United Kingdom

Hadrian's Wall marks the Empire's northern limit. Augustine of Canterbury's mission in 597 tied the island to Rome; the King James Bible (1611) shaped modern English as Luther's Bible shaped German. Oxford and Cambridge have transmitted the Aristotelian corpus since the thirteenth century.

Roman Britain lasted nearly four centuries and left towns, roads and Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon and then Norman invasions refounded the island: 1066 introduced French into the language and the law.

Magna Carta in 1215 laid down the principle that no man, not even the king, is above the law. Henry VIII's break with Rome in 1534 created a national Church; the Glorious Revolution of 1688 founded the parliamentary monarchy that would inspire Montesquieu and the American framers.

The first industrial power, the British Empire reached its zenith in the nineteenth century. After two world wars and decolonisation, the United Kingdom joined the Communities in 1973 but stayed outside the euro and Schengen. The referendum of 23 June 2016 led to effective withdrawal on 31 January 2020, a first in the history of European construction.