23.12.08

El peor de todos

Si algo debe quedar en el recuerdo del torneo Apertura 2008 es que el fútbol argentino encontró a su campeón mas mediocre de la historia. Tan mediocre fue lo de Voka que pierde una final y termina festejando un torneo que tiene un reglamento para determinar a su ganador durante las 19 fechas, pero otro reglamento para definir quien es el campeón en 3 fechas.
Un equipo que pasará a la memoria colectiva por ser campeón perdiendo 5 partidos sobre 21(tres de ellos como local) y que cae derrotado 2 veces contra el mismo rival, Tigre, quien claramente fue el merecedor de coronarse como campeón, pero claro que no tuvo los reglamentos a su favor.
Para culminar un campeonato que fue impresentable, Voka festeja una derrota haciendo tiempo como un equipo de Primera B. Esta final nos regaló uno de los momentos mas patéticas que se hayan visto dentro de un terreno de juego. La salida del arquero Javier García luego de haberse comido otro gol de esos a los que ya nos ha acostumbrado no tiene precedentes. Y pensar que nos querían hacer creer que un arquero con futuro de selección, pero García con suerte podrá llegar a ser de segunda selección.
Por supuesto que no detallaremos todos los obsequios arbitrales que le permitieron a Voka salir campeón porque este texto se haría interminable. Pero todo lo anterior descripto, sumado a penales increíblemente cobrados, protección de árbitros a jugadores, cabaret abierto full time, jugadores que debieran estar presos, "sorteos" arreglados de antemano, total disponibilidad para decidir cuando y dónde jugar hacen que este Apertura 2008 haya tenido al peor campeón de la historia.
No intente hablar esto con un hincha de Voka, para ellos la ignorancia equivale a felicidad.

1.257 comentarios:

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Anónimo dijo...

JAJAJA
Ese video es joda. Está recontraeditado y el comentario del que "supuestamente" lo grabó está superpuesto al sonido original.
¿Y un parlante en la Sívori baja? ¿No tenías un chiste más elaborado?
Sí ahí abajo no se escucha casi nada de lo que gritan arriba, y lo mismo pasa en la Centenario baja con el sonido de los visitantes...

Anónimo dijo...

Y ENCIMA EL PARLANTE ES UN ASIENTO, MAS PELOTUDO NO PODES SER BOLIGUAYO MERQUERO!

Anónimo dijo...

claa el videito q subieron las gayis del parlante no esta trucado noo? jajaj peroo noo? crees en los reyes magos todavia nena?

hayyyy q alentar gayis mudas sin aliento.....

no hacer silencio atroz...

No hay q abandonar en un clasico..nunca!

Anónimo dijo...

DALE LEO GAY....TE ESTAMOS ESPERANDO LA MAYORIA DE ESTE BLOG ASI NOS REIMOS UN POCO DE TU MENTIRA....DALE QUE PERDIO BOQUITA Y GANARON USTEDES CON EL GOL DEL GORDO TIRA PEDOS QUE TENES DE IDOLO!!!!SALUDOS

Anónimo dijo...

DEja de joder gayina fue la peor de tus desapariciones...porqué no posteas algo del gordo, digo del forro, digo del trolo fabianni q aunque jugó 2 partidos desde el banco ya es ÍDOLO INDISCUTIBLE en la historia de river plate?

poné fox sports esta noche (obvio q lo vas a hacer como en todas las copas te pones la camiseta del rival de tu papá y al final te la terminas metiendo en el orto) anyway vos mirá el partid y aprendé lo q es jerarquía y la "mística copera" que tanto envidia tu gente...

Anónimo dijo...

1011 MENSAJES... NO PODES DEJAR EN TU PAPA EL MAS GRANDEEE GAYINA HIJA NO?

NO TENDRAS UN SINDROME DE EDIPO ENCUBIERTO VOS NO?

HIJA DEJA DE PENSAR TODO EL TIEMPO EN TU PAPA..NUNCA LO VAS A PODER ALCANZAR...18 COPAS...3 CAMPEONATOS DEL MUNDO.. 41 TITULOS

Anónimo dijo...

6 LIBERTADORES

Anónimo dijo...

Bostis, por mas que netres aca ademas de ensuciar la pagina la impregans de tu olor a sucio!! das asco la verdad, pero te voy a decir una sola cosa por mas que ganes mil copas y robes mil campeonatos, seras siempre el invento del imundo igual que vos periodismo y tu camiseta en el mundo ni se enteran que ganaste (robaste) un torneo ni sacachispa se intereso por un muerto tuyo por eso date cuenta muerto que seras segundo por siempre porque asi naciste, y tus enormes jugadores donde juegan en tu imundo club donde sino cerra el orto que el Ultimo llevo mas gente que vos que robaste el campeonato como explicas eso payaso!!!

Anónimo dijo...

Se nota que los hincha de voka no saben leer!!! En que idioma hay que escribir ANTI-VOKA!!! Si van a mariconear con su club del orto que se vayan a sus foros, eso nomas. la verdad Antivoka, es un blog para cagarse de risa de los inmundos cerdos que nacieron creyendo tantas mentiras como lo de "la mitad mas uno", ya dijo Morel Rodriguez que no es cierto, cual observador internacional de la ONU para corroborar. Me imagino que si este blog genera algun tipo de incomodidad anal a alguna persona en especial, utilice un poco de su "supuesta inteligencia" como para abandonar el blog. Saludos!

Anónimo dijo...

y que pasa si vokita pierde esta noche contra "deportivo cumbio"?

Anónimo dijo...

jajajaj el unico q pierde con caracas y san martin de porras sos vos gayina pechi frio verguenza mundial...el maiz grande anticopas del mundo...


96 por ciento de eliminacion....increible!

Anónimo dijo...

GAY-INA HIJA MUDA SIN ALIENTO ULTIMA DE CABOTAJE... NO APRENDES MAS NO?? NO PODES SER TAN PECHO FRIO RIVERGUENZA !!! TENES LIQUIDO REFRIGERANTE EN LAS VENAS!!! NO TENES HUEVOS,NO TENES HINCHADA, NO TENES ALIENTO, NO TENES ALMA, NO TENES CORAZON Y OBVIO NO TENES PRESTIGIO INTERNACIONAL !!! DA LASTIMA CARGARTE HIJA FANTASMA MUNDIAL YA?

NO TE CANSAS DE TU PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO, TE GANE SIEMPRE Y TE ELIMINE DE TODAS LAS COPAS Q TE CRUZO...SINO Q TB AHORA TE GUSTA Q TE ROMPA LA COLA Y TE GANE TODOS LOS PARTIDOS CON 1 O 2 JUGADORES MENOS!!! EN EL MUDOMENTAL, EN LA BOMBONERA CUANDO TE HIZO 2 EL GUILLE TE ACORDAS? O EN MAR DEL PLATA O EN LA CHINA!!! POR ALGO SOS ULTIMO VERGUENZA NACIONAL!!!

AAHH NO ME OLVIDO DE LA MAYOR GAYINEADA MUNDIAL JUGANDO EN EL MUDOMENTAL ANTE SAN DESCENSO Y GANANDO 2 A 0 Y CON 2 JUGADORES DE MAS !! JAJAJ OBVIO Q SOS LA MAS PUTA Y CAGONA DEL CONTINENTE!! POR ALGO TUS HINCHAS NO TE ALIENTAN Y TE PUTEAN SIEMPRE Y TE TIRAN MAIZ Y PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENICO !!! Y TE ABANDONAN….. LOS POCOS EN EL MUNDO Q TE CONOCEN LES DAS PENA Y LOS OTROS SE RIEN DE VOS !! CHAU PROXIMO RASINCLUB... GAY-INA ULTIMA DE LA B...DEDICATE AL HANDBOL Q EN EL FUTBOL DAS ASCO Y LASTIMA Y VERGUENZA! FANTASMIN DECONOCIDO POR EL MUNdO...4 DE COPAS!

DEL MAS GRANDE...ESTAS MUY LEJOS

PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO ( 18 COPAS) 103 AÑOS 41 vueltas olimpicas
18 VUELTAS OLIMPICAS EN 10 AÑOS

GAY-INA HIJA RIBER CABOTAJE PLAY 108 AÑOS 38 vueltas olimpicas
DAS LASTIMA Y PENA GAYINA HIJA PAÑALERA SIN DIGNIDAD.... RIVERGUENZA SIN ALIENTO ULTIMA DE LA B... NO TENES HINCHADA, NO TENES ALIENTO, NO TENES HUEVOS Y NO TENES PRESTIGIO INTERNACIONAL

Anónimo dijo...

GAY-INA HIJA MUDA SIN ALIENTO ULTIMA DE CABOTAJE... NO APRENDES MAS NO?? NO PODES SER TAN PECHO FRIO RIVERGUENZA !!! TENES LIQUIDO REFRIGERANTE EN LAS VENAS!!! NO TENES HUEVOS,NO TENES HINCHADA, NO TENES ALIENTO, NO TENES ALMA, NO TENES CORAZON Y OBVIO NO TENES PRESTIGIO INTERNACIONAL !!! DA LASTIMA CARGARTE HIJA FANTASMA MUNDIAL YA?

NO TE CANSAS DE TU PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO, TE GANE SIEMPRE Y TE ELIMINE DE TODAS LAS COPAS Q TE CRUZO...SINO Q TB AHORA TE GUSTA Q TE ROMPA LA COLA Y TE GANE TODOS LOS PARTIDOS CON 1 O 2 JUGADORES MENOS!!! EN EL MUDOMENTAL, EN LA BOMBONERA CUANDO TE HIZO 2 EL GUILLE TE ACORDAS? O EN MAR DEL PLATA O EN LA CHINA!!! POR ALGO SOS ULTIMO VERGUENZA NACIONAL!!!

