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Culture Zone 
 6500 BC - 1199 AD
6500 BC - First People on the 'Isles'
The first people on the British Isles walked over from the continent about 9,000 years ago. Before 6500 BC, the English Channel did not exist.
Before that time, any people in what is now Britain came from the Eurasian landmass and settled primarily in south-eastern England.
These people were hunter-gatherers, not farmers. They were nomads and did not settle anywhere for long enough to develop farming technology. In fact, their communities were so temporary that it is hard now to figure out anything detailed about their way of life.
2300 BC - The Copper Age
Other Europeans brought metalworking skills to Britain when we were still fighting with pointed sticks.
By 2300 BC, people throughout continental Europe were working in metal, and it was these people who introduced the practice to those living in Britain.
At first, copper was the most commonly worked metal, but technological improvements soon introduced bronze, a harder alloy of copper and tin. Gold artefacts also date from this time. Trading of technology and information between peoples helped these European civilizations develop.
100 BC - Coming of the English
In the early days of Britain, it was pretty much every tribe for itself. The Celts won.
The last centuries before the birth of Christ saw Britain increasingly settled by a variety of cultures. The Celts in particular were successful colonisers, bringing horses and the knowledge of ironworking with them and quickly controlling life in the British Isles. They turned rough forts into strongholds and lived as a ruling elite.
43 AD - The Romans take Britain
Like they did to Judea, the Romans conquered Britain and quickly built it up.
In 43 AD, a Roman army, under commander Aulus Plautius, invaded England by way of the coast of Kent. A series of battles that went poorly for the people of Britain led to the Romans' marching to the site of London and settling down.
The first settlement may have been strictly military, but trade and commerce developed quickly, and within a short time, the city of 'Londinium' was thriving.
Though some British tribes continued to fight unsuccessfully against the Romans, most assimilated quietly.
By 400 AD, the Roman Empire was in steep decline, and all Roman government withdrew from Britain. They basically wished the people luck and told them to defend themselves.
787 AD - Vikings change the cultural landscape
Starting in 787 and continuing for about a hundred years, Viking invaders continually sacked the British coast, making significant in-roads on the island.
In 865, a Danish army landed in East Anglia and proceeded to capture York and Reading. A few years later, Danish headquarters were set up in London. The different cultural influences in Britain were, by this time, starting to merge together in the lead up to the birth of the English language.
1066 AD - The Battle of Hastings
The Battle of Hastings was the birth of the Britain we now know. While King Harold II of England was fighting off a Norwegian invasion in northern England, the Normans, a group of Scandinavian descent settled in France, landed near Eastbourne. Harold rushed south to meet them before they could get to London.
The year was 1066: the Battle of Hastings. King Harold was killed; his army defeated. William, Duke of Normandy, soon became King of England, being crowned on Christmas day, 1066.
The conquering Normans brought many things with them, including their system of parliamentary politics and the French language, which would fundamentally change the direction of English.
William the Conqueror, as the new King became known, encouraged Jews to migrate to England to help develop commerce, finance and trade.
1200 AD - 1699 AD
1200 AD - The formation of the English language
The English language had its birth somewhere around 440 AD.
The Celts were among the original inhabitants of England, but were invaded by the Romans and eventually pushed into Scotland and Ireland by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) tribes from Denmark.
Consequently, English evolved as a mixture of the Celtic, Anglo Saxon, Viking, Latin and even French languages.
1290 AD - Anti-Semitism
For years, Jews were encouraged to come to Britain. Then Edward I did an about-face.
With a history of wandering due to their lost homeland, Jews were among the first immigrants to arrive in Britain. Sometime just after the Norman Conquest, Jews from Italy, Spain, Russia and other places began settling in Britain, setting up merchant and banking businesses. They were encouraged by the crown to lend money at interest, a practice which made money for the King and was not permitted for Christians.
In 1290, due to the overwhelming anti-Semitism that of the time, King Edward I ordered all Jews to leave Britain or face execution. There was virtually no Jewish immigration until the time of Oliver Cromwell, when they began arriving in large numbers once again.
1562 AD - The Slave Trade
While it was Spain and Portugal who began the European trade in slaves, Great Britain became involved early, when John Hawkins sold the first British lot of 300 slaves in Haiti in 1562. It was not long before black people made their first major appearances on British soil, showing up in city ports like Deptford.
