The United Kingdom, generally referred to as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is divided into four parts: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It consists of the island of Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland and a series of smaller islands, with an area of 243,610 square kilometers (about the area of Anhui Province + Jiangsu Province) and a population of about 66.36 million. Speaking of the United Kingdom, we have to mention its biggest feature: an island country. The geography of the British Isles shaped the history of Britain and laid the foundation for its rise and fall. Geography was not the only determinant, but it had a decisive influence on the development of civilization at least in the early stages. A 34-kilometre-wide channel separates Britain from the continental powers
01 The name "England" on the edge of civilization is derived from the Old English name englaland, which means "land of the Anglos". The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England from mainland Europe in the early Middle Ages after the withdrawal of Roman troops in 410, in addition to the Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians. By the 7th century, the feudal system began to take shape, and a situation of seven kingdoms was formed. The Age of the Seven Kingdoms As a periphery of civilization, looking back at the early history of Britain (most of the time referring to the history of the English region), it can only be described as a "dismal start". All kinds of invaders will be sung and I will appear, until the Norman conquest in 1066. For more than a thousand years, the land was characterized by a constant convergence of conquered and conquered peoples, and England did not form as a unified nation until the 13th and 14th centuries. Norman Invasion The Normans themselves originated in Scandinavia and settled in Normandy in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, crossed the sea to conquer England and established the Normandy dynasty. Its successors continued to expand in various ways, and their territories spread across the strait. In the Hundred Years' War, triggered by the French succession, the British lost almost all of the territory of continental Europe. This long war shaped the national consciousness of both countries at the same time, and after the loss of Calais, the last stronghold of the European continent, the "island mentality" of the British gradually developed the diplomatic idea of "offshore balance". That is, in addition to preventing the emergence of a unified power on the European continent, we will focus on the internal integration of the British Isles and the development of overseas colonies. The Hundred Years' War 02 Revolution: The Beginning of Strength With the great geographical discoveries and the opening of new shipping routes, the bourgeoisie gradually emerged, and there was an urgent need to establish a new system to represent the interests of the bourgeoisie. After the bourgeois revolution of 1640, the republic was established on May 19, 1649, and after a brief dynastic restoration in 1660, and finally after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was established, which cleared the political obstacles to the development of capitalism. The Bank of England, established in 1690 to support the war effort, enabled England to reasonably pool the necessary funds. Military strength needed economic strength, and Britain's finances effectively supported Britain's colonial wars. In turn, the colonial war further strengthened Britain's economic power and brought new development opportunities to Britain. However, the fact that it only brought development potential did not mean that the colonies necessarily promoted local development, but the key was how to tap this potential. If the relationship between the colony and the mainland is not handled well, this potential is likely to turn into resistance. Spain and Portugal, for example, were both countries that colonized earlier than the British, but they failed to develop like the British, and instead declined more quickly. Because most of the wealth seized was in the hands of the declining aristocracy, wealth came so easily that they despised production even more, and they squandered their wealth on buying luxury goods imported from abroad, injecting more capital into the industrial development of other countries. The gold and silver it seized caused inflation and increased the cost of domestic industrial production, making domestic products "worse" in international competition"At this time, not only did they not help these industries, but short-sightedly implemented heavy taxation and exploitation, so industrial production gradually fell behind and lost its competitiveness. At the same time, land annexation has led to a large number of landless peasants migrating in China, and the loss of population has further reduced the country's development potential. At this time, the Iberian Peninsula seemed to be a "colander": the wealth plundered by the colonies continued to flow to the lowlands and England, unable to promote domestic industrial upgrading. The country has become a dumping market for the goods of other countries, and its decline is also an inevitable result. Britain was completely different, and the huge needs brought about by the colonial war were tapped and used as an accelerant for the development of its own industry. First of all, Britain's frequent wars for colonies made a large number of arms dealers and capitalists who produced military supplies rapidly develop and became rich. The development of the military industry has led to the development of transportation, coal, steel and other sectors; Overseas colonies also opened up markets for the sale of industrial goods. Under the virtuous circle, the development of British capitalism was greatly promoted, and Britain completed the bloody primitive accumulation of capitalism and industrial upgrading. Britain used its maritime power and financial power to replace Spain, the Netherlands, and France as the largest colonizer, and Britain's maritime supremacy was established. 
03 The Emergence of the Empire Britain's attainment of maritime supremacy does not mean that it is free to sit back and relax, but it is always facing the challenge of rising stars. In order to cope with great power competition and meet the need for capital profits, it was necessary to plunder wealth from the colonies to the maximum. The capitalists wanted to occupy the colonial market and plunder the greatest wealth, but they were limited by the level of productivity and could not meet the needs of the vast colonial market, so they looked for technological breakthroughs, scientific and engineering innovations, and promoted the emergence of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, before the start of the Industrial Revolution in the UK, many countries already had similar technical conditions, but it was the first to happen in the UK, because:Economic growth depends on demand, and without demand there is no impetus for development. The expansion of demand awakened human creativity, and the world began to enter the era of industrialization. Britain had set in motion the machine of industrialization in order to occupy the colonial market, and now because of this machine, it had to fight a larger colonial war, because it had to find new sales markets for the enormous productivity unleashed by advanced technology, and so on and so forth. Colonial wars, social production, and product sales formed a positive cycle mechanism, which constantly stimulated the rapid development of capitalism. From the 60s of the 18th century to the 30s of the 19th century, Britain became the first country in the world to complete the industrial revolution. Technically, this era saw many innovations that proved to be key to Britain's strength and prosperity. This was a period of profound changes in the socio-economic and cultural conditions of Britain, with the Industrial Revolution bringing industrialized agriculture, manufacturing, engineering, and mining, and the emergence of new roads, railways, and water transport networks, which facilitated the expansion and development of the empire. The Industrial Revolution greatly increased the productivity of the British people, greatly increased their business and wealth, and became the world's first global empire with the technological generation gap brought about by the earliest entry into industrialization. At its peak, the British Empire once controlled a quarter of the world's land and one-third of the population, because the land it controlled covered most of the longitude of the earth, and the sun would shine on the territory at all times, known as the "empire on which the sun never sets", and it was also the largest empire in human history. Distribution of British Empire colonies
The hegemony of the British through war was consolidated after the Industrial Revolution, and it also climbed to the pinnacle of world power step by step. British products reach every corner of the world through their colonial tentacles. When the periphery of civilization began to become the core of the world, a world hegemon was born.