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1973

1973

1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday.

Events

January


- January 1 - United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, now known as the European Union.
- January 3 - Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) sells the New York Yankees for $10 million to a 12-person syndicate led by George Steinbrenner.
- January 15 - Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President of the United States Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
- January 17 - Ferdinand Marcos becomes President for Life of the Philippines.
- January 22 - Supreme Court of the United States rules on Roe v. Wade.
- January 22 - George Foreman breaks Joe Frazier's professional career undefeated heavyweight world boxing champion status.
- January 22 - Nigerian Airlines passenger plane from Mecca crashes in Kano, Nigeria - 176 dead.
- January 23 - The eruption of Eldfell on the Icelandic island of Heimaey begins.
- January 23 - President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
- January 25 - Derren Nesbitt convicted of assaulting Anne Aubrey
- January 27 - U.S. involvement in Vietnam War ends with the signing of peace pacts. See Paris Peace Accords.

February


- February 11 - Vietnam War: First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.
- February 12 - Ohio becomes the first U.S. state to post distance in metric on signs. (See: Metric system in the United States)
- February 21 - Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Arab Airlines jet killing 100.
- February 22 - Sino-American relations: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to mainland China, the United States and the People's Republic of China agree to establish liaison offices.
- February 27 - The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

March


- March 1 - The New York Joffrey Ballet's Deuce Coupe Ballet opens. The ballet is set entirely around music by The Beach Boys.
- March 7 - Comet Kohoutek is discovered.
- March 8 - IRA bombs explode in the Whitehall and the Old Bailey.
- March 16 - Queen Elizabeth II opens the New London Bridge.
- March 29 - The last United States soldiers leave Vietnam.
- March 31 - Paramount's Carowinds opens for the first time.

April


- April 2 - Launch of LexisNexis computerized legal research service.
- April 4 - World Trade Center officially opens in New York with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
- April 6 - Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft.
- April 17 -German GSG-9 group formed officially

May


- May 5 - Shambu Tamang becomes the youngest person to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.
- May 8 - A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement who were occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ends with the surrender of the militants.
- May 10 - Polisario formed.
- May 14 - Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.
- May 17 - Watergate scandal: Hearings begin in the United States Senate and are televised.
- May 27 - By the virtue of non-retroactiveness of the copyright laws of the USSR, all works published before this date are public domain. This applies worldwide.

June


- June 1 - Greek military junta abolishes the monarchy and proclaims a republic.
- June 3 - Tupolev Tu-144 crashes at the Paris air show - 15 dead.
- June 4 - patent for the ATM granted to Don Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.
- June 9 - Secretariat wins the Belmont Stakes becoming the first Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winner since 1948.
- June 10 - Grandson of J. Paul Getty is kidnapped in Rome.
- June 22 - William Mark Felt retires from the FBI.
- June 25 - Erskine Hamilton Childers is elected the fourth President of Ireland.
- June 26 - On Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 persons were killed at an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
- June 30 - Very long total solar eclipse. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceeded seven minutes of totality.

July


- July 1 - US Drug Enforcement Agency founded.
- July 5 - Isle of Man begins to issue its own postage stamps
- July 10 - The Bahamas gain full independence within the British Commonwealth.
- July 12 - A major fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The disaster comes to be known as the 1973 National Archives Fire.
- July 16 - Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate committee investigating the scandal that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
- July 20 - France resumes nuclear bomb tests in Mururoa Atoll over protestations of Australia and New Zealand.
- July 25 - Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.
- July 28 - Watkins Glen Summer Jam, a massive rock festival featuring The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band and The Band attracts over 600,000 music fans.
- July 30 - An 11-year legal action for the victims of Thalidomide ends.
- July 31 - Militant protesters of Ian Paisley disrupt the first sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly

August


- August 2 - Flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
- August 5 - Black September members open fire at Athens airport - 3 dead, 55 injured.
- August 8 - 1973 Kidnapping of Kim Dae-Jung
- August 13 - The film of Jesus Christ Superstar is released.
- August 15 - The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ends, marking the official halt to 12 years of combat activity in Southeast Asia.
- September 22 - Henry Kissinger, United States National Security Advisor, starts his term as Secretary of State.