AAHH NO ME OLVIDO DE LA MAYOR GAYINEADA MUNDIAL JUGANDO EN EL MUDOMENTAL ANTE SAN DESCENSO Y GANANDO 2 A 0 Y CON 2 JUGADORES DE MAS !! JAJAJ OBVIO Q SOS LA MAS PUTA Y CAGONA DEL CONTINENTE!! POR ALGO TUS HINCHAS NO TE ALIENTAN Y TE PUTEAN SIEMPRE Y TE TIRAN MAIZ Y PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENICO !!! Y TE ABANDONAN….. LOS POCOS EN EL MUNDO Q TE CONOCEN LES DAS PENA Y LOS OTROS SE RIEN DE VOS !! CHAU PROXIMO RASINCLUB... GAY-INA ULTIMA DE LA B...DEDICATE AL HANDBOL Q EN EL FUTBOL DAS ASCO Y LASTIMA Y VERGUENZA! FANTASMIN DECONOCIDO POR EL MUNdO...4 DE COPAS!

DEL MAS GRANDE...ESTAS MUY LEJOS

PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO ( 18 COPAS) 103 AÑOS 41 vueltas olimpicas
18 VUELTAS OLIMPICAS EN 10 AÑOS

GAY-INA HIJA RIBER CABOTAJE PLAY 108 AÑOS 38 vueltas olimpicas
DAS LASTIMA Y PENA GAYINA HIJA PAÑALERA SIN DIGNIDAD.... RIVERGUENZA SIN ALIENTO ULTIMA DE LA B... NO TENES HINCHADA, NO TENES ALIENTO, NO TENES HUEVOS Y NO TENES PRESTIGIO INTERNACIONAL

Anónimo dijo...

GAY-INA HIJA MUDA SIN ALIENTO ULTIMA DE CABOTAJE... NO APRENDES MAS NO?? NO PODES SER TAN PECHO FRIO RIVERGUENZA !!! TENES LIQUIDO REFRIGERANTE EN LAS VENAS!!! NO TENES HUEVOS,NO TENES HINCHADA, NO TENES ALIENTO, NO TENES ALMA, NO TENES CORAZON Y OBVIO NO TENES PRESTIGIO INTERNACIONAL !!! DA LASTIMA CARGARTE HIJA FANTASMA MUNDIAL YA?

NO TE CANSAS DE TU PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO, TE GANE SIEMPRE Y TE ELIMINE DE TODAS LAS COPAS Q TE CRUZO...SINO Q TB AHORA TE GUSTA Q TE ROMPA LA COLA Y TE GANE TODOS LOS PARTIDOS CON 1 O 2 JUGADORES MENOS!!! EN EL MUDOMENTAL, EN LA BOMBONERA CUANDO TE HIZO 2 EL GUILLE TE ACORDAS? O EN MAR DEL PLATA O EN LA CHINA!!! POR ALGO SOS ULTIMO VERGUENZA NACIONAL!!!

AAHH NO ME OLVIDO DE LA MAYOR GAYINEADA MUNDIAL JUGANDO EN EL MUDOMENTAL ANTE SAN DESCENSO Y GANANDO 2 A 0 Y CON 2 JUGADORES DE MAS !! JAJAJ OBVIO Q SOS LA MAS PUTA Y CAGONA DEL CONTINENTE!! POR ALGO TUS HINCHAS NO TE ALIENTAN Y TE PUTEAN SIEMPRE Y TE TIRAN MAIZ Y PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENICO !!! Y TE ABANDONAN….. LOS POCOS EN EL MUNDO Q TE CONOCEN LES DAS PENA Y LOS OTROS SE RIEN DE VOS !! CHAU PROXIMO RASINCLUB... GAY-INA ULTIMA DE LA B...DEDICATE AL HANDBOL Q EN EL FUTBOL DAS ASCO Y LASTIMA Y VERGUENZA! FANTASMIN DECONOCIDO POR EL MUNdO...4 DE COPAS!

DEL MAS GRANDE...ESTAS MUY LEJOS

PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO ( 18 COPAS) 103 AÑOS 41 vueltas olimpicas
18 VUELTAS OLIMPICAS EN 10 AÑOS

GAY-INA HIJA RIBER CABOTAJE PLAY 108 AÑOS 38 vueltas olimpicas
DAS LASTIMA Y PENA GAYINA HIJA PAÑALERA SIN DIGNIDAD.... RIVERGUENZA SIN ALIENTO ULTIMA DE LA B... NO TENES HINCHADA, NO TENES ALIENTO, NO TENES HUEVOS Y NO TENES PRESTIGIO INTERNACIONAL

Anónimo dijo...

Explicamelo vos, gayi, como puede ser que el campeon termino ultimo, y Papa te haya ganado con un player menos; y quedar punteros, entonces uds salieron muy baratitos, gayi no busques excusa, tus jugadores lo dicen no alientan son unas muditas del tablon.-

Si le molestaba la cola al que hizo el blog, ya que lo abandono hace rato!!!!

Anónimo dijo...

Que partidazo de la inmundicia esta noche. Dieron lástima ante un equipo impresentable y de locales, y después hablan de River.
Y encima los chupa-culo de Canal 13 con "Larry" Gendler a la cabeza (bostero si lo hay)desesperados mostrando una y otra vez el gol que le anularon a la momia, Tití Fernández llorandole a Pajermo "estabas habilitado!!!", y repitiendo en el noticiero post-partido la frase "Boca fue superior, muy superior...", cuando solo pateó al arco 1 vez en el 1° tiempo y dos tiros medio raros que se colaban en el 2°. Nadie dice que no merecía ganar Boca (aunque los perros ecuatorianos casi se lo empatan), pero los alcahuetes de turno que tienen en la prensa deportiva ya se pasan de patéticos.

Anónimo dijo...

LLENEN LA CANCHA ALGUNA VEZ, BOLIGUAYOS DE MIERDA, Y ENTREGUEN DE UNA PUTA VEZ LAS DOS BANDEJAS ASI CONOCEN LO QUE ES UNA FIESTA EN LAS TRIBUNAS!!!

Anónimo dijo...

jajajja gayiii como ves los partidos, finales y copas ganadas por tu papa no... sabias q papa no pierde de local en la libertadores desde 2003.... 6 años invicto...

y vos para ganarle a un equipo de la c de paraguay tenes q robar el partido a los 93 min jajaj

gayiii segui sufriendoo...hacete hincha de racing vas a sufrir menos...


Palermo es el q te elimino de todas las copas...??No discuto con quipos chicos q tienen menos copas q estudiantes...ni menos copas q nery cardozo

Anónimo dijo...

La cancha llena como el otro dia en el robo del MUDOMENTAL ??? si q estaba lleno y como alentaban !!!

Sos un chiste viviente gayina..

la verguenza del america

el maiz eliminado ....lejos

Anónimo dijo...

BOLIGUAYO INFANTE, ABANDONA PRONTO ESTE BLOG Y EL CYBER DE DONDE MOLESTAS A VER SI TE ENCONTRAS CON ALGUN VIOLIN DE TONTITOS Y TE PASA POR LAS ARMAS...

Anónimo dijo...

dejen de sufrir hijas... se la pasan sufriendo y llorando...les va a hacer mal... como la mentira q viven !

Por favor como su papa les digo hijas...dejen de sufrir.... no em gusta q sufran asi....

siempre estan tristes...llorando..quejandose..amargadas..

DEJEN DE SUFRIR HIJAS... HAGANSE HINCHAS DE RACING.... q tiene las mismas copas q vos

Anónimo dijo...

DEJEN DE SUFRIR HIJAS... HAGANSE HINCHAS DE RACING.... q tiene las mismas copas q vos.... o de nery cardozo futbo club o estudiantes q tienen mas copas q vos en 108 años...


DEJAS DE SUFRIR POR FAVOR...COMO TU PAPA TE LO ORDENO..MIRA SI DESPUES TE MORIR DE UN PARO CARDIACO O DE DEPRESION POR LA TRISTEZA... DE QUIEN ME RIO DESPUES? A QUIEN GASTAMOS DESPUES? A QUIEN LO ELIMINAMOS SIEMPRE DESP? A QUIN LE GANAMOS EN EL MUDOMENTAL CON 10? A QUIEN LO BAILAMOS Y GOLEAMOS CON LOS PIBES?

POR FAVOR NO TE MMUERAS NUNCA GAYI HIJA...NI TE VAYAS A LA B..SINO SE NOS ACABA LA DIVERSION !!! JAJAJ

GAYINA ULTIMA DE CABOTAJE

Anónimo dijo...

BOCA 1
CUENCA 0

ESTA VEZ HUBO ROBO DE PARTE DE BOCA?. NO, LO HUBO DE PARTE DEL ARBITRO Y LOS LINEAS QUE LE ANULARON MAL UN GOL A PALERMO.

A RIVER LE HICIERON LO CONTRARIO Y GANARON POR AFANO, ESTA CLARISIMO. UDS. TAMBIEN ROBAN, RECONOZCANLO ALGUNA VEZ.

AH, LES DEJO ESTE VIDEO DE MARCO RUBEN. IMPERDIBLES DECLARACIONES, OTRO QUE TE DELATA, DATE CUENTA QUE EL SEGUNDO SOS VOS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g76XBV_Y600

Anónimo dijo...

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1100964&pid=5861353&toi=6263

Matías Abelairas advirtió que River no debe depender del "Ogro"; también confesó que le molestan los murmullos en las tribunas cada vez que pierde la pelota

Por otro lado, Abelairas dijo no entender "por qué" cada vez que pierde la pelota baja un "murmullo" desde las tribunas.

"Con otros jugadores eso no pasa. No sé por qué será. Me incomodan bastante los murmullos, pero en la mayoría de los casos me da rebeldía. Por suerte estoy fuerte de la cabeza y me dan ganas de pedirla", señaló.

