(September 4, 2016 at 5:36 pm)Yeauxleaux Wrote: I have no idea, but The UK has only existed as "The UK" for 309 years, and 1000 years ago the islands were split into many little petty kingdoms, so anything before 1707 would have just been regional squabbles or "civil wars", or wars with France.
The UK has only become a world power on the main stage since it became "The UK" and started colonising other countries. Before that, it was a relatively isolated backwater-region, but it always had some kind of rivalry with France and sometimes Spain.
UK only became a world power because of the industrial revolution which started in 1760. This gave us superior technology to the rest of the world which allowed us to conquer exploit the resources of other countries. We long ago lost that advantage.
I often think that the UK jump into every war it can as a way to train its forces. Luckily we didn't join in the Vietnam war.