September


- September 11 - Chile's democratically-elected government is overthrown in a military coup after serious instability. President Salvador Allende dies, and General Augusto Pinochet heads a military junta that will govern Chile for the next 16 years.
- September 15 - Sweden's king Gustav VI Adolf dies. Carl XVI Gustav becomes king.
- September 18 - The two German Republics, the BRD and the DDR, are admitted to the United Nations.
- September 20 - Billed as The Battle of the Sexes, Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-4, 6-3.
- September 28 - ITT was bombed in New York City as a protest of their involvement with the Coup in Chile.

October


- October 6 - Yom Kippur War - Fourth and largest Arab-Israeli conflict begins as Egyptian and Syrian forces attack Israel as Jews mark Yom Kippur.
- October 10 - Spiro T. Agnew resigns as vice president of the United States and then, in federal court in Baltimore, pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes on $29,500 he received in 1967 while he was governor of Maryland. He is fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation.
- October 17 - Arab Oil Embargo against several countries which gave support to Israel, triggerring the 1973 energy crisis.
- October 20 - The Saturday Night Massacre.
- October 20 - Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II.
- October 26 - Yom Kippur War ends.
- October 27 - The Canyon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite struck earth in Fremont County, Colorado.

November


- November 1: Watergate scandal, acting Attorney General Robert Bork appointed Leon Jaworski as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.
- November 3 - Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury (on March 29, 1974 it became the first space probe to reach that planet).
- November 7 - The U.S. Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.
- November 11 - Egypt and Israel sign a United States-sponsored cease-fire accord.
- November 14 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries a commoner, Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey (they divorced in 1992).
- November 16 - Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
- November 16 - US President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
- November 17 - Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."
- November 17 - Student uprising against the military regime in Athens, Greece.
- November 21 - President Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Bushardt, revealed the existence of an 18-and-a-half-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.
- November 25 - Greek Dictator George Papadopoulos is ousted in military coup led by Lieutenant General Phaidon Gizikis.
- November 27 - The United States Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on December 6, the House confirmed him 387 to 35).

December


- December - Chile breaks diplomatic contacts with Sweden.
- December 1 - Papua New Guinea gains self government from Australia.
- December 3 - Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
- December 15 - Gay rights: The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its DSM-II.
- December 23 - The OPEC doubles the price of crude oil.
- December 30 - Terrorist Carlos fails in his attempt to assassinate British businessman Joseph Sieff.
- December 31 - In the UK, as a result of high coal and oil prices, the Three-Day Week officially comes into force.

Unknown dates


- The National House Building Council was formed in the United Kingdom.
- The COSC The Swiss Official Chronometer testing Institute was founded in Switzerland by 5 Watch Cantons & FH, Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.
- Title Queen of Australia created

Fictional events


- December 6 - Susie Salmon murdered, in Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.

Births

January


- January 1 - Danny Lloyd, American actor
- January 8 - Sean Paul, Jamaican singer
- January 11 - Rahul Dravid, Indian cricketer
- January 13 - Nikolai Khabibulin, Russian hockey player
- January 14 - Giancarlo Fisichella, Italian race car driver
- January 15 - Tomás Galásek, Czech football player
- January 17 - Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Mexican football player
- January 18 - Crispian Mills, British musician (The Jeevas and Kula Shaker)
- January 19 - Karen Lancaume, French actress (d. 2005)
- January 29 - Jason Schmidt, baseball player