Black slaves were brought to Britain and used as servants in wealthy English households. Some managed to gain rudimentary educations while enslaved, or buy their freedom, but most remained slaves for life. The slave trade flourished all through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, despite frequent debates on the morality of the practice.
1562 AD - First black people in Britain Until the beginning of the slave trade in 1562, there were few black people in Britain. The Africans who did find themselves in Britain were usually part of a royal entourage.
There were African drummers in Edinburgh in the first years of the sixteenth century, and a Black trumpeter named 'John Blanke' served in the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII.
In another early event, Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife, arrived in Deptford in 1501 with several African attendants.
1685 AD - The Huguenot influence on fashion
Huguenots brought lots of skills and trades to Britain, but were given a cool welcome.
The Huguenots were a group of French Protestants in the seventeenth century who were allowed to practice their religion in an otherwise Catholic country.
The Edict of Nantes, which allowed this religious freedom, was revoked in 1685, and some 80,000 French manufacturers and workmen fled persecution and came to the British Isles.
They brought a variety of trades with them, largely in the fashion industry, and for the first time, England has a surplus of silks, laces, fur hats, silverware and other such items.
Unfortunately, many of the Huguenots found life in Britain very difficult, facing language barriers and competition with unfriendly British citizens.
1700 AD - 1899 AD
1759 AD - Irish culture in the UK
In 1759 a man named Arthur Guinness took a chance when he leased a run-down brewery in Dublin, Ireland for a period of 9,000 years.
It was not long before Guinness was the most popular draft beer in Britain. Guinness moved its brewing operation from Dublin to a larger location near London in 1930, and continues to serve more than 2 billion pints of the stuff each year. My goodness!
1833 AD - The abolition of slavery
Thanks to the work of activists and former slaves, Britain outlawed slavery years before America.
By the late eighteenth century, the anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum in Britain. The work of activists was having an impact, and people were boycotting slave-grown sugar.
One such activist was a former slave from Africa, Olaudah Equiano. He saved money while working on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean and bought his own freedom for £40. Later, in England, he published an autobiography about the horrors of slavery that became a best-seller and helped the movement along.
In 1807, parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, but it wasn't until 1833, that slavery was abolished outright. This happened a full 32 years before the abolition of slavery in the United States.
1835 AD - The tea trade and India
From 1657, when tea was first served in England, the drink's popularity soared wildly.
Demand in Britain caused the government to set up tea plantations in India in 1835 and to promote opium addiction in China (which allowed a British advantage in trading).
Trade with India and China, through the East India Company, which basically ran India for 200 years, brought Indian and Chinese people to the UK in large amounts for the first time.
1845 AD - Mass migration from Ireland
British landlords forced Ireland into starvation and caused a mass exodus of Irish from Eire.
The potato famine that gripped Ireland from 1845 to 1947 was responsible for the deaths and departures of more than one million people. In addition to starvation, thousands died of diseases as blighted potatoes became the only sustenance for the Irish people.
All other food sources were forcibly exported, along with taxes and rents, to British landlords. People became Ireland largest export, as men and women clamoured to find work in Britain, Australia and North America.
No emigration numbers exist, but in a matter of years, Ireland's population dropped by almost 25 per cent.
1853 AD - A great British tradition
No one really knows how and where fish and chips originated. It's been a solid British tradition since midway through the nineteenth century, but its origins are certainly more international than that.
The deep-fried potato is commonly thought to be a French invention and some maintain that Jews expelled from Portugal in the seventeenth century brought the fish and chips combination to Britain.
1900 AD - 1949 AD
1914 AD to 1945 AD - Freedom fighters
Millions of Asians, Caribbeans and Africans came to the rescue of Britain in both World Wars. Though the history books don't usually recognise it, they fought on the front lines, worked in munitions factories and acted as nurses.
In the First World War, over 20 colonial countries contributed to the war effort, and in the Second World War, more than 3 million men and women of the empire served, primarily in north Africa, the Mediterranean and the Far East.
1936 AD - Cable Street riots
Fascists marched in the street, but the people of the neighbourhood had had enough. When 2,000 to 3,000 fascists took to the streets in London's largely Jewish East End in 1936, they were met by police and left-wing counter-protestors.
The marchers were part of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF). Mosley was a former labour MP who left the party in 1930 to follow his own fascist goals. He formed the New Party in 1931, which eventually led to the BUP in 1932.
