第1个回答 2011-10-24
The history of the United Kingdom as a unified sovereign state began with the political union of the kingdoms of England, which included Wales, and Scotland on 1 May 1707 in accordance with the Treaty of Union, as ratified by the Acts of Union 1707. The Union created the new state of Great Britain, which shared a single constitutional monarch and a single Parliament of Great Britain at Westminster. Prior to this, the kingdoms of England and Scotland had been separate sovereign states, although in personal union following the Union of the Crowns of 1603, each with political, administrative and cultural institutions including representative governance, law systems, and distinguished contributions to the arts and sciences, upon which the institutions of the United Kingdom were later to be built. On the new kingdom, the historian Simon Schama said, "What began as a hostile merger would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world... it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history." A further Act of Union in 1800 added the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The early years of the unified kingdom of Great Britain were marked by Jacobite risings which ended with defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. Later, in 1763, victory in the Seven Years War led to the dominance of the British Empire, which was to be the foremost global power for over a century and grew to become the largest empire in history. By 1921, the British Empire held sway over a population of about 458 million people, approximately one-quarter of the world's population. and as a result, the culture of the United Kingdom, and its industrial, political and linguistic legacy, is widespread.