February


- February 4 - Oscar De La Hoya, American boxer
- February 11 - Varg Vikernes, Norwegian musician (Burzum)
- February 14 - Steve McNair, American football player
- February 16 - Cathy Freeman, Australian athlete
- February 17 - Amy Van Dyken, American swimmer
- February 20 - Kimberley Davies, Australian actress
- February 22 - Shota Arveladze, Georgian football player
- February 24 - Jordan Jovtchev, Bulgarian gymnast
- February 26 - Marshall Faulk, American football player
- February 26 - Jenny Thompson, American swimmer
- February 28 - Eric Lindros, Canadian hockey player

March


- March 1 - Ryan Peake, Canadian guitarist (Nickelback)
- March 9 - Aaron Boone, baseball player
- March 13 - Edgar Davids, Dutch football player
- March 17 - Caroline Corr, Irish musician (The Corrs)
- March 23 - Jason Kidd, American basketball player
- March 29 - Marc Overmars, Dutch football player
- March 30 - Adam Goldstein, American DJ

April


- April 1 - Stephen Fleming, New Zealand cricket captains
- April 4 - David Blaine, American magician
- April 5 - Pharrell Williams, American musician and producer (The Neptunes)
- April 6 - Rie Miyazawa, Japanese actress and singer
- April 8 - Bobby Ologun, Nigerian television performer and martial artist
- April 10 - Roberto Carlos, Brazilian football player
- April 11 - Jennifer Esposito, American actress
- April 24 - Sachin Tendulkar, Indian cricketer
- April 28 - Elisabeth Röhm, American actress

May


- May 1 - Oliver Neuville, German football player
- May 3 - Michael Reiziger, Dutch football player
- May 10 - Dario Franchitti, Scottish race car driver
- May 14 - Natalie Appleton, Canadian singer (All Saints)
- May 16 - Tori Spelling, American actress
- May 30 - Leigh Francis, British comedian
- May 31 - Dominique van Roost, Belgian tennis player

June


- June 1 - Fred Deburghgraeve, Belgian swimmer
- June 1 - Heidi Klum, German model
- June 1 - Derek Lowe, baseball player
- June 8 - Lexa Doig, Canadian actress
- June 9 - Tedy Bruschi, American football player
- June 9 - Iain Lee, British comedian and radio and television presenter
- June 10 - Faith Evans, American singer
- June 12 - Darryl White, Australian footballer
- June 13 - Sam Adams, American football player
- June 22 - Carson Daly, American talk show host
- June 26 - Gretchen Wilson, American singer
- June 28 - Adrian Annus, Hungarian athlete
- June 30 - Chan Ho Park, Korean Major League Baseball player

July


- July 4 - Gackt, Japanese singer
- July 9 - Kelly Holcomb, American football player
- July 11 - Konstantinos Kenteris, Greek athlete
- July 15 - John Dolmayan, Lebanese-born drummer (System of a Down)
- July 17 - Eric Moulds, American football player
- July 20 - Peter Forsberg, Swedish hockey player
- July 20 - Haakon Magnus, Crown Prince of Norway
- July 23 - Nomar Garciaparra, baseball star
- July 23 - Fran Healy, British singer (Travis)
- July 23 - Monica Lewinsky, White House intern
- July 23 - David Mitchell, British comedian
- July 26 - Kate Beckinsale, English actress

August


- August 1 - Tempestt Bledsoe, American actress
- August 6 - Asia Carrera, American actress
- August 8 - Scott Stapp, American singer (Creed)
- August 12 - Richard Reid, English terrorist
- August 14 - Kieren Perkins, Australian swimmer
- August 19 - Mette-Marit Tjessem-Høiby, Crown Princess of Norway
- August 20 - Todd Helton, baseball player
- August 24 - Inge de Bruijn, Dutch swimmer

September


- September 4 - Jason David Frank, American actor
- September 5 - Rose McGowan, American actress
- September 12 - Darren Campbell, British athlete
- September 14 - Nas, American rapper
- September 18 - Mark Shuttleworth, South African entrepreneur
- September 19 - José Azevedo, Portuguese cyclist
- September 22 - Craig McRae, Australian footballer