Deja de putear a tus jujadores gayina muda sin aliento pochoclera...

EL OGRO OBESO SHREK EL NUEVO IDOLO DE BARRO Q NUNCA GANO NADA DE RIVERGUENZA...IGUALITO AL TRAIDOR ABREU, AL MALALECHE VENDEHUMO FALCAGAO Y AL GRAN CAPITAN VERDAD AHUMADA...

Anónimo dijo...

BOLIGUAYO INFANTE, ABANDONA PRONTO ESTE BLOG Y EL CYBER DE DONDE MOLESTAS A VER SI TE ENCONTRAS CON ALGUN VIOLIN DE TONTITOS Y TE PASA POR LAS ARMAS...

Anónimo dijo...

che gayinitas no lloren!

Anónimo dijo...

ARGENTINOS PUTOS ME LA SUDAN

Anónimo dijo...

LA COLA TE SUDA ABORIGEN DE MIERDA
ESCRIBI EN CASTELLANO ANORMAL

QUE PASO CON LEO_MDQ???
SE CASO CON GUIDO SULLER???

Y CON ARCHUBI EL MONONEURONA???
SE FUE A TERMINAR EL SECUNDARIO???

Y LA MILLONARIA??? Y LA INDIA???
Y ABBI??? Y MARADROGA???

JAJAJA
QUE EN PAZ DESCANSEN PUTOS

Anónimo dijo...

LA COLA TE SUDA ABORIGEN DE MIERDA
ESCRIBI EN CASTELLANO ANORMAL

QUE PASO CON LEO_MDQ???
SE CASO CON GUIDO SULLER???

Y CON ARCHUBI EL MONONEURONA???
SE FUE A TERMINAR EL SECUNDARIO???

Y LA MILLONARIA??? Y LA INDIA???
Y ABBI??? Y MARADROGA???

JAJAJA
QUE EN PAZ DESCANSEN PUTOS

Anónimo dijo...

LA COLA TE SUDA ABORIGEN DE MIERDA
ESCRIBI EN CASTELLANO ANORMAL

QUE PASO CON LEO_MDQ???
SE CASO CON GUIDO SULLER???

Y CON ARCHUBI EL MONONEURONA???
SE FUE A TERMINAR EL SECUNDARIO???

Y LA MILLONARIA??? Y LA INDIA???
Y ABBI??? Y MARADROGA???

JAJAJA
QUE EN PAZ DESCANSEN PUTOS

Anónimo dijo...

q lindo q los boli escriban aca..indocumentados de mierdaaa!!!! TENES 15 AÑOS DE HISTORIA!!! RIVER PLATE TIENE 100.. gilll. No existis boliviano... Aguante el mas grande!!! Fabbiani sos un capo man.

Anónimo dijo...

Si ehh, riber tiene 100 años de historia solamente que cuentan despues del 1931 por que antes no existia el amateur, no eran tan gloriosos digamos!!!

No nos olvidemos de tanta historia avicola, que son hitos en el futbol, osea tantas gayineadas en un solo club eso es un hito para la historia del futbol mundial.-

Gayina; Boca gano antes que vos todo; asi que deja de llorar por tu pobre historia.-

Lo unico en que tenes historia gayinin es en la xenofobia militar.-

Anónimo dijo...

JAJAJAJ HIJA FANTASMA DE CABOTAJE DESCONOCIDA MUNDIAL...

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ EN 108 AÑOS DE TU VERGONSOZA Y ELMINADA HISTORIA ELIMINEN AUNQUE UNA SOLA VEZ DE UNA COPA A TU PAPA BOCA... VENI ACA Y HABLA..

CUANDO DESPUES DE 12 AÑOS GANEN AUNQUE SEA UN COPA...VENI ACA Y HABLA... 8 desde 1997 q no ganas nada

CUANDO LE GANEN UNA FINAL AUNQUE SEA, UNA SOLA A ALGUIEN COMO LA GENTE EN 108 AÑOS DE TRISTE HISTORIA DE CABOTAJE..VENI ACA Y HABLA...(EL STELLA ARTOIS DE RUMANIA Y ALAJUALLENSE DE COSTA RICA NO CUENTAN JAJAJA)

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA COPA SUDAMERICANA… VENI Y HABLA..

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA RECOPA… VENI Y HABLA…

CUANDO GANES UNA FINAL EN BRASIL, UNA SOLA AUNQUE SEA...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO SEAS TRICAMPEON DEL MUNDO ...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO LE GANES UNA FINAL A TU PAPA EN 108 AÑOS...COMO LO HIZO EN EL 76 1 A 0...VENI Y HABLA

HIJA DESCONOCIDA POR EL MUNDO...EL MAIZ ELMINADO DE AMERICA ...LEJOS ..DE 29 COPAS LIBERTADORES Q JUGASTE EN TU HISTORIA...TE ELIMINARON 27 VECES.. Y 4 DE ESAS LO HIZO TU PAPA...

TUS JUGADORES TE DELATAN Y TE ABANDONAN HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B ( ABREU, ORTEGA, NASUTTI, AHUMADA)

SOS EL HAZME REIR DEL CONTINENTE BUFON DE AMERICA JAJAJAJA

DA PENA GASTARTE HIJA YA....

RIVERGUENZA EL MAIZ ELIMINADO Y EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS...

SOS EL PROXIMO RASINCLUB..

SOS UN CLUB CHICO Q YA SALIO ULTIMO Y ANTEULTIMO EN EL 83 ..SINO FUERA POR LA AFA ESTARIAS EN LA B....

GAY-INA HIJA MUDA SIN ALIENTO....CABOTAJE PLAY...CHICKEN PLAY.... RIVERGUENZA TIRA MAIZ , PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENICO SOS EL MAS GRANDE ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO.... ALGUN DIA SALDRAS CAMPEON DEL MUNDO NO TE PREOCUPES,3 VECES NO CREO...CUANDO EL FUTBOL SE JUEGUE CON PLUMAS Y SILENCIO ATROZ SOLAMENTE... Y SIN HINCHADA Q ALIENTE NI EQUIPOS Q PONGAN HUEVOS JAJA

"" estabamos debajo de la hinchada de boca,y ellos empezaron a gritar temblaba el estadio y las paredes,la sensacion que tuve es que se venia abajo,despues salis al campo y ves ese espectaculo....sinceramente no lo he visto en otro lugar,me viene una adrenalina el hecho de salir al campo y ver toda esa gente que grita y tira papeles,que no para un segundo de alentar,a pesar de que este perdiendo su gente esta atras y grita y grita"" TU IDOLO DE BARRO EL RATON ROBERTO AYALA..................
“ El otro dia me fui de la cancha ..cuando hizo el gol Boca y nos dio vuelta el partido con un hombre menos…. Senti vergüenza..era humillante” EL PATO FILLIOL SOBRE UNO DE LOS MUCHOS CLASICO Q BOCA LE GANO A RIVERGUENZA CON 1 O 2 HOMBRES MENOS….

“ Veo a estos jugadores y veo a esta gente que solo va a insultar y me da vergüenza… No parece River..parece un equipo chico sin alma “ el BETO ALONSO EL DIA DE LA MAYOR GAYINEADA MUNDIAL… RIVERGUENZA ELIMINADA EN SU PROPIA CANCHA GANANDO 2 A 0 CON 2 HOMBRES DE MAS CONTRA SAN DESCENSO…

" yo veo y escucho como la hinchada de Boca alienta y apoya a su equipo y parecen uno mas...en cambio nuestros hinchas solo insultan y se quedan mudos...despues del gol con San Lorenzo hubo un silencio atroz... y eso contagio al equipo!!" OSCARCITO AHUMADA EL GRAN CAPITAN
“la hinchada de riber acompaña pero no alienta se pone a insultar y eso le hace mal al equipo” EL NEGRO ASCO GOROSITO DESP DEL BAILE Q LE DIERON LOS PIBES DE BOCA A LAS PEQUEÑAS AVES DE CORRAL EN MDZA.

-¿Qué encontraste en Banfield?-Encontré un club serio, ordenado. No como otros clubes en los cuales jugue.... CRSITIAN NASUTTI

" me da lastima dejar River pero en este momento estoy mejor en un equipo de la B, como Independiente Rivadavia " EL FRACASADO BORRACHO EX JUGADOR ORTEGUITA

" Fue una deciscion dificil pero auqnue sea la segunda division de españa tengo mas posibilidades de lograr algo que en River " EL GRAN IDOLO Y SALVADOR DE RIVERGUENZA SEBASTIAN ABREU

RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO

RIVERGUENZA INTERNACIONAL..DESDE 1960 PARTICIPO EN 28 COPAS LIBERTADORES ( El q mas veces jugo en el continente)lo eliminaron 26 veces ( el q mas veces lo elminaron del continente) tenes un 7 por ciento de efectividad !! jaja si !! un 7 por ciento y un 93 por ciento de eliminacion jaja INCREIBLE....22 ELIMINACIONES consecutivas: 11 Libertadores, 4 Mercosur y 7 Sudamericanas DESDE EL 97 q no ganas un copa...SEGUI ROMPIENDO RECORD EN EL MUNDO GAYINA PAÑALERA SIN DIGNIDAD.....ULTIMA DE LA B....EL BUFON DE AMERICA...EL MAIZ ELIMINADO ...EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS !!

VES Q SOS LA VERGUENZA NACIONAL GAY-INA HIJA FRACASADA ANTICOPAS...CUALQUIERA TE DEJA HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B Y CUALQUIERA TE GASTA HASTA TUS PROPIOS IDOLOS Y JUGADORES...SOS ULTIMA DE LA B GAYINA DE CABOTAJE

Anónimo dijo...

che aver los pibes, el steaua bucarest salio campeon de la champions league, que tiene que ver??? en todo caso el que alguna vez robo una copa fue voka que jugo contra el subcampeon de la champions el borussia mochengladbach. Ahi tenes una diferencia a favor de river

Anónimo dijo...