The battles between Mosley's thugs and East End citizens were largely seen as a victory for the left, since they led to the end of the Riot Act. Mosley's party later had little impact on British politics.
1938 AD - Persecution in Germany
On November 9, 1938, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through German streets looting and destroying Jewish businesses. The gangs had the full, if unofficial, approval of Hitler's government. The event became known as 'Kristallnacht' or the Night of Broken Glass.
It was arguably the beginning of the Holocaust and led to thousands of Jews trying to emigrate from Germany and Austria. Many found homes in the UK, the US and elsewhere, but unfortunately, many did not.
Sigmund Freud was one such emigrant who made it to England, though he died the following year. Before leaving Vienna, he was forced to sign a statement claiming he had not been abused. He managed to include a dangerous bit of sarcasm, writing, 'I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone'.
1939 AD - Bagel mania
People love to argue about where to get the best bagels, but few know who to thank for them.
The bagel has its roots in seventeenth-century Poland, when the tasty items were given as gifts to women during childbirth. The movement of Eastern European Jews around the world spread the taste for bagels to all corners of the globe.
Montreal and New York are perhaps the most famous locations for great bagels, but almost everywhere, the bagel has become a beloved part of daily life.
1948 AD - Movement of the people
The end of the Second World War brought a labour shortage, and thousands of promising new immigrants. After two world wars in 30 years, the UK found itself with a massive labour shortage.
Without enough people to drive buses, rebuild the cities and staff the factories, the British government turned to the Commonwealth and opened its borders significantly for the first time.
Thousands of immigrants arrived from India, Africa and the Caribbean. One of the first waves to arrive came on the SS Empire Windrush, a ship captured from the German Navy. It arrived from Jamaica carrying hundreds of optimistic immigrants, including Lord Kitchener, the 'grandmaster' of Calypso.
As he arrived on the dock, he was singing a tune called 'London is the Place For Me':
London is the place for me
London that lovely city
You can go to France or America
India, Asia or Africa
But you must come back to London city ...
1950 AD - 1979 AD
1955 AD - Jerk chicken
Jerk chicken is a Jamaican dish that's got some serious heat. The dish originated in the mountains of Jamaica when freed slaves used imported spices and local peppers to preserve meat.
The recipe varies, but all versions include allspice and scotch bonnet peppers. Here's one recipe. Just mix the ingredients. Use some of the mixture as a marinade, grill the meat and serve the rest of the mix as a dipping sauce.
1 tbsp ground allspice
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp ground sage
3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp garlic powder or fresh garlic
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup soy sauce · 3/4 cup white vinegar · 1/2 cup orange juice
Juice of one lime
1 Scotch Bonnet pepper (Habanero), de-seeded and finely chopped
3 green onions, finely chopped
1 cup onion, finely chopped
4 chicken breasts
1962 AD - Ska music
Forget reggae. Ska is the original Jamaican pop. While most people think of reggae when they think of Jamaican music. It was actually ska that gave birth to that sound.
In the late 1950s, American radio stations were broadcasting r&b, swing and rock and roll music across the water. Jamaican musicians used what they heard to flavour their own folk music, known as mento.
The mixture of mento and rock and roll became ska, which reached its heyday in 1962 with a band called The Skatelites.
1962 AD - Commonwealth Immigration Act
After the Second World War, there was a serious shortage of workers in the UK. To counter this, Britain encouraged immigration from other European countries, but most of those had their own labour shortages.
Britain then looked to the colonies for sources of labour, and thousands of people immigrated to work in the factories. By 1960, however, people became uncomfortable with the number of foreigners living in their neighbourhoods, and racial tensions grew.
In 1962, the government passed the Commonwealth Immigration Act. This act made it nearly impossible for people who did not hold British passports to immigrate, and it has remained that way for 40 years.
1964 AD - From Trinidad to Notting Hill
The Notting Hill Carnival really dates back about 175 years to Trinidad. Carnival is a Trinidadian tradition that dates back the end of slavery in 1833.
In 1964, a handful of Trinidadian immigrants decided to start a spur-of-the-moment carnival in their Notting Hill neighbourhood. They had no idea that 40 years later the Notting Hill Carnival would attract more than 2 million people each year. The festival includes a traditional 'Mas' (masquerade), steel bands and dancing.
1968 AD - Enoch Powell
Politician Enoch Powell promoted racial hatred by calling for a stop to immigration in 1968.