October


- October 3 - Neve Campbell, Canadian actress
- October 10 - Mario López, American actor
- October 22 - Ichiro Suzuki, Japanese baseball player
- October 24 - Levi Leipheimer, American professional cyclist
- October 26 - Seth MacFarlane, American voice actor
- October 29 - Gabrielle Union, American actress
- October 30 - Silvia Corzo, Colombian newsreader

November


- November 1 - Aishwarya Rai, Indian actress
- November 5 - Johnny Damon, baseball player
- November 12 - Martin M. Weiss, American author
- November 14 - Lawyer Milloy, American football player
- November 14 - Dana Snyder, American voice actor
- November 28 - Jade Puget, American guitarist (AFI)
- November 29 - Ryan Giggs, Welsh footballer
- November 29 - Raphael Smith, South African screenwriter and songwriter

December


- December 2 - Monica Seles, Yugoslavian-born tennis player
- December 3 - Holly Marie Combs, American actress
- December 7 - Terrell Owens, American football star
- December 15 - Surya Bonaly, French figure skater
- December 14 - Thuy Trang, Vietnamese-born actress (d. 2001)
- December 17 - Paula Radcliffe, British athlete
- December 29 - Theo Epstein, baseball general manager
- December 30 - Ato Boldon, West Indian athlete

Deaths

January-April


- January 22 - Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States (b. 1908)
- January 23 - Kid Ory, American musician (b. 1886)
- January 24 - J. Carrol Naish, American actor (b. 1897)
- January 26 - Edward G. Robinson, American actor (b. 1893)
- January 31 - Ragnar Anton Kittil Frisch, Norwegian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1895)
- February 11 - Hans D Jensen, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1907)
- February 15 - Wally Cox, American actor (b. 1924)
- February 23 - Dickinson W. Richards, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1895)
- February 19 - Joseph Szigeti, Hungarian violinist (b. 1892)
- March 6 - Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1892)
- March 8 - Ron Pigpen McKernan, American musician (Grateful Dead) (b. 1945)
- March 14 - Rafael Godoy, Colombian composer (b. 1907)
- March 14 - Chic Young, American cartoonist (b. 1901)
- March 26 - Noel Coward, English composer and playwright (b. 1899)
- April 8 - Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist (b. 1881)
- April 16 - Istvan Kertesz, Hungarian conductor (b. 1929)
- April 19 - Hans Kelsen, Austrian-born legal theorist (b. 1881)
- April 21 - Arthur Fadden, thirteenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1894)
- April 26 - Irene Ryan, American actress (b. 1902)

May-August


- May 2 - Alan Carney, American actor and comedian (b. 1909)
- May 11 - Lex Barker, American actor (b. 1919)
- May 12 - Art Pollard, American race car driver(b. 1927)
- May 14 - Jean Gebser, German author, linguist, and poet (b. 1905)
- May 18 - Jeannette Rankin, first U.S. Congresswoman (b. 1880)
- June 18 - Roger Delgado, English actor (b. 1918)
- July 2 - Swede Savage, American race car driver (b. 1946)
- July 6 - Otto Klemperer, German-born conductor (b. 1885)
- July 7 - Veronica Lake, American actress (b. 1922)
- July 8 - Wilfred Rhodes, English cricketer (b. 1877)
- July 20 - Bruce Lee, American martial artist and actor (b. 1940)
- July 29 - Roger Williamson, British race car driver (b. 1948)
- August 1 - Gian Francesco Malipiero, Italian composer (b. 1882)
- August 11 - Karl Ziegler, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1898)
- August 12 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- August 16 - Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1888)
- August 17 - Conrad Aiken, American writer (b. 1889)
- August 17 - Jean Barraqué, French composer (b. 1928)