STELLA ARTOIS? JAJAJA Q GRACIOSO! Y ES RICO ESO COMO SE COME? JAJAAJ...NUNCA LE GANASTE UNA FINAL A ALGUN EQUIPO COMO LA GENTE RIBER CABOTAJE PLAY...

Anónimo dijo...

LA COLA TE SUDA ABORIGEN DE MIERDA
ESCRIBI EN CASTELLANO ANORMAL

QUE PASO CON LEO_MDQ???
SE CASO CON GUIDO SULLER???

Y CON ARCHUBI EL MONONEURONA???
SE FUE A TERMINAR EL SECUNDARIO???

Y LA MILLONARIA??? Y LA INDIA???
Y ABBI??? Y MARADROGA???

.........................

GARCHANDOLA A TU NEGRA Y BOLIVIANA VIEJA

LARGA EL BLOG ANDA A LA CANCHA SALAME. NO ROMPAS MAS LAS PELOTAS Y ANDA A ESTUDIAR Q VAS A EMPEZAR LAS CLASES.

NO ABANDONA... JAJA 21-06-08 NO TE OLVIDAS MAS CAGON EL DIA QUE DEJASTE TIRADO A TU CLUB.

Anónimo dijo...

.........................

GARCHANDOLA A TU NEGRA Y BOLIVIANA VIEJA

LARGA EL BLOG ANDA A LA CANCHA SALAME. NO ROMPAS MAS LAS PELOTAS Y ANDA A ESTUDIAR Q VAS A EMPEZAR LAS CLASES.

NO ABANDONA... JAJA 21-06-08 NO TE OLVIDAS MAS CAGON EL DIA QUE DEJASTE TIRADO A TU CLUB.
----------------------------

JAJAJA SI ES BOLIVIANA ES TU VIEJA LA QUE TE ESTAS GARCHANDO, MI VIEJA ES ARGENTINA Y NO SE GARCHA RETARDADOS COMO VOS

YO YA ESTUDIE, EL QUE NO TERMINO LA SECUNDARIA SOS VOS Y TENES QUE INVENTAR UNA MATRICULA

AAH Y A LA CANCHA ANDA VOS MEJOR, QUE NO VAS Y RECLAMAS QUE VAYAN LOS DEMAS, NO VAS NI HASTA LA PLATA CAGON, QUE VAS A IR A LA PLATA SI NI VAS DE LOCAL JAJAJ

CHAU PUTITO ANDA JUNTATE CON EL RESTO DE LOS DESAPARECIDOS LA MILLONARIA, ABBI, LA INDIA, MARADROGA, LEO_MDQ JAJAJ

INVENTATE UNA VIDA PAYASO JAJA QUE SOS ABOGADO Y DEMAS QUE ASI NOS HACES REIR JAJAJA

Anónimo dijo...

.........................

GARCHANDOLA A TU NEGRA Y BOLIVIANA VIEJA

LARGA EL BLOG ANDA A LA CANCHA SALAME. NO ROMPAS MAS LAS PELOTAS Y ANDA A ESTUDIAR Q VAS A EMPEZAR LAS CLASES.

NO ABANDONA... JAJA 21-06-08 NO TE OLVIDAS MAS CAGON EL DIA QUE DEJASTE TIRADO A TU CLUB.
----------------------------

JAJAJA SI ES BOLIVIANA ES TU VIEJA LA QUE TE ESTAS GARCHANDO, MI VIEJA ES ARGENTINA Y NO SE GARCHA RETARDADOS COMO VOS

YO YA ESTUDIE, EL QUE NO TERMINO LA SECUNDARIA SOS VOS Y TENES QUE INVENTAR UNA MATRICULA

AAH Y A LA CANCHA ANDA VOS MEJOR, QUE NO VAS Y RECLAMAS QUE VAYAN LOS DEMAS, NO VAS NI HASTA LA PLATA CAGON, QUE VAS A IR A LA PLATA SI NI VAS DE LOCAL JAJAJ

CHAU PUTITO ANDA JUNTATE CON EL RESTO DE LOS DESAPARECIDOS LA MILLONARIA, ABBI, LA INDIA, MARADROGA, LEO_MDQ JAJAJ

INVENTATE UNA VIDA PAYASO JAJA QUE SOS ABOGADO Y DEMAS QUE ASI NOS HACES REIR JAJAJA

Anónimo dijo...

archubi comprate una vida petero
pedile un titulo a papada trucho

Anónimo dijo...

EL CABARET SIGUE ABIERTO, A PESAR DE QUE LO QUISIERON TAPAR CON UN CAMPEONATO COMPRADO:
EL TRISTE FALTA A LOS ENTRENAMIENTOS, LE AGARRA UNA CAGADERA MAGICA QUE SE CURA EN UNA PATADA Y DESPUES DAR PENA EN LA CANCHA 2 PARTIDOS SEGUIDOS SE VUELVE A HACER EL LESIONADO.
SUS COMPAÑEROS CIERRAN EL ORTO Y LANUS LES ROMPE EL IDEM.
PASEN Y VEAN...

Anónimo dijo...

No me digan que volvieron a perder de nuevo los inmundos...

Anónimo dijo...

JAJAJAJ HIJA FANTASMA DE CABOTAJE DESCONOCIDA MUNDIAL...

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ EN 108 AÑOS DE TU VERGONSOZA Y ELMINADA HISTORIA ELIMINEN AUNQUE UNA SOLA VEZ DE UNA COPA A TU PAPA BOCA... VENI ACA Y HABLA..

CUANDO DESPUES DE 12 AÑOS GANEN AUNQUE SEA UN COPA...VENI ACA Y HABLA... 8 desde 1997 q no ganas nada

CUANDO LE GANEN UNA FINAL AUNQUE SEA, UNA SOLA A ALGUIEN COMO LA GENTE EN 108 AÑOS DE TRISTE HISTORIA DE CABOTAJE..VENI ACA Y HABLA...(EL STELLA ARTOIS DE RUMANIA Y ALAJUALLENSE DE COSTA RICA NO CUENTAN JAJAJA)

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA COPA SUDAMERICANA… VENI Y HABLA..

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA RECOPA… VENI Y HABLA…

CUANDO GANES UNA FINAL EN BRASIL, UNA SOLA AUNQUE SEA...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO SEAS TRICAMPEON DEL MUNDO ...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO LE GANES UNA FINAL A TU PAPA EN 108 AÑOS...COMO LO HIZO EN EL 76 1 A 0...VENI Y HABLA

HIJA DESCONOCIDA POR EL MUNDO...EL MAIZ ELMINADO DE AMERICA ...LEJOS ..DE 29 COPAS LIBERTADORES Q JUGASTE EN TU HISTORIA...TE ELIMINARON 27 VECES.. Y 4 DE ESAS LO HIZO TU PAPA...

TUS JUGADORES TE DELATAN Y TE ABANDONAN HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B ( ABREU, ORTEGA, NASUTTI, AHUMADA)

SOS EL HAZME REIR DEL CONTINENTE BUFON DE AMERICA JAJAJAJA

DA PENA GASTARTE HIJA YA....

RIVERGUENZA EL MAIZ ELIMINADO Y EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS...

SOS EL PROXIMO RASINCLUB..

SOS UN CLUB CHICO Q YA SALIO ULTIMO Y ANTEULTIMO EN EL 83 ..SINO FUERA POR LA AFA ESTARIAS EN LA B....

GAY-INA HIJA MUDA SIN ALIENTO....CABOTAJE PLAY...CHICKEN PLAY.... RIVERGUENZA TIRA MAIZ , PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENICO SOS EL MAS GRANDE ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO.... ALGUN DIA SALDRAS CAMPEON DEL MUNDO NO TE PREOCUPES,3 VECES NO CREO...CUANDO EL FUTBOL SE JUEGUE CON PLUMAS Y SILENCIO ATROZ SOLAMENTE... Y SIN HINCHADA Q ALIENTE NI EQUIPOS Q PONGAN HUEVOS JAJA

"" estabamos debajo de la hinchada de boca,y ellos empezaron a gritar temblaba el estadio y las paredes,la sensacion que tuve es que se venia abajo,despues salis al campo y ves ese espectaculo....sinceramente no lo he visto en otro lugar,me viene una adrenalina el hecho de salir al campo y ver toda esa gente que grita y tira papeles,que no para un segundo de alentar,a pesar de que este perdiendo su gente esta atras y grita y grita"" TU IDOLO DE BARRO EL RATON ROBERTO AYALA..................
“ El otro dia me fui de la cancha ..cuando hizo el gol Boca y nos dio vuelta el partido con un hombre menos…. Senti vergüenza..era humillante” EL PATO FILLIOL SOBRE UNO DE LOS MUCHOS CLASICO Q BOCA LE GANO A RIVERGUENZA CON 1 O 2 HOMBRES MENOS….

“ Veo a estos jugadores y veo a esta gente que solo va a insultar y me da vergüenza… No parece River..parece un equipo chico sin alma “ el BETO ALONSO EL DIA DE LA MAYOR GAYINEADA MUNDIAL… RIVERGUENZA ELIMINADA EN SU PROPIA CANCHA GANANDO 2 A 0 CON 2 HOMBRES DE MAS CONTRA SAN DESCENSO…

" yo veo y escucho como la hinchada de Boca alienta y apoya a su equipo y parecen uno mas...en cambio nuestros hinchas solo insultan y se quedan mudos...despues del gol con San Lorenzo hubo un silencio atroz... y eso contagio al equipo!!" OSCARCITO AHUMADA EL GRAN CAPITAN
“la hinchada de riber acompaña pero no alienta se pone a insultar y eso le hace mal al equipo” EL NEGRO ASCO GOROSITO DESP DEL BAILE Q LE DIERON LOS PIBES DE BOCA A LAS PEQUEÑAS AVES DE CORRAL EN MDZA.

