Text B: "HISTORY OF LONDON"

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Urban/Rural population

92% Urban

8% Rural

Largest Cities

London (Greater) 6,933,000

Birmingham 1,017,000

Leeds 724,500

Glasgow 681,000

Ethnic Groups

94,5% English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish

5,5% Other

Languages

Official Language

English

Other Languages

Welsh, Scots-Gaelic, other minority languages

Religions

54% Anglicanism

13% Roman Catholicism

33%Other

including other Protestant denomina­tions, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Sikhism

ECONOMY

Gross Domestic Product

US$1,023,900,000,000 (1994)

Chief Economic Products

Agriculture

Wheat, barley, potatoes, sugar beets, oilseed rape, livestock, animal products.

Fishing

Mackerel, herring, cod, plaice

Mining

Coal, limestone, petroleum and natural gas.

Manufacturing

Machinery and transport equipment, food pro­ducts, chemical products, minerals and metal products.

Employment Statistics

58% Trade and Services

23% Manufacturing and Industry

16% Business and Finance

2% Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing

1 % Military and Defense

Major Exports

Industrial and electrical machinery, automatic data processing equipment, road vehicles, petro­leum.

Major Imports

Road vehicles, industrial and electrical machin­ery, automatic data processing equipment, pe­troleum, paper and paperboard, textiles, food.

Major Trading Partners

Germany, the United States, France, the Neth­erlands, Italy, Japan

The Romans were the first to settle and occupy the Celtic fortress of Londinium. Construction of a bridge in 100 A.D. made London an important junction: it soon became a busy commercial and administrative settle­ment, and in the 2nd century A.D. a wall was built round the city.

The Roman Empire fell in the 5th century. London have maintained its trading activity. In the 9th century Danish invaders destroyed much of the city. They were followed by the Saxons led by King Alfred the Great, who entered the city in 886. The Danes remained a powerful force in England, however, and it was not until the reign of Edward the Confessor, which began in 1042, that civic stability was re-established, to be cemented by the Nor­man Conquest in 1066.

William the Conqueror centred his power at the Tower of London, and his White Tower is still the heart of this impressive monument.

The City soon united its economic power with politi­cal independence. Late in the 12th century it elected its own Lord Mayor. From 1351 it elected its own council, and by the end of the 14th century the reigning sover­eign could not enter the City without permission.

In the reign of Elizabeth I had the arts a renaissance with such great dramatists as Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson.

In 1665, London had been devastated first by the Great Plague, and then by the Fire of London, which destroyed most of the city the following year. During the recon­struction of the city, following the original street pat­tern, the architect Sir Christopher Wren was given re­sponsibility for the design of a number of State-funded buildings, including St. Paul's Cathedral.

The western part of London was developed under the Hanoverian Kings: great squares were laid out such as those of Grosvenor, Cavendish, Berkeley, and Hanover, and more bridges were built across the river. Public services were improved, such as the water supply and sewerage systems, and the streets were paved. 

In the 19th century London's population began to rise still more rapidly: it increased sixfold over the century as a whole, thanks to influx from all over the British Isles, from Britain's colonies, and from continental Eu­rope. The Industrial Revolution was creating huge num­bers of jobs, but never enough to satisfy the hopes of all the poor people who came to the capital. The novels of Charles Dickens tell us about the social problems of that period.

The First World War had little effect on London, but the Depression that followed in the late 1920s and early 1930s hit the whole country, including the capital. There were hunger marches and riots. London was to pay far more dearly during World War II. The intensive bomb­ing of London (The Blitz) in 1940-1941 took the lives of 10,000 people and left 17,000 injured. Countless historic buildings were damaged, including the Houses of Par­liament.

After the war London was to re-emerge as a radically different city. The docks had been so severely damaged that reconstruction, a very expensive process, was not reasonable. By the end of the 1950s most of the war dam­age had been repaired. New skyscrapers were built, out­doing each other in height and spectacular design. The 30-storey Post Office Tower was built in 1965. It is 189 m high. Other significant post-war developments include the 183 m National Westminster Bank Build­ing (1979); and Britain's highest building, the 244 m Canary Wharf Tower on the Docklands site, near to a new City airport.

General understanding:

1) What was the original name of London? Why was it so important for Romans?

2) Who was King Alfred the Great? When did he en­ter the city?

3) What is still the reminder of William the Con­queror?

4) How was Britain governed in 12th-14th centuries?

5) How did plague influence the history of London?

6) Who was in charge of the reconstruction of the city? Why did it need reconstruction?

7) Why did the population of London grow in the 19^th century?

8) How did the First World War affect the history of London? What about the WWII?

9) How did London change after the WWII?

10) What are the names of skyscraper buildings in Lon­don?

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