September-December


- September 2 - J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer (b. 1892)
- September 11 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile (b. 1908)
- September 19 - Gram Parsons, American musician (b. 1946)
- September 23 - Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1904)
- September 29 - W. H. Auden, English poet (b. 1907)
- October 2 - Paavo Nurmi, Finnish runner (b. 1897)
- October 17 - Ingeborg Bachmann, Austrian writer (b. 1926)
- October 22 - Pablo Casals, Catalan cellist and conductor (b. 1876)
- November 11 - David "Stringbean" Akeman, American banjo player (b. 1915)
- November 11 - Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1895)
- November 27 - Frank Christian, American musician (b. 1887)
- December 1 - David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1886)
- December 3 - Emile Christian, American musician (b. 1895)
- December 20 - Bobby Darin, American singer (b. 1936)
- December 20 - Luis Carrero Blanco, first minister of Spain (assassinated) (b. 1907)
- December 25 - Gabriel Voisin, French aviation pioneer (b. 1880)
- December 26 - Harold B. Lee, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1899)

Unknown date


- Friedrich Panse, German psychiatrist (b. 1899)

Nobel Prizes


- Physics - Leo Esaki, Ivar Giaever, Brian David Josephson
- Chemistry - Ernst Otto Fischer, Geoffrey Wilkinson
- Medicine - Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen
- Literature - Patrick White
- Peace - Henry A. Kissinger, Le Duc Tho
- Economics - Wassily Leontief

Templeton Prize


- Mother Theresa Category:1973 Category:1973 als:1973 ko:1973년 ja:1973年 simple:1973 th:พ.ศ. 2516

Common year starting on Monday

This is the calendar for a common year starting on Monday (dominical letter G), e.g. 2007, 2001, 1990, 1979, 1973... (A common year is a year with 365 days -- in other words, not a leap year.)
2nd Millennium: 19th century: 1810 1821 1827 1838 1849 1855 1866 1877 1883 1894
2nd Millennium: 20th century: 1900 1906 1917 1923 1934 1945 1951 1962 1973 1979 1990
3rd Millennium: 21st century: 2001 2007 2018 2029 2035 2046 2057 2063 2074 2085 2091
3rd Millennium: 22nd century: 2103 2114 2125 2131 2142 2153 2159 2170 2181 2187 2198
Category:MondayCategory:Weeksko:월요일로 시작하는 평년th:ปีปกติสุรทินที่วันแรกเป็นวันจันทร์

United Kingdom

:For other meanings of the terms "United Kingdom" and "UK" , see United Kingdom (disambiguation) and UK (disambiguation). :For an explanation of terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK) is a country located off the north-western coast of continental Europe, surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is composed of four constituent parts: three constituent countries—England, Scotland, and Wales—on the island of Great Britain, and the province of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland forms the United Kingdom's principal international land border, although there is a nominal frontier with France in the middle of the Channel Tunnel. The UK has several overseas territories and the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands come under the UK's sovereignty. The UK also has close relationships with the fifteen other Commonwealth Realms, as they all share the same head of state. The UK is also one of the largest member states of the European Union and a founding partner of both the UN and NATO.

Terminology


- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: The official name for the sovereign state
- United Kingdom: an abbreviation of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Britain: an informal term that sometimes means United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means Great Britain
- British: an informal term that sometimes means from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means from Great Britain
- Great Britain (as a geographical term): the largest island of the British Isles
- Great Britain (as a political term): England + Wales + Scotland
- British Isles (as a geographical term): Great Britain + Ireland + many smaller surrounding islands. This term is disputed, please see below.
- Ireland (as a geographical term): the second largest island of the British Isles
- Ireland (as a political term): an abbreviation of the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state on the island of Ireland
- Northern Ireland: a political region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Ulster (as a geographical term): Often used to refer to Northern Ireland. It is derived from the Irish Language term 'Ulad.' It was one of the ancient Irish provinces (the others were Connaught, Leinster and Munster.). Although it is normally used to refer to Northern Ireland, Ulster also (traditionally) includes Counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, which lie in the Republic of Ireland. The term Ulster is often favoured by the Protestant community.