-¿Qué encontraste en Banfield?-Encontré un club serio, ordenado. No como otros clubes en los cuales jugue.... CRSITIAN NASUTTI

" me da lastima dejar River pero en este momento estoy mejor en un equipo de la B, como Independiente Rivadavia " EL FRACASADO BORRACHO EX JUGADOR ORTEGUITA

" Fue una deciscion dificil pero auqnue sea la segunda division de españa tengo mas posibilidades de lograr algo que en River " EL GRAN IDOLO Y SALVADOR DE RIVERGUENZA SEBASTIAN ABREU

RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO

RIVERGUENZA INTERNACIONAL..DESDE 1960 PARTICIPO EN 28 COPAS LIBERTADORES ( El q mas veces jugo en el continente)lo eliminaron 26 veces ( el q mas veces lo elminaron del continente) tenes un 7 por ciento de efectividad !! jaja si !! un 7 por ciento y un 93 por ciento de eliminacion jaja INCREIBLE....22 ELIMINACIONES consecutivas: 11 Libertadores, 4 Mercosur y 7 Sudamericanas DESDE EL 97 q no ganas un copa...SEGUI ROMPIENDO RECORD EN EL MUNDO GAYINA PAÑALERA SIN DIGNIDAD.....ULTIMA DE LA B....EL BUFON DE AMERICA...EL MAIZ ELIMINADO ...EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS !!

VES Q SOS LA VERGUENZA NACIONAL GAY-INA HIJA FRACASADA ANTICOPAS...CUALQUIERA TE DEJA HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B Y CUALQUIERA TE GASTA HASTA TUS PROPIOS IDOLOS Y JUGADORES...SOS ULTIMA DE LA B GAYINA DE CABOTAJE

Anónimo dijo...

Como sufrís, pendejito bosterito. Cuando el violín te suelte y se vaya del cyber probá poniendote yogur en el orto a ver si dejás de sufrir aunque sea un poquito...

Anónimo dijo...

¿Quién es el bobito que dice vení y hablá? ¿El administrador del blog?
Andá a repartir volantes del cabaret bostero que se reabrió, forrito. Ganate unos mangos así no robás para poder pegarte un saque con el paco.

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

No me digan que volvieron a perder de nuevo los inmundos...

Anónimo dijo...

q lindo q los boli escriban aca..indocumentados de mierdaaa!!!! TENES 15 AÑOS DE HISTORIA (IGUAL QUE EL PENDEJITO INFRADOTADO QUE TRIPLICA IDIOTECES)!!! RIVER PLATE TIENE 100.. gilll. No existis boliviano... Aguante el mas grande!!! Fabbiani sos un grosooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Anónimo dijo...

LLENEN LA CANCHA ALGUNA VEZ, BOLIGUAYOS DE MIERDA, Y ENTREGUEN DE UNA PUTA VEZ LAS DOS BANDEJAS ASI CONOCEN LO QUE ES UNA FIESTA EN LAS TRIBUNAS!!!

Anónimo dijo...

QUE RARO QUE EN EL BARRO LOS CHANCHOS NO DIERON CATEDRA. AL FINAL FUERON UNAS CERDAS PUTAS QUE LAS VIOLARON NI BIEN SE ENSUCIARON...

Anónimo dijo...

No me digan que otro equipo de pibes volvió a violar de nuevo a los fronterizos inmundos...

Anónimo dijo...

Aparecieron las gayinas despues del baile y abandonar en el verano...

Desp de ganar 2 partidos a nadie aparecieron las gayis.... salieron del escondite hijas gayinas putas

Anónimo dijo...

Rivergienza tiene 108 sin copas y de eliminacion....

Sos la verguenza de america..el maiz eliminado lejos... anda a hacer silencio hija de cabotaje

Anónimo dijo...

argentinos de mierda sus mamas me chupan la verga todita

boca y river no existen

arriba mexico!!

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias!

Habla de los arbitros gyina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

England /ˈɪŋɡlənd/ (help·info) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom.[4][5][6] Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population,[7] whilst its mainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. England shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west and elsewhere is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel. The capital is London, the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.[8]

England became a unified state in the year 927 and takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. It has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world[9] being the place of origin of the English language, the Church of England, and English law, which forms the basis of the common law legal systems of countries around the world. In addition, England was the birth place of the Industrial Revolution and the first country in the world to industrialise.[10] It is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science.[11] England is the world's oldest parliamentary system[12] and consequently constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.

The Kingdom of England (including Wales) continued as a separate state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union, putting into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulted in political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain.[13] In 1800, Great Britain was united with Ireland through another Act of Union 1800 to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1921, the Irish Free State was created, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act in 1927 officially established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which exists today.

Contents [hide]
1 Etymology and usage
2 History
2.1 Medieval England
2.2 Early Modern period
2.3 Within the Union
3 Government and politics
3.1 Politics
3.2 Subdivisions and local government
4 Law and criminal justice
5 Geography
5.1 Climate
5.2 Major rivers
5.3 Major conurbations
6 Economics
7 Demography
8 Culture
8.1 Architecture
8.2 Cuisine
8.3 Engineering and innovation
8.4 Folklore
8.5 Literature
8.6 Music
8.7 Science and philosophy
8.8 Sport
9 Language
9.1 English
9.2 Other languages
10 Religion
10.1 Christianity
10.2 Other religions
11 Education
12 Healthcare
13 Transport
14 People
15 Nomenclature
16 National symbols, insignia and anthems
16.1 St. George's Cross
16.2 Three Lions
16.3 Rose
16.4 Anthem
17 References
18 External links



Etymology and usage
England is named after the Angles, the largest of the Germanic tribes who settled in England in the 5th and 6th centuries, and who are believed to have originated in the peninsula of Angeln, in what is now Denmark and northern Germany.[14] (The further etymology of this tribe's name remains uncertain, although a popular theory holds that it need be sought no further than the word angle itself, and refers to a fish-hook-shaped region of Holstein.)[15]

The Angles' name has had various spellings. The earliest known reference to these people is under the Latinised version Anglii used by Tacitus in chapter 40 of his Germania,[16] written around 98 AD. He gives no precise indication of their geographical position within Germania, but states that, with six other tribes, they worshipped a goddess named Nerthus, whose sanctuary was situated on "an island in the Ocean".

The early 8th century historian Bede, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), refers to the English people as Angelfolc (in English) or Angli (in Latin).[17]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known usage of "England" referring to the southern part of the island of Great Britain was in 897, with the modern spelling first used in 1538.[18]

England is officially defined as "subject to any alteration of boundaries under Part IV of the Local Government Act 1972, the area consisting of the counties established by section 1 of that Act, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly."[19]


History
Main article: History of England

Stonehenge, a Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monument in Wiltshire, thought to have been erected c.2000–2500 BC.Bones and flint tools found in Norfolk and Suffolk show that Homo erectus lived in what is now England about 700,000 years ago.[20] At this time, Great Britain was joined to mainland Europe by a large land bridge. The current position of the English Channel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become the Thames and the Seine. This area was greatly depopulated during the period of the last major ice age, as were other regions of the British Isles. In the subsequent recolonisation, after the thawing of the ice, genetic research shows that present-day England was the last area of the British Isles to be repopulated,[21] about 13,000 years ago. The migrants arriving during this period contrast with the other of the inhabitants of the British Isles, coming across lands from the south east of Europe, whereas earlier arriving inhabitants came north along a coastal route from Iberia. These migrants would later adopt the Celtic culture that came to dominate much of western Europe.

By AD 43, the time of the main Roman invasion, Britain had already been the target of frequent invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. It was first invaded by the Roman dictator Julius Caesar in 55 BC, but it was conquered more fully by the Emperor Claudius in 43 AD. Like other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans, and their economic and cultural influence was a significant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in the south. With the fall of the Roman Empire 400 years later, the Romans left the Province of Britannia, much of which later came to be known as England.


Medieval England
Main article: England in the Middle Ages

An Anglo-Saxon helmet found at Sutton Hoo, probably belonging to Raedwald of East Anglia circa 625.The History of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early mediæval England from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066.[22] Fragmentary knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England in the 5th and 6th centuries comes from the British writer Gildas (6th century) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (a history of the English people begun in the 9th century), saints' lives, poetry, archaeological findings, and place-name studies. The dominant themes of the seventh to tenth centuries were the spread of Christianity and the political unification of England. Christianity is thought to have come from three directions — from Rome to the south, and Scotland and Ireland to the north and west. From about 500 AD, it is believed[citation needed] England was divided into seven petty kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms tended to coalesce by means of warfare. As early as the time of Ethelbert of Kent, one king could be recognised as Bretwalda ("Lord of Britain"). Generally speaking, the title fell in the 7th century to the kings of Northumbria; in the 8th, to those of Mercia; and in the 9th, to Egbert of Wessex, who, in 825, defeated the Mercians at the Battle of Ellendun. In the next century, his family came to rule England.


The signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. It was one of the first steps towards the idea of modern democracy.Originally, England (or "Englaland"[citation needed]) was a geographical term to describe the part of Britain occupied by the Anglo-Saxons, rather than a name of an individual nation-state. It became politically united through the expansion of the kingdom of Wessex, whose king Athelstan brought the whole of England under one ruler for the first time in 927, although unification did not become permanent until 954, when Edred defeated Eric Bloodaxe and became King of England.

