Federative Republic of Great Britain Timeline: King TrumpGreat Britain | ||||||
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| Motto: Dieu et mon droit |
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| Anthem: The Tricolor Banner |
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| Capital | Birmingham | |||||
| Largest city | London | |||||
| Official languages | English | |||||
| Government | Federal presidential republic | |||||
| - | President | Jeremy Corbyn | ||||
| - | Vice President | Keir Starmer | ||||
| Establishment | ||||||
| - | Unification | 5 December 1922 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 242,495 km2 93,628 sq mi |
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| Population | ||||||
| - | Estimate | 145,380,000 | ||||
| Currency | Pound sterling | |||||
Great Britain, officially the Federative Republic of Great Britain, is a country in north-western Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland. Great Britain includes the English island, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. The country is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the British Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates Great Britain and State of Ireland.
Its Constitution conceives Great Britain as a federal presidential republic, formed by the union of the 4 states, the Federal District and the 69 municipalities. Its capital is Birmingham, and its most populous city is London.
Great Britain came from a proposed federation of the 4 former countries (which are currently states): England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This ended up materializing with the Act of Union of 1922, with signatures of the 4 heads of state and government of the respective countries. The first British president was David Lloyd George, who was also the 47th president of England. He was elected by indirect suffrage. It wasn't until 1925 that the first universal suffrage presidential election took place. In that country, the first major global television and radio network, BBC, was created. Britain was one of the Allied Powers' greatest powers in the Great War, and wartime President Winston Churchill and his successor Clement Attlee helped plan the post-war world as part of the "Big Three". The Great War left the Great Britain financially shaken. Credit made available by Japan and the United Kingdom during and after the war was economically onerous for the country, but later throughout the Marshall Plan, Britain began to recover.
The early post-war years saw the establishment of the British welfare state, including one of the world's first and most comprehensive public health services, while the demand of a recovering economy brought immigrants from across Europe to create a Multiethnic Britain.
After a period of global economic recession and industrial competition in the 1970s, the following decade saw substantial profits from North Sea oil and strong economic growth. The passage of James Callaghan as president marked a significant change in the political-economic direction taken in the post-war period; a path that was followed by the Elizabeth Windsor government in 1990.