History

Protestant Today's state is the latest of several unions formed over the last 1000 years. Scotland and England have existed as separate unified entities since the 10th century. Wales, under English control since the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. With the Act of Union 1707, the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, having shared the same monarch since 1603, agreed to a permanent union as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1169 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was formed in 1922, after bitter fighting which echoes down to the current political strife, the Anglo-Irish Treaty partitioned Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, with the latter remaining part of the United Kingdom. As provided for in the treaty, Northern Ireland, which consists of six of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster, immediately opted out of the Free State and to remain in the UK. The nomenclature of the UK was changed in 1927 to recognise the departure of most of Ireland, with the current name being adopted. 1927 The United Kingdom, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing Western world ideas of property, liberty, capitalism and parliamentary democracy - to say nothing of its part in advancing world literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population. The first half of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted from the effects of World War I and World War II. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and the UK rebuilding itself into a modern and prosperous nation. The UK has been a member of the European Union since 1973. Its attitude towards further integration is conservative, and there is significant Euroscepticism in UK politics. It has not chosen to adopt the Euro, owing to internal political considerations and the government's judgement of the prevailing economic conditions.

Government and politics

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised on behalf of the Queen by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers who head departments. The cabinet, including the Prime Minister, and other ministers collectively make up Her Majesty's Government. These ministers are drawn from and are responsible to Parliament, the legislative body, which is traditionally considered to be "supreme" (that is, able to legislate on any matter and not bound by decisions of its predecessors). The UK is one of the few countries in the world today that does not have a codified constitution, relying instead on customs and separate pieces of constitutional law. While the monarch is Head of State and holds all executive power, it is the Prime Minister who is the head of government. The government is answerable chiefly to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister is drawn from this chamber of Parliament by constitutional convention. The majority of cabinet members will be from the House of Commons, the rest from the House of Lords. Ministers do not, however, legally have to come from Parliament, though that is the modern day custom. The British system of government has been emulated around the world - a legacy of the United Kingdom's colonial past - most notably in the other Commonwealth Realms. The Prime Minister is chosen as the MP who can command a majority in the House of Commons - usually the leader of the largest party or, if there is no majority party, the largest coalition. The current Prime Minister is Tony Blair of the Labour Party, who has been in office since 1997. In the United Kingdom the monarch has extensive theoretical powers, but his or her role is mainly, though not exclusively, ceremonial. The monarch is an integral part of Parliament (as the "Crown-in-Parliament") and theoretically gives Parliament the power to meet and create legislation. An Act of Parliament does not become law until it has been signed by the Queen (being given Royal Assent), although no monarch has refused to assent to a bill that has been approved by Parliament since Queen Anne in 1708. Although the abolition of the monarchy has been suggested several times, the popularity of the monarchy remains strong in spite of recent controversies. Support for a British republic usually fluctuates between 15% and 25% of the population, with roughly 10% undecided or indifferent [http://www.mori.com/mrr/2000/c000616.shtml]. The current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Parliament is the national legislature of the United Kingdom. It is the ultimate legislative authority in the United Kingdom, according to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. It is bicameral, composed of the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, whose members are mostly appointed. The House of Commons is the more powerful of the two houses. The House of Commons has 646 members who are directly elected from single-member constituencies based on population. The House of Lords has 724 members (though this number is not fixed): hereditary peers, life peers, and bishops of the Church of England. The Church of England is the established church of the state in England. established church]] The two largest political parties are the Labour Party and Conservative Party. The UK has long had a two-party system, but in the last 20 years the Liberal Democrats have re-emerged as a large third party. The electoral system used for general elections is first-past-the-post. The constitution of the United Kingdom is un-codified and partially unwritten, which means that no single document regulates how the government works, and unwritten constitutional conventions are used extensively. The constitution is based on the principle that Parliament is the ultimate sovereign body in the country. There has long been a widespread sense of national identity in the Celtic nations. Throughout the late 19th century the UK debated giving Ireland home rule. The Scottish National Party was founded in 1934, and Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) in 1925. Referenda for devolution succeeded in 1997 for Scotland and Wales and in 1998 for Northern Ireland. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were established, the former having primary legislative power. Proportional representation is used for the elections, which has resulted in a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Scotland. Due to internal disagreements, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since 2002.