In 1016, England was conquered by the Danish king Canute the Great and became the centre of government for his short-lived empire. With the accession of Edward the Confessor, heir of the native English dynasty, in 1042, England once again became a separate kingdom. Its ties and nature, however, were forever changed following the Norman Conquest in 1066.

The next few hundred years saw England as a major part of expanding and dwindling empires based in France, with the "Kings of England" using England as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France for years (Hundred Years' War) ; in fact the English crown did not relinquish its last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost, in 1558, during the reign of Mary Tudor (the Channel Islands are still crown dependencies, though not part of the UK).


Fifteenth-century miniature depicting the English victory over France at the Battle of Agincourt.In the 13th century Wales (the remaining Romano-Celts) was brought under the control of English monarchs through conquest. This was formalised in the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and Wales was legally annexed to the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Wales shared a legal identity with England as the joint entity originally called England and later England and Wales.

An epidemic of catastrophic proportions, the Black Death first reached England in the summer of 1348. The Black Death is estimated to have killed between a third and two-thirds of Europe's population. England alone lost as much as 70% of its population, which passed from seven million to two million in 1400. The plague repeatedly returned to haunt England throughout the 14th to 17th centuries.[23] The Great Plague of London in 1665–1666 was the last plague outbreak.[24]


Early Modern periodEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three cEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
onstituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England

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Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the officialEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church oEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remaiEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especiEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglanEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
...
The Church of England remains the official established church of England
d remains the official established church of England
ally from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
osted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
ns the official established church of England
f England
established church of England
Church of England remains the official established church of England

Anónimo dijo...

Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official establisheEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigratioEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th centuEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th cntury. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, espeEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

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Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official establisheEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigratioEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th centuEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th cntury. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, espeEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England

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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England

nd remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
ry. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England



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ygikmechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England

nd remains the official established church of England
urch of England
ently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
and remains the official established church of England
erably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
cially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
ry. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England



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urch of England
mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England

nd remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
ry. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England



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ygikmechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established chEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of EnglaEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of EnglandEngineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England
Engineering and innovation

Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864.As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Charles Babbage, 19th century inventor of the first computer; and Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and many of its associated concepts and initial technologies.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and much of the technology on which it is based (HTTP, HTML).
James Blundell, performer of the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth, inventor of the vacuum cleaner; and James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.
John Dalton, pioneer in atomic theory.
Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Robert Hooke, promulgator of Hooke's law of elasticity.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery, inventors of the first steam engines.
Isaac Newton, promulgator of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics and infinitesimal calculus.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.
George Stephenson and son Robert Stephenson, railway pioneers.
Joseph Swan, joint inventor and developer (with American Thomas Edison) of the light bulb.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotives.
Jethro Tull, inventor of the seed drill.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies used in precision engineering.

Folklore
Main article: English folklore

The Robin Hood Memorial, by Nottingham Castle.English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Worm show a distinct Norse influence, while others, particularly the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct Romano-Gaulic slant.[78]

Among the most famous English folk-tales are the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward the Wake and Fulk FitzWarin who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.


Literature

William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the greatest in Western literature.[79][80][81]Main article: English literature
The English language has a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century.

Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot (American-born, but a British subject from 1927) and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.


Music
Main article: Music of England

The composer Sir Edward Elgar is primarily remembered for his orchestral music, some of which develops patriotic themes.Composers from England have not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and, particularly during the 19th century, were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed throughout the world today. A revival of England's musical status began during the 20th century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, however, English bands and solo artists have been cited as the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Queen, and The Rolling Stones are among the highest selling in the world.[82] England is also credited with being the birthplace of many musical genres and movements such as hard rock, British invasion, heavy metal, britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, progressive rock, punk rock, gothic rock, shoegazing, acid house, UK garage, trip hop and dubstep.


Science and philosophy

Charles Darwin.Prominent English figures from the field of science and mathematics include Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Priestley, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Some experts claim that the earliest concept of a Metric system was invented by John Wilkins, first secretary of the Royal Society in 1668.[83]

England played a major role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals influenced the development of English Law and of socialism.[84] although the Levellers and other radical movements of the Civil War were significant. Major English philosophers include William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell and Bernard Williams.


Sport
Main article: Sport in England

England's new Wembley Stadium. It is the most expensive stadium ever built.[85]
The Wimbledon Championships, a Grand Slam tournament, is held in Wimbledon, London every June/July.Modern sports were codified in England during the 19th century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, cricket and rugby remain the country's most popular spectator sports.

England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. Among these, Aston Villa, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup. The England national football team are currently ranked 15th by FIFA[86] and 8th by Elo[87]) and won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, although they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004. More recently, England failed to qualify for the Euro 2008 championships when it lost 2–3 to Croatia on 21 November 2007 in its final qualifying match. England, playing at home at Wembley Stadium, needed just a draw to ensure qualification. This is the first time since the 1994 World Cup that England has failed to qualify for a major football championship and first time since 1984 that the team will miss the UEFA European Championship. On 22 November 2007, the day after the defeat to Croatia, England fired its football coach, Steve McClaren and his assistant Terry Venables, ostensibly as a direct consequence of its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.[88]

The England national rugby union team won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (and finishing as runners-up in 2007). Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup.

At rugby league, the England national rugby league team are ranked third in the world and first in Europe. They have taken part in three World Cup's finishing second in 1975 and 1995, hosting the competition in the latter. In 2008 the team will once again contest the World Cup in Australia. From 2008 England will become a full test nation in lieu of the Great Britain national rugby league team, when that team is retired. At a domestic level, England is host to large clubs like Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Wigan Warriors, all of whom have won the World Club Challenge and have produced some of the world's greats. It is in Huddersfield in 1895 that the game was born.

The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales Cricket Team. It has seen mixed fortunes in recent years but won The Ashes in 2005, and is currently ranked the fourth best Test nation in the world. The 2009 ICC World T20 will be hosted in England and Wales, and the 2018 Cricket World Cup may also be hosted in England.

Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are to be hosted by London, England. It will run from 26 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.


Language

English

Places in the world where English is spoken. Countries where it is the majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not majority language are light blue.
Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language.Main articles: English language and History of the English language
As its name suggests, the English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An Indo-European language in the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic family, it is closely related to Scots and the Frisian languages. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.

Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the Norman French language of the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among classes and for official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the Renaissance, many words were coined from Latin and Greek origins; and more recent years, Modern English has extended this custom, willing to incorporate foreign-influenced words.

It is most commonly accepted that — thanks in large part to the British Empire, and now the United States — the English language is now the world's unofficial lingua franca.[89] English language learning and teaching is an important economic sector, including language schools, tourism spending, and publishing houses.


Other languages
There is no UK legislation in respect of language use within England,[90] but English is the only language used in England for general official business. The only non-Anglic native spoken language in England is the Cornish language, a Celtic language spoken in Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency, currently by about 2,000 people.[91] This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language. Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border, and there are over 100,000 Welsh speakers in London and areas such as Oswestry on the Welsh border[92]

Most deaf people within England use British sign language (BSL), a sign language native to Britain. The British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language,[93] but does not give statistics specific to England. BSL is not an official language of the UK and most British government departments and hospitals have limited facilities for deaf sign language users. The Disability Discrimination Act gives sign language users the right to request 'reasonable adjustment', which is generally interpreted to mean that interpreters should be provided wherever practical. The BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.

Different languages from around the world, especially from the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with Bengali, Hindi, Sinhala, Tamil, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in large cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.

Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including Romany. The use of Yiddish by the Jewish population has dwindled, although an increasing number are able to speak Hebrew.

Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are many distinct English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as Caribbean English) is also increasingly widespread, mainly because of the effects of immigration.


Religion
Main article: Religion in England
Due to immigration in the past decades, there is an enormous diversity of religious belief in England, as well as a growing percentage that have no religious affiliation. Levels of attendance in various denominations have begun to decline.[94][95] England is classed largely as a secular country even allowing for the following affiliation percentages : Christianity: 71.6%, Islam: 3.1%, Hindu: 1.1%, Sikh: 0.7%, Jewish: 0.5%, and Buddhist: 0.3%, No religion: 14.6%.[96] The EU Eurobarometer poll of 2005 shows that only 38% of people in the UK believe in a god, while 40% believe in "some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% do not believe in either.[97]


Christianity

Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the centre of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.See also: Churches Together in England
Christianity reached England through missionaries from Scotland and from Continental Europe; the era of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Celtic Christian missionaries in the north (notably St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert). The Synod of Whitby in 664 ultimately led to the English Church being fully part of Roman Catholicism. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. England has many early cathedrals, most notably York Minster (1080), Durham Cathedral (1093) and Salisbury Cathedral (1220), In 1536, the Church was split from Rome over the issue of the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority, and later the influence of the Reformation, resulting in the Church of England and Anglicanism. Unlike the other three constituent countries of the UK, the Church of England is an established church (although the Church of Scotland is a 'national church' recognised in law).

The 16th century break with Rome under the reign of King Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries had major consequences for the Church (as well as for politics). The Church of England remains the largest Christian church in England; it is part of the Anglican Communion. Many of the Church of England's cathedrals and parish churches are historic buildings of significant architectural importance.

Other major Christian Protestant denominations in England include the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church. Smaller denominations, but not insignificant, include the Religious Society of Friends (the "Quakers") and the Salvation Army — both founded in England. There are also Afro-Caribbean Churches, especially in the London area.

The Roman Catholic Church re-established a hierarchy in England in the 19th century. Attendances were considerably boosted by immigration, especially from Ireland and more recently Poland.

The Church of England remains the official established church of England

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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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The Church of England remains the official established church of England
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ygik97g9

Anónimo dijo...

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Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza ladaron de cabotaje... porque no hablas de los arbitros ahora gayina puta!

Otra vez ganaste un partido porque afanste no... sino perdias! como el otro dia..como entoda tu historia de cabotaje de patidos arreglados!

