- The History Of London -

- Dark Age London King Lud renamed the town

Caer Ludein, from which London is derrived;

Prehistoric

finds: Battersea Shield;

The

The Battersea Shield

- Roman London The begginings of London: the Roman invasion in 43 AD; The Roman settlement on the north side of the bridge, called Londinium important as a trading centre for goods brought up the Thames River; Boadicea Queen of the Iceni; fight for freedom; The area within the wall The City, Londons famous financial district; Population: 45,000; Roman retreat decline;

Carasius coin from Londinium mint

Historical reenactement of Roman soldiers

Queen Boadiceas Statue

- Anglo Saxon London

A decrease in population; By the 9th century, London was a very prosperous trading centre; In 851, 350 longboats full of Danes attacked and burned London to the ground; Alfred the Great; Cnut, the Danish king (1017) managed to unite the Danes with the Anglo-Saxons; After Cnuts death, the city reverted to Anglo-Saxon control under Edward the Confessor; His successor, Harold, was crowned in Westminster Abbey, which Edward had built, cementing Londons role as the most important city in England;
St. Pauls Cathedral

Westminster Abbey

- Medieval London

The medieval history of London is said to have begun at the coronation of William the Conqueror (1066), the man who built the Tower of London;

The Coronation Chair

- Tudor London

A 1596 sketch of a performance in progress at The Swan

The main political personality of this period is Henry Tudor (1485), husband of Elizabeth of York, who centralised political power on the crown, taking little interest in enhancing London; The reformation made most of the higher classes co-operate in their gradual shift to Protestantism; Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries had a profound effect on the city; 16th century - important for its commercial centres and cultural history development;

- Stuart London

The unsanitary and overcrowded City of London; The Great Plague (1665 1666; it killed 60,000 people, 1/5 of the population); The Great Fire of London (1666); Christopher Wren, John Evelyn and Robert Hooke; St. Pauls Cathedral; 1683 1684 the City of London = the worlds leading financial centre;

Monument which commemorates the fire

Richard Blomes map of London - 1673

Tower Hill Pageant smelling the horrible plague and re-living the Great Fire of London

John Evelyns plan for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire

- Georgian London

18th century rapid growth for London (districts, bridges); The Coffee House; A period dogged by crime; 1780 Lord George Gordon;

Westminster Bridge and The Palace of Westminster (1890)

- Victorian London

Old London Bridge in the early 1890s

19th century Population: from 1 million in 1800 to 6 million a century later; London became a global political, financial and trading capital; Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Tale of two cities; Joseph Bazalgette (Battersea, Hammersmith and Albert Bridges); 1829 Sir Robert Peel: The Metropolitan Police (Bobbies) Golden age of steam; 1834 Houses of Parliament Gothic Houses of Parliament (Charles Barry and A.W.Pugin); 1848 The Great Patato Famine (Ireland); 1859 Big Ben; The Great Exhibition of 1851 Joseph Paxtons Crystal Palace;

 Big Ben

The Victoria and Albert Museum The Crystal Palace

- Modern Times in London

London from 1900 to World War II 20th century London = the capital of the largest empire in the history; The Great Depression of the 1930s; 1839 Population: 8.6 million; London Fog = Pea Soupers; 1956 The Clean Air Act;

London in World War II London bombed extensively by the Luftwaffe as a part of the Blitz; Casualties: 35,000 Londoners killed; 50,000 seriously injured; tens of thousands of buildings destroyed; hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless;

 Postwar London 1948 Summer Olympics at Wembley Stadium; Overcrowded housing; 1960 London = epicentre for the world wide youth; Greater London Greater London Council (GLC) run by Ken Livingstone; 2000 Greater London Authority; Population declined after World War II from 8.6 million in 1939 to 6.8 million in 1980; It than began to increase again in the late 1980s;

21st century London Millenium projects: largest obsevation wheel in the world The Millenium Wheel of the London Eye; National Lottery funds for roofing The Great Court at The British Museum;

 An icon of 21st century London: The London Eye

St. Pauls Cathedral during the WWII bombings of London

The British Museum