Subdivisions

The United Kingdom is a country that is divided into four constituent parts:
- England
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
- Wales The constituent parts of the United Kingdom have administrative subdivisions as follows:
- The regions and administrative counties of England
- The council areas of Scotland
- The counties and county boroughs of Wales
- The districts of Northern Ireland The Laws in Wales Act 1535 incorporated Wales and England into England and Wales for legal purposes. Although all four have historically been divided into counties, England's population is an order of magnitude larger than the others so in recent years it has for some purposes been divided into nine intermediate-level Government Office Regions. Each region is made up of counties and unitary authorities, apart from London, which consists of London boroughs. Although at one point it was intended that each or some of these regions would be given its own regional assembly, the plan's future is uncertain, as of 2004, after the North East region rejected its proposed assembly in a referendum. Scotland consists of 32 Council Areas. Wales consists of 22 Unitary Authorities, styled as 10 County Boroughs, 9 Counties, and 3 Cities. Northern Ireland is divided into 26 Districts. Also sometimes associated with the United Kingdom, though not constitutionally part of the United Kingdom itself, are the Crown dependencies (the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man) as self-governing possessions of the Crown, and a number of overseas territories under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

Military

The armed forces of the United Kingdom are known as the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Crown. Their Commander-in-Chief is the Queen and they are managed by the Ministry of Defence. Ministry of Defence The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, promoting the United Kingdom's wider security interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular participants in NATO and other coalition operations. The United Kingdom fields one of the most powerful and comprehensive military forces in the World. Its global power projection capabilities are second only to those of the United States Armed Forces. The British Army had a reported strength of 112,700 in 2004, including 7,600 women, and the Royal Air Force a strength of 53,400. The 40,900-member Royal Navy is in charge of the United Kingdom's independent strategic nuclear arm, which consists of four Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, while the Royal Marines provide infantry units for amphibious assault and for specialist reinforcement forces in and beyond the NATO area. This puts total active duty military troops in the 210,000 range, currently deployed in over 80 countries. The UK's special forces, principally the SAS, provides elite commandos trained for quick, mobile, military responses; often where secrecy or covert operations are required. The Royal Navy is the second largest navy in the World in terms of gross tonnage. Despite the United Kingdom's wide ranging capabilities, recent pragmatic defence policy has a stated assumption that any large operation would be undertaken as part of a coalition. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Granby, No-Fly-Zones, Desert Fox and Telic) may all be taken as precedent - indeed the last true war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982, in which military action was initiated by Argentina and the UK was fighting a defensive, rather than offensive, campaign. The British army has been actively involved in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. However, a programme of demilitarisation is being gradually implemented.

Geography

Troubles World Factbook Map of the United Kingdom]] Most of England consists of rolling lowland terrain, divided east from west by more mountainous terrain in the Northwest (Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District) and north (the upland moors of the Pennines) and limestone hills of the Peak District by the Tees-Exe line. The lower limestone hills of the Isle of Purbeck, Cotswolds, Lincolnshire and chalk downs of the Southern England Chalk Formation. The main rivers and estuaries are the Thames, Severn and the Humber Estuary. The largest urban area is Greater London. Near Dover, the Channel Tunnel links the United Kingdom with France. There is no peak in England that is 1000 metres (3,300 ft) or greater. Wales is mostly mountainous, the highest peak being Snowdon at 1085 metres (3,560 ft) above sea level. North of the mainland is the island of Anglesey. The largest and capital city is Cardiff, located in South Wales. Scotland's geography is varied, with lowlands in the south and east and highlands in the north and west, including Ben Nevis, the UK's highest mountain at 1343 metres (4,406 ft). There are many long and deep-sea arms, firths, and lochs. A multitude of islands west and north of Scotland are also included, notably the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. The largest city is Glasgow. Northern Ireland, making up the north-eastern part of Ireland, is mostly hilly. The main cities are Belfast ('Beal Feirste' in Irish) and Londonderry / Derry ('Doire' in Irish). The province is home to one of the UK’s World Heritage Sites, the Giant's Causeway, which consists of more than 40,000 six-sided basalt columns up to 40 feett (12 m) high. In total it is estimated that the UK includes around 1098 small islands, some being natural and some being crannogs, a type of artificial island which was built in past times using stone and wood, gradually enlarged by natural waste building up over time.