Habla de los arbitros ahora gayina mudaaa..ves q vas donde sopla el viento..gayina ultima


porque no habals de los arbitrajes ahora

Anónimo dijo...

No me digan que otro equipo de pibes volvió a violar salvajemente a los fronterizos inmundos...

Anónimo dijo...

OTRA VEZ LES HICIERON EL ORTO
OTRA VEZ SE FUERON MASTICANDO BRONCA
OTRA VEZ LAS MOMIAS FISURADAS FRACASARON
OTRA VEZ EL TRISTE SE QUEDO EN CASA DE MAMI
OTRA VEZ ABONDATONTO SE COMIO UN GOL EN SU PALO
OTRA VEZ GANO EL MAS GRANDE
Y SIGUE SIENDO RIVER PLATE

Anónimo dijo...

Como siempre Papa Campeon y la gayina ultima

Anónimo dijo...

DEJEN DE SUFRIR HIJAS... HAGANSE HINCHAS DE RACING.... q tiene las mismas copas q vos.... o de nery cardozo futbo club o estudiantes q tienen mas copas q vos en 108 años...


DEJAS DE SUFRIR POR FAVOR...COMO TU PAPA TE LO ORDENO..MIRA SI DESPUES TE MORIR DE UN PARO CARDIACO O DE DEPRESION POR LA TRISTEZA... DE QUIEN ME RIO DESPUES? A QUIEN GASTAMOS DESPUES? A QUIEN LO ELIMINAMOS SIEMPRE DESP? A QUIN LE GANAMOS EN EL MUDOMENTAL CON 10? A QUIEN LO BAILAMOS Y GOLEAMOS CON LOS PIBES?

POR FAVOR NO TE MMUERAS NUNCA GAYI HIJA...NI TE VAYAS A LA B..SINO SE NOS ACABA LA DIVERSION !!! JAJAJ

GAYINA ULTIMA DE CABOTAJE

Del mas grande...estas muy lejos gayina...

Anónimo dijo...

http://www.ole.clarin.com/notas/2009/02/23/futbollocal/01864424.html

"Es la camiseta"
Lucchetti, con una historia particular con River, tiró: "Estoy acostumbrado a irme así de esta cancha". Y aclaró que no la quiso tocar en el 1-0 "porque era indirecto".
Nada de indirecto, al contrario, muy directo fue Cristian Lucchetti al referirse a la jugada del tiro libre que terminó en el gol de Abelairas. Sin levantar la mano (para hablar), no ocultó su calentura. "Estoy acostumbrado a irme así de esta cancha. Podés perder, pero cuando venís acá te encontrás con un plus que es siempre así".

--¿Pensás que el problema son los árbitros?

--No, el tema es con la camiseta.

Claro, luego de un fallo polémico como fue el de ayer de Pompei, el arquero hizo referencia a aquella recordada definición por penales, ante el mismo River y por Copa Libertadores 04, que terminó en escándalo. En esa oportunidad, Lucchetti (debajo de los tres palos) le atajó uno al Rolfi Montenegro pero, en un grosero error, el árbitro paraguayo Carlos Torres, le marcó adelantamiento y el penal debió patearse otra vez. Ayer no fue por un tiro desde los 12 pasos, pero sí en un tiro libre donde para Lucchetti el árbitro se equivocó hasta con los pasos. "Pompei no puso la barrera a nueve pasos, la puso como a 13. No es normal que pasen estas cosas en partidos de otros equipos".

Una de las cuestiones es si Pompei marcó o no que el tiro libre era indirecto. Ahí Lucchetti no tuvo dudas: "Lo vi yo, no es que me lo contaron. El cobró foul y levantó la mano. ¡Yo lo vi! Y cuando le reclamé, me dijo que no había cobrado indirecto. Y yo le pedí: 'Jurámelo por tus hijos que no marcaste indirecto'. Y no me lo juró. Indudablemente, no fue claro. Somos todos humanos, se puede equivocar, pero debería reconocerlo".

Otro punto clave fue la decisión del propio arquero de no esforzarse por sacar el tiro libre. "Más allá de que podría haber llegado o no a sacar el remate --dijo Lucchetti--, no me voy a arriesgar a tocar la pelota que va al arco en un tiro indirecto, porque la puedo terminar metiendo. Además, desde que empecé a jugar al fútbol, en baby, a los cuatro años, que es así: el árbitro levanta la mano y es indirecto. Ahora parece que cambió...".



GAYINA LADRONA...ROBASTE DURANTE 108 AÑOS Y AHORA EMPEZASTE EL 2009 ROBANDO TB NO..... PORQUE NO TE QUEJAS DE LOS ARBITROS AHORA PUTA.... HACES SILENCIO NO?

Anónimo dijo...

MIRA COMO LLORAN LOS BOLIVIANOS PUTOS, HACIENDOSE LOS JUSTICIEROS AHORA, LO UNICO QUE FALTABA.
LOS BOLUDOS (COMO VOS) DE BANFIELD SE CONFUNDIERON Y PECARON DE BOLUDOS.
A LLORAR A LA IGLESIA, "TRIPLE OFFSIDE EN FINAL DE COPA"...

Anónimo dijo...

OTRA VEZ LES HICIERON EL ORTO
OTRA VEZ SE FUERON MASTICANDO BRONCA
OTRA VEZ LAS MOMIAS FISURADAS FRACASARON
OTRA VEZ EL TRISTE SE QUEDO EN CASA DE MAMI
OTRA VEZ ABONDATONTO SE COMIO UN GOL EN SU PALO
OTRA VEZ GANO EL MAS GRANDE
Y SIGUE SIENDO RIVER PLATE

Anónimo dijo...

No me digan que otro equipo de pibes volvió a violar salvajemente a los fronterizos inmundos...

Anónimo dijo...

muchachos no se rebajen a contestarle a los hinchas de boca!! el reglamento dice que si en una plancha el jugador lo toca al otro es falta y es directo!! solo es indirecto cuando es jugada peligrosa y no lo toca!!! ya esta ayer se vio como bustos lo toco a ahumada y ahora si salen a decir que no lo tocan ya hay una campaña en contra de river porque!! y tiene razon pipo cuando dice que cuando los otros equipos ganan como gano river ayer dicen que tienen mistica!!!

Anónimo dijo...

"BOCA ESTA ACOSTUMBRADO A ROBAR JUGADORES DE INFERIORES", declaración y denuncia del vicepresidente de LANUS Sr GROSSO.. que me decis bolita ahora, a ver decime que significa eso? ..yo sé y te lo voy a decir: SON UNA MENTIRAAAA!! DAN ASCO!! SON MEDIOCRESSS!!! CORRUPTOS Y LADRONES no tienen VERGUENZA. EL FRACASADO ESE DE BIANCHI LOS VA A LLEVAR A DONDE TENDRIAN QUE HABER ESTADO SIEMPRE, EN EL FONDO DE LA CLOACA!! Hablen ahora PERIODISTAS DE CUARTA Y CORRUPTOS se dieron cuenta la que es la BOSTA un SORETE mal CAGADO..DELINCUENTES..MEDIOCRES..INVENTO PERIODISTICO!!...

Anónimo dijo...

IDIOTAS BOSTEROS Amigos que dicen que nos ganaron siempre, en las Copas, en el 76..etc...les paso a Comentar:
TUVE LA ENORME FORTUNA DE VER A RIVER BASUREARLOS DE TODOS LADOS...Calculen que empece a Ver Futbol en el Año 1986 exactamente, bueno ese mismo año GANAMOS TODO..(Junto con la mas brillante Seleccion Argentina de la Historia, porque cuando RIVER gana tambien gana Argentina, no como uds.)
Ese Año recuerdo, GANAMOS EL CAMPEONATO con 10 PUNTOS (SI!!, 10 puntos!!) de ventaja, y DIMOS LA VUELTA OLIMPICA en su INODORO asqueroso..para colmo RIVER ES TAN GRANDE que ese REGALO ME LO HIZO JUSTO EL DIA DEL CUMPLEAÑOS DE MI VIEJA, OTRA FANA MILLONARIA, ASI QUE MIRA QUE GRANDE ES RIVER!!
ADEMAS, ESE MISMO AÑO...LOS ECHAMOS A UDS DE LA COPA!!..TE ACORDAS MUGRIENTO?..Y NO LOS ECHAMOS PARA PERDER LA FINAL CON ONCE CALDAS COMO UDS EN EL 2004...LOS ECHAMOS PARA GANARLA BRILLANTEMENTE DE PUNTA A PUNTA, GANANDO CASI TODOS LOS PARTIDOS (SIN PENALES) DE VISITANTE Y DE LOCAL)..
SOLO ME QUEDA DECIR QUE AQUEL AÑO, EN QUE EMPECE A VER FUTBOL (MIRA COMO DEBUTE BOSTERO!!) SALIMOS CAMPEONES DEL MUNDO, RIVER Y LA SELECCION, ESO ES XQ LOS JUGADORES DE RIVER TIENEN HUEVOS NO COMO LOS TUYOS QUE TIRAN ABAJO LA BLANQUICELESTE PORQUE AMAN LA VERDE DE BOLIVIA...
ADEMAS, VARIAS VECES EN LA HISTORIA LES DIMOS PALIZAS MEMORABLES:
AÑO 1954: BOCA VENIA A DAR LA VUELTA A CANCHA DE RIVER Y CON UN EMPATE LA DABAN...SE LLEVARON TRES PEPAS!!!! (DOS DE ANGELITO LABRUNA QUE LOS TENIA DE TATARANIETOS) FUE 3-0 Y VOLVIERON AL CHIQUERO CON EL CU.LO ROTO, JEJE
Y HAY MUCHAS MAS QUE LA PRENSA BOSTERA DE ESTE PAIS NO LAS QUIERE RECORDAR PERO EXISTIERON, NO EN JODA RIVER ES LO MAS GRANDE DE ESTE PAIS (33 SON MEJORES!!!!)
AGUANTE RIVER, PARA LOS QUE BANCAMOS LAS MALAS!! LAS BUENAS YA VAN A VENIR!!
CHAU BOSTERO BOLIVIANO!! ANDA CON TU FAMILIA A CHUPAR JAPIS, MUGRIENTO!

