Britain since 1945

28 stops142 facts

The longest stretch of the course, and the part of it about the country as it is now. A welfare state is built on the Beveridge Report, the National Health Service is established in 1948, and people are invited from the West Indies to come and work here. Then the Sixties, and a run of inventions and discoveries: the structure of DNA, the cash machine, the first IVF baby, the World Wide Web. Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman Prime Minister in 1979. Power is devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The era also carries what the test asks about the present day — the monarch, Parliament, elections, and rights and duties.

What is in this era

  1. The welfare state beginsThe Beveridge Report of 1942, the Education Act, Attlee’s government of 1945, and the nine colonies that gained independence in 1947.
  2. Building the Welfare StateAneurin Bevan and the birth of the NHS, social security and nationalised industries, NATO, Macmillan's wind of change, and the Dylan Thomas Centre.
  3. Attlee and the Giant EvilsClement Attlee's Labour government, the Beveridge Report's five Giant Evils, the 1948 invitation to West Indian workers, and the poet Dylan Thomas.
  4. The 1960sThe Swinging Sixties and its growth in British fashion, cinema and music, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and the liberalising of divorce and abortion law.
  5. Equal Pay, Architecture and ConcordeEqual pay and anti-discrimination law for working women, the high-rise architecture of the 1960s, and Concorde, developed jointly by Britain and France.
  6. British inventions and discoveriesThe first television broadcast and Britain's first radar test, the discovery of DNA's structure, and the Britons behind television, radar and the jet engine.
  7. Turing, Lovell and the WebThe Turing machine, the Jodrell Bank telescope, the hovercraft and the cash machine, and Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web, first used in 1990.
  8. Concorde, cash machines and cloningConcorde's first flight and retirement, the first cash machine in use, the world's first IVF baby, and the first cloning of a mammal.
  9. Dolly, Crick and the MRIThe team that first cloned a mammal, the telescope at Jodrell Bank, Francis Crick's Nobel Prize, the Harrier jet, IVF and the MRI scanner.
  10. Mary Peters and the 1970sMary Peters's Olympic pentathlon gold during a troubled decade for Britain, and the damehood that recognised her sporting work afterward.
  11. Europe and the Common MarketThe European Economic Community is formed in 1957, and the Conservative government that held office from 1979 to 1990.
  12. Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher's path to power from Grantham to Downing Street in 1979, her work with Ronald Reagan, and the Falklands War of 1982.
  13. John Major and Roald DahlJohn Major's succession of Margaret Thatcher and his work on the Northern Ireland peace process, and Roald Dahl's life as a children's writer.
  14. Labour, 1997 to 2010Tony Blair's Labour government of 1997, the Good Friday Agreement, devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Gordon Brown succeeding Blair.
  15. Northern Ireland and IraqThe Good Friday Agreement's aftermath in Northern Ireland, the Assembly's suspension and return, and Britain's role in Iraq from 1990 to the 2009 withdrawal.
  16. Government since 2010The coalition government formed in 2010, the referendum on leaving the European Union in 2016, and the Labour majority of 2024.
  17. Landmarks and national parksThe National Trust founded in 1895, the view at Wastwater voted Britain’s favourite, and the renaming of the Elizabeth Tower in 2012.
  18. Sport in the UKThe first tennis club, motor-car racing, the years the UK has hosted the Olympic Games, and the first sub-four-minute mile in 1954.
  19. The 1966 World Cup, and Olympic championsEngland’s World Cup win in 1966, Torvill and Dean, Kelly Holmes, Ellen MacArthur’s solo sail, and Ellie Simmonds in the pool.
  20. London 2012The third UK Olympics, Bradley Wiggins’s Tour de France, Mo Farah’s golds at 5,000m and 10,000m, and Jessica Ennis’s heptathlon.
  21. Andy Murray and the 2012 medalsThe US Open title, Olympic gold and silver, a runner-up finish at Wimbledon, and Ellie Simmonds’s second Paralympic golds.
  22. The monarchElizabeth II becomes queen in 1952, the Diamond Jubilee of 2012, her death in 2022, and the accession of King Charles III.
  23. Parliament todayLife peers nominated by the Prime Minister from 1958, and the reform of 1999 that ended the hereditary peers’ automatic seat in the Lords.
  24. The Human Rights ActThe UK signs the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950, and the Human Rights Act brings it into UK law in 1998.
  25. Rights and dutiesA fully democratic vote from 1928, the Equality Act, and the Forced Marriage Protection Orders and the Act behind them.
  26. DevolutionThe Northern Ireland Parliament of 1922 and its abolition, the Troubles, and the powers devolved to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
  27. What each devolved body can doThe Northern Ireland Act, the Government of Wales Act, and the year the Welsh Assembly gained the power to pass laws of its own.
  28. The UK in the worldThe UK leaves the European Union in 2020, and the general principles of EU law cease to be part of the law of the United Kingdom.

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