Economy

artificial island The United Kingdom, a leading trading power and financial centre, has an essentially capitalist economy, the fourth largest in the world in terms of market exchange rates and the sixth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates. Over the past three decades, the government has greatly reduced public ownership by means of privatisation programmes, and has contained the growth of the Welfare State. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 1% of the labour force. The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial state. Services, particularly banking, insurance and business services, account for by far the largest proportion of GDP. Industry continues to decline in importance, although the UK is still Europe's largest manufacturer of armaments, petroleum products, personal computers, televisions, and mobile telephones. Tourism is also important: with over 24 million tourists a year, between China (33) and Austria (19.1), the United Kingdom is ranked as the sixth major tourist destination in the world. The Blair government has put off the question of participation in the Euro system, citing five economic tests that would need to be met before they recommend that the UK adopts the Euro, and hold a referendum.

Society

Demographics

At the April 2001 census, the United Kingdom's population was 58,789,194, the third-largest in the European Union (behind Germany and metropolitan France) and the twenty-first largest in the world. Its overall population density is one of the highest in the world. Almost one-third of the population lives in England's prosperous south-east and is predominantly urban and suburban--with about 7.2 million in the capital of London. The United Kingdom's high literacy rate (99%) is attributable to universal public education introduced for the primary level in 1870 and secondary level in 1900 (except in Scotland where it was introduced in 1696). Education is mandatory from ages five through sixteen. referendum The Church of England and the Church of Scotland function as the official national religions in their respective countries, but most religions found in the world are represented in the United Kingdom. Anglicanism is the state religion that has been established in England since 1534 during the reign of King Henry VIII. During his reign, England broke ties with the Roman Catholic church and established the Church of England as the offical religion of England. Reforms to the nature of the church's relationship to the state have been ongoing, especially concerning the nature of the House of Lords and the appointment of a fixed amount of the lordships going to Lords Temporal, bishops of the Church of England. A group of islands close to continental Europe, the British Isles have been subject to many invasions and migrations, especially from Scandinavia and the continent, including Roman occupation for several centuries. Contemporary Britons are descended mainly from the varied ethnic stocks that settled there before the eleventh century. The pre-Celtic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse influences were blended on Great Britain under the Normans, Scandinavian Vikings who had lived in Northern France. Although Celtic languages persist in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the predominant language is English, which is a West Germanic language descended from Old English, featuring a large amount of borrowings from Norman French.The other indigenous languages include the Celtic languages; Welsh, the closely related Irish and Scots Gaelic, and the Cornish language; as well as Lowland Scots, which is closely related to English; Romany; and British Sign Language (Northern Ireland Sign Language is also used in Northern Ireland). Celtic dialectal influences from Cumbric persisted in Northern England for many centuries, most famously in a unique set of numbers used for counting sheep. Recent immigrants, especially from the Commonwealth, speak many other languages, including Bengali, Cantonese, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. The United Kingdom has the largest number of Hindi speaking peoples outside of the Indian sub continent.

Culture

Urdu The United Kingdom contains many of the world's leading universities, including the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the University of London (which incorporates, amongst others, Imperial College and University College London), and has produced many great scientists and engineers including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Isambard Kingdom Brunel; the nation is credited with many inventions including the locomotive, vaccination, television, vacuum, and both the