In 1968, after gauging the racist feelings of his constituents, Birmingham MP Enoch Powell delivered a speech calling for a stop to immigration. It became know as the 'Rivers of Blood' speech, because of Powell's comparison of Britain's future to 'the River Tiber, foaming with much blood.'
He declared the need for 'stopping, or virtually stopping, further inflow' and 'promoting the maximum outflow.' Powell was quickly fired from his post in the shadow cabinet by Conservative leader Edward Heath, who said the speech was 'liable to exacerbate racial tensions'.
1972 AD - Idi Amin
When Uganda's newly declared president/dictator, Idi Amin, ordered all 60,000 Asian Ugandans to leave the country in 1972, most had nowhere to go. He called them 'bloodsuckers' and accused them of ruining the country's economy.
Most had been born in Uganda and had no real ties to other countries, though many carried British passports, a hold-over from Britain's colonial rule, which ended in 1962.
This expulsion put British and US immigration policy to the test, as the 60,000 refugees that needed homes far exceeded the maximums imposed by those countries.
Nevertheless, many of those displaced people found homes in the UK.
1980 AD to present
1980 - Balti: Indian or English?
Balti is an Indian-style curry served with Naan bread in a large pot known as a Karahi.
Despite its Indian heritage, this popular dish originated in an area of Birmingham now known to some as 'the Balti Belt.' It's made with very different ingredients depending on whose recipe you follow. Some use lamb, some chicken, and the vegetables vary wildly.
One thing all Balti recipes have in common: flavour!
1981 AD to 1985 AD - Riots and protest
Race riots in Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth raged all through the '80s. Many people blame police harassment and economic hardship for the riots that broke out in several inner-city neighbourhoods during the early '80s.
Brixton in south London, Toxteth in Liverpool and Handsworth in Birmingham all saw violent riots sparked by heavy-handed police tactics. Black neighbourhood residents fought back at racist judicial and economic policies.
Thousands of people were hurt and hundreds of buildings destroyed, but even sadder is that things may not be that much better today.
1992 AD - Super Mario
Mario Stanic fled persecution in Croatia and went on to be a part of the Chelsea attack.
International footballer Mario Stanic fled his home county of Croatia in 1992 during the Bosnian War because of racial persecution. He landed first in Italy and then England in 2000 when he was bought by Chelsea. A very quick, skilled right midfielder, Stanic was a key piece of Croatia's run to third place in the 1998 World Cup.
1993 AD - The murder of Stephen Lawrence
A young black man was murdered and a racist police force denied him justice. In 1993, Stephen Lawrence was murdered by racist thugs.
Police were widely blamed for not giving his murder the thorough investigation it deserved. Cleared by two inquiries through the mid 1990s, the police force's actions were finally condemned in a 1999 report prepared by Sir William MacPherson.
Accused by MacPherson of 'institutional racism', the British government has vowed to act on the majority of his 70 recommendations. These include extending the Race Relations Act to include the entire public sector, including the police force.
1994 AD - Bhangra bop
DJs fuse traditional Punjabi music with hip-hop and western dance beats.
Bhangra is a traditional Punjabi style of music and dance that has been kicking around for more than 500 years. In the UK, Bhangra has over the past 30 years become increasingly mainstream with artists laying down Bhangra tracks that infuse traditional Punjabi rhythms with urban beats.
Bollywood flashback: One of the godfathers of Bhangra beat, Bally Sagoo, was heralded by Rolling Stone mag as a key figure in the nineties UK dance music scene.
1995 AD - Model behaviour
In 1995, a young woman was noticed at an outdoor London market and went on to be named 'model of the decade' by i-D Magazine. Her name was Alek Wek and she was a refugee from Sudan, the war-torn country she had fled as a 14 year old.
Wek has had unprecedented success as a model for such designers as Alexander McQueen, Donna Karan and Jean-Paul Gaultier. She is also a member of the US Refugee Committee, through which she helps raise awareness about the plight of refugees worldwide.
1997 AD - More black and Asian MP's than ever before
More minorities are getting elected to parliament, but who are they speaking for?
With 12 black or Asian MPs currently sitting in the House of Commons, racial minorities appear to be better represented than ever before. But British politics is becoming 'ghettoised'.
Many people believe that black and Asian MPs represent only the concerns of black and Asian people. Groups like Operation Black Vote and the Labour Party's EQ are trying to address these issues and create a better level of racial diversity in parliament.
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