Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:20:08 GMT
Health chiefs will spend almost £900,000 improving access to dental services in disadvantaged areas of a County Durham town.
Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:13:00 GMT
Work on a £2.3m hotel has been halted to protect a colony of great crested newts from being harmed.
Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:14:58 GMT
Three people are injured in two separate stab attacks in the north-east of England.
Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:46:37 GMT
Nine projects are shortlisted to battle it out for a share of £500,000 in a competition to cut carbon emissions.
Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:04:45 GMT
A senior cleric urges the Church of England Synod to resolve its dispute over ordaining women bishops.
The largest of the constituent nations of the UK, England has a population of almost 50 million. It has been a single country since being united by the Saxons in the 10th Century, and subsequently conquered by the Normans in the 11th Century.
The territory of England, coupled with Wales, makes up most of what was once Roman Britannia. Since Roman times, England has been partially or completely occupied by Roman Britons (Celts), Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans. Together with the Normans, these varying ethnic groups have all left an indelible mark on the English character. Regional difference in accent, customs, place naming and mythology often relate to the differing historical ethnic groups that settled different parts of England.
As well as being invaded and settled, England has seen immigration from around the World through the past two Millennia, from African and Mediterranean Europeans during the Roman period, to Irish and Jewish immigration in the 19th Century. Most recently, there has been a large increase in immigration from the West Indies, the Indian sub-continent, and Eastern Europe.
The language of England is English, and has become a lingua-franca for international trade and politics due partially to the British Empire, and secondarily to the emergence of the USA's use of English as a primary language in trade and diplomacy.
Historically, England has been a predominantly Christian country since the mid-4th Century, although the earliest recorded evidence for Brythonic Christians is from roughly 200AD. Successive waves of pagan invaders from the Germanic and Norse tribes have ultimately adopted Christianity, after settling in England. Anti-Semitism was an increasing problem in England during the Middle Ages, as it was across much of Europe.
The Christian churches began to splinter during the 16th Century, into traditional Catholic churches, and the new Protestant Churches, and as power swung from one to the other, there were several atrocities (by modern standards), and martyrs on both sides.
Over the last two centuries, there has been a gradual increase in other religious groups across the whole of the UK, predominantly of religions based in conquered or assumed lands of the British Empire. Additionally, the last fifty years or so have seen an increase in Atheism and Agnosticism, which many assume is due to the prominence of scientific reasoning.