Kingdom of Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The island of Ireland, with an area 40 per cent that of Great Britain, is to the west. These islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, comprise the British Isles archipelago.
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Rulers
- England and Britain
- Queen Anne 1702 – 1714, George I 1714 – 1727, George II 1727 – 1760, George III 1760 – 1820, George IV 1820 – 1830, William IV 1830 – 1837, Queen Victoria 1837 – 1901, Edward VII 1901 – 1910, George V 1910 – 1936, George VI 1936 – 1952, Elizabeth II since 1952
Events on its territory
- c. 1760 Start of the Industrial Revolution
- 1769 Watt's steam engine
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination
- 1825 First public steam railway
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto
- 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species
- 1926 First public demonstration of television
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin
- 1936 Turing's universal machine
- 1952 Great Smog of London
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix
- 1963 The Beatles' first album
- 1996 Dolly the sheep cloned
- 2010 Burj Khalifa opens