their own language which while isn’t spoken much in South Wales, is so prominent in Northern Wales that there are areas where many people can’t speak English, and is by far the second largest known language in Great Britain; as everyone I know at the very least knows the Welsh language exists, and it’s present on signs all across Wales.

It should also be noted that Wales have independent powers outside the control of London, that English land does not have (same as Scotland and Northern Ireland), for example when it comes to tuition fees in University, they have become £9000 per year in England, whereas Wales independently decided to make theirs £4500 and I believe Scotland decided to have theirs tuition free (unless you’re English and then it’s £9000...)

But my point is: there is no one from Britain (and particularly from the two countries in question, England or Wales) who claim that Wales is a part of England, that is just factually dishonest

[SawtoothWaves]

I love the British version of the intro video xD

[chairmanmeow]

You're normally spot on with the research. But this time was a complete mess with so many inaccuracies.

[BiscuitGeoff]

The sun never sets on the empire thing came about because the empire was so large that it had territory in every single time-zone, so the sun was always shining somewhere in the empire.

[wol]

Love the fact you said Llwellyn is easy to pronounce after pronouncing it wrong :) the Ll is it's own letter which has a pronunciation ( i cant explain it to you, just look it up you need to hear it) separate to a normal L

[pouritenne]

As far as I remember England was united by Wessex a hundred years before the Norman conquest

[sionjones]

3:56 "Llywelyn. It's not that difficult to pronounce".
You mispronounced it with an utterly straight face. right.

[Exurba]

0:13 Disliked, unsubbed, prepare for imminent DDos attack.

[heidirichter]

Sorry, but this wasn't uip to your usual standard, some of it was poorly researched and just plain wrong. As an Australian, I can tell you we had federation in 1901, which is when Australia became our own country, even if still technically part of the Commonwealth. I don't know where you got 1986 from, but that's a long way from being correct my good man. I see other people have corrected you on some of the other things, but I hadn't seen anyone correct you on that, although I only skimmed comments and may have missed it.

[v.k.]

But… but… When you asked what the chicken meat was called, I thought "poultry…"

[jonomoth]

"I am American but I do know something about non America"
All non Americans :
"(Gasp in shock) really!"
After watching the video :
"(Sigh of relief) don't worry he doesn't know that much"
*Order has been restored

[domtromans]

Considering your channel is called Knowing Better ... this video is a bit of a mess of poor research. (And I like some of your other videos.)

1. The Saxons came from Old Saxony. The modern German federal states bearing the name of Saxony (especially the one just called ‘Saxony’) aren’t geographically synonymous with this region.

2. The Britons weren’t from Brittany. They were always there. Heck, the original Roman province was called Britannia.

3. William the Conqueror did not create England. The concept of England had been around at least since Bede, and lasting unity was actually achieved by Æthelstan in 927. What William did was to contest the succession and effect a complete regime change and found a new constitutional order.

4. The French and Normans spoke the same language, but they’re not interchangeable terms. You make it sound like the French gave the English terms for food - the Normans did.

5. You’ve, like, done away with a ton of Welsh history here. Oh boy. Unlike England, Wales did not have one ruler in this period - indeed, it was a fragmented mess of petty kings who occasionally managed to establish overlordship over large parts of the country, but never the whole. When William I was around, the biggest boy on the block was not called the ‘Prince of Wales’ - he was the King of Gwynedd and Powys. There’s a lot more to unpack here - especially in later Medieval history - but the term ‘Prince of Wales’ has never been a de jure territorial title and in fact went in and out of favour for centuries.

6. Are we forgetting hundreds of years of resistance? Llewelyn the Great? Owain Glyndwr? Edward’s castles? Wales has had an ‘identity thing’ that hasn’t *ever* stopped. It didn’t start in the 20th century. It just got more political footing.

7. Wales is its own country. In a bigger country, anyway. The important thing is it’s definitely not England! (Which is also its own country. It’s complicated.)

8. The heptarchy stopped being a thing during the Viking Era. I’ve already mentioned English unification, but seriously - it’s like claiming Abraham Lincoln founded the USA. And Essex, Sussex and Kent hadn’t been effectively independent for even longer.

9. Hadrian’s Wall wasn’t the kind of anti-barbarian bulwark we think of it as. It was a means of control, not a last line of defence, so it’s not some titanic edifice for a reason. Roman power projected much, much further into Scotland. Indeed, at one point the Romans effectively controlled much of the south of Scotland and built the similar Antonine Wall much further north (which was nevertheless only really in use for about 8 years).

10. The flag design actually happened a lot earlier in 1606 during James’s reign, as although the two kingdoms were legally separate a joint flag was necessary for various things (like as a naval ensign). An unofficial different design was also popular in Scotland for a time, where the Scottish saltire took precedence.

11. Ireland is a bit more complicated - it wasn’t just divided, there was an actual war.

12. The way you say ‘fully independent’ doesn’t make it very clear how much Ireland, Canada and Australia were self-governing sovereign states. The last bits, for instance, were essentially removing the Privy Council of the UK as the court of last appeal.

13. Similarly, New Zealand is an independent country. The fact that the royal proclamation of 1907 has never been revoked is really just a historical curiosity as New Zealand has been de facto and de jure independent since 1947.

14. King/Queen ‘of England’ hasn’t been an actual official title since 1707.

15. The British government had already taken over government of India in 1858 - before the Civil War. Cotton was important, but it wasn’t the background behind the title ‘Empress of India’.

16. India is still part of the Commonwealth, so it’s a little different to the US in that it still claims membership of some weird community organisation thing. But yes, it’s independent.

17. You missed out Africa.

18. Wales is its own country. A sub-country, I guess.

Now you know better?

[ynvassknrdar]

Incorrect. Before the Romans, Britain was inhabited by the Britons whose culture was Celtic.

Also, England was already a kingdom before William invaded. In fact, the history of the Kingdom of England goes back to about 940 AD. William invaded in 1066.

[Volunteer-per-order_OSullivan]

The sun never sets on the British empire because of the Pitcairn Islands witch are located in the south pacific.

[KnightThomash]

I've been binge watching your channel for the past while now assuming that your content was well researched. As I know quite a bit about this topic I noticed that there are so many giant glaring mistakes in this video that I don't know if I can trust your other content anymore.