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History of Great Britain from 1950-Today

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History of Great Britain from 1950-Today

The first two years of the 1950’s were very eventful for Great Britain. After leading the British people through a devastating war Winston Churchill was reelected Prime Minister (he would serve for another five years) and the much loved King George VI would die in 1952. As the second son of George V, Prince Albert (as George VI was known then) had not expected to be King. It was his older brother Edward VIII who was in line to become the next king, but he abdicated in order to marry Wallis Simpson a divorced American woman. When King George died on February 6th, 1952 his daughter Elizabeth became Queen and still reigns today after fifty years. In 1951 the Government organized a Festival of …show more content…

By 1964 when they left on their U.S. tour the Beatles had become a household name and over 4,000 screaming fans saw them off at the airport and just as many met them when they arrived in the States. They are attributed with starting the British Invasion of many popular British rock and pop performing artists to the U.S.
Edward Heath of the Conservative party was elected to Prime Minister in 1970 following Harold Wilson of the Labour party, who was in office from 1964 to 1970. High on the list of Heath’s priorities was making Britain a part of a larger European economy, and in 1973 he successfully persuaded the European Economic Community (EEC) to accept Britain as a member, while at the same time he was also trying to decrease the country’s dependent relationship with the United States. In 1972 a coal miners strike forced British industry, heavily dependent on coal rather than oil, into a temporary decline as the government declared a state of emergency. Miner’s wages had actually increased ahead of inflation, but the miners as a group had a long and well known history of suffering at the hands of government and mine owners, and public opinion in 1972 was in favor of the miners. The miners eventually wrung major concessions out of the nationalized coal industry. Among the changes the British people saw

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