Anónimo dijo...

AGUANTE RIVER!!!!!! BOSTEROS DE MIERDA OPINEN EN OTRO LADO!!!! DAN LASTIMA!!! SON UNA MENTIRA, NO LLENAN NI EL CODITO DE LANUS. JAJAJAJJAJA ME DAN PENA!!! Y AHORA LA PRENSA DE QUE HABLA: NIEMBRO, CLOSS, TITI BOSTERO FERNANDEZ!!!! MUERTOS, MENTIROSOS, VENDE HUMO.AGUANTE RIVER CARAJO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anónimo dijo...

El padre le regala al hijo más chico una camiseta de river para navidad y el niño de 8 años todavia no habia decidido de que equipo seria y pregunta:
- papa esta camiseta, ¿de que equipo es? De Peru???
- No , de river hijo…
- y papa decime, ¿quien es el maximo rival de river?
- boca hijo, es el peor rival
- ¿y le llevamos muchos partidos de ventaja?
- no hijo, lamentablemente nos tiene de hijos, En Partidos oficiales de AFA, amistosos e internacionales tb…nos tienen de hijo en todos las clases de partidos.
- bueno papa, pero ¿habremos ganado mas copas que ellos?
- no hijo, ellos ganaron 18 copas y nosotros apenas tenemos 5 y hace muucho tiempo atrás.... vos no habias nacido….
- pero alguna vez papa le habremos ganado algun partido definitorio, ¿no?
- no hijo, la unica final que jugamos perdimos en el año 76, y despues perdimos partidos claves como la supercopa del 94, nos dejaron afuera de la copa siempre q nos cruzaron…en el 2000 y 2004 con la cancha de river solo con hinchas de nuestro club, y en el año 62 tambien perdimos el campeonato contra ellos. el chico medio preocupado vuelve a preguntar:
- bueno papi pero por lo menos river lo elmino alguna vez o le gano una final mano a mano?
No hijo…nunca en casi 110 años de historia del club…eliminamos a Boca mano a mano y la unica final q jugamos la ganaron ellos…
- pero papito, ¿por lo menos tenemos mas hinchas que ellos?
- no hijo, somos menos, a ellos los apodan la mitad mas 1 del pais y son el club mas fuerte y popular de America…tiene hinchas en todo el mundo…
- pero nunca van a la cancha ¿no papi?
- no hijo, van, es mas llevaron una vez a japon 10.000 personas, son los unicos en America q hicieron eso. Y tb llevaron varias veces 7000 personas a finales en Brasil..Y nos llevan mas de 1.000.000 de entradas oficiales vendidas en la historia de la AFA..todos eso datos estan en la pagina de la AFA… sin contar abonados sino es mucho mas la diferencia…
Ademas nuestra hinchada es famosa solo por putear, tirar maiz, pañales, papel higienico, insultar, pinchargomas, hacer el hall center, el silencio..atroz de nuestro estadio y nuestra hinchada...por nuestra falta de apoyo…nuestra falta de aliento y por llenar miles de paginas policiales…por agredir…lastima q solo por eso nos conocen en el mundo…..por ser el unico euipo en abandonar un clasico…en Mendoza ante el baile de los pibes de Boca.
- che papi, maradona ¿de que equipo es?
- de boca hijo
- pero ¿que idolo tenemos nosotros?
- francescoli hijo
- ¡quien es ese nunca lo vi? ¿y salio campeon con argentina papi?
- no, es uruguayo…..
- aaaahhh q lastima….
- ¿algo tenemos mas que ellos papi?
- si, ganamos mas campeonatos de cabotaje que ellos, la gran mayoria fueron en blanco y negro o sea en la decada del 40 y 50 ( aunque muchos de ellos arreglados con empates y con ayuda de arbitros y AFA pero no le digas a nadie es secreto) y varios con la ayuda de los militares y Menem, pero nos estan alcanzando.
- Pero en total de campeonatos tenemos mas no?
- No hijo, ellos son mas grandes tienen mas, en total 41 ( 18 Int y 23 locales) y nosostros 38 ( 5 Int y 33 locales). Ademas ellos son tricampeones Mundiales.
- bueno, por lo menos river siempre sale campeon local, ya q internacionalmente no existimos ¿no es cierto papi?
- mmm, bueno hijo tuvimos una mala racha de 18 años sin ganar nada, con los mejores jugadores y llegábamos aunque sea a ser segundos.
- ¿y por qué le dicen gallina?
- por eso mismo, hijito. Y por arrugar siempre cada vez q salimos del pais, o en instancias decisivas… nos humillan siempre en cualquier lado peru, Bolivia, mexico, Brasil, Venezuela, Colombia… nunca ganamos nada afuera.
Y muchisimas veces nos eliminaron de local en nuestra cancha…como la vergonzosa eliminación contra 9 hombres de san Lorenzo o caracas o san martin de porras...
- papi, ¿de donde es river?
- de nuñez, aunque la cancha esta en belgrano, pero nacimos en la boca, pero lamentablemente nos echaron del barrio. Somos desterrados y exiliados.
- papi, nosotros somos mas "viejos" que ellos, ¿no?
- no hijo, en realidad ni sabemos fehacientemente la fecha de nuestro nacimiento. algunos dicen 1901, otros 1904...en fin.
- papi, seguramente tenemos muchos mas campeonatos amateurs, ¿no?
- no hijo..., 7 a 1 ganan ellos… - pero papi, entonces casi seguro que fuimos el primer campeon del profesionalismo, ¿no?
- no hijo, tampoco... - papi, pero la hinchada de river es muy reconocida en el mundo y por las demas hinchadas argentinas, ¿no?
- no hijo, hinchada hay una sola y lamentablemente la tienen ellos. Es mundialmente famosa…afuera de la argentina los extranjeros solo preguntan por Maradona y Boca.
Es mas Argentina en el exterior es sinonimo de: Maradona, Boca y Tango….
- papi, ¿y porque a river le dicen "millonarios" si estan en semi-bancarrota?
- porque una vez, hace mucho tiempo compraron un jugador en una cifra muy alta para la epoca…y asi quedo…"millonarios”
- pero papi, entonces ¿por que se enorgullecen tanto de la "cantera"?
- no te sabria decir, hijo...
- pero papi, ¿es verdad que marzolini y cia, dieron 2 vueltas en nuestra cancha?
- si, es verdad hijo...
- ¿y es verdad que esa cancha la remodelaron los militares, en su gobierno de facto con la plata del pueblo Argentino…?
- si hijo, es verdad nos ayudaron mucho por eso a nuestro estadio le dicen “Videlamental” o “mudomental”... Y Menen y la AFA tb por suerte nos ayudaron siempre….y nos inflaron bastante
- ¿y boca?
- no, boca no... ellos la hicieron solitos y es una cancha de futbol, no un estadio para recitales... ademas, todo el mundo quiere jugar ahi. ( es un templo magico, mitico, una leyenda mundialmente reconocida) , tienen el record mas grande internacional de America de local….es más, en una encuesta en inglaterra salió que el espectáculo deportivo que uno no debe perderse en la vida, es el super clásico: " boca - river ", pero en la bombonera. hijo querido, en el estadio de ellos.
- papi, ¿es verdad que ellos son los lideres en gente en cancha de la historia del futbol argentino???
- si hijo, tambien es verdad. inclusive en sus peores epocas reventaron canchas en toda la argentina, inclusive el monumental en nuestras mejores epocas.
- ¿y river hizo algo parecido???
- mmmmm… esteeee.... queres un chocolate hijo???
- no, contestame!! - la verdad que no...
- y a japon, ¿cuanta gente llevo river?
- este...no se, no los conte… pero , mas o menos..!!!! que se yo...400, 500!!! - pero papa, boca llevo miles, batiendo todos los records…
- y bueno hijo, ¿que le vamos a hacer???
- ¿y es verdad que ganaron copas en todos lados, america del sur, del norte, europa , asia… 7 Finales a los Brasileros, es mas estuvieron invictos casi 40 años contra equipos brasileros eliminando mano a mano?….que son los reyes de copas??
- si hijo, es verdad…
- Y nosotros le ganamos a algun equipo importante en la historia o fuera de la argentina?
- No hijo…nunca le ganamos a nadie importante ni de prestigio…es mas es muy raro q juguemos finales…la unica vez q ganamos un titulo fuera de la Argentina fue en el 86..en blanco y negro..contra el Stella Artois de Rumania…
- y ese equipo q es….. de rugby???
- ¿y que encima de todo eso tienen 6 copas pendientes que nunca se jugaron?
- si hijo. - ¿y encima ahora river tuvo que mirar otra final de boca por tv? - si hijo... - hay una copa que se llama libertadores, no es cierto papá?
- si hijo, es la más importante del continente…
- ahhh… es la que ganó river en febrero???
- mmmm… no hijo, esa copa que ganó river en febrero es el torneo de verano…
- y la libertadores 2007 quién la ganó entonces???
- la ganó boca hijo, lamentablemente…
- pero river también la ha ganado a esa copa???
- si hijo, la hemos ganado 2 veces
- osea que la hemos ganado más veces que ellos a esa copa???
- no hijo, ellos la han ganado 6 veces… Nosotros en casi 50 ediciones y casi todas jugadas solo 2….realmente una vergüenza y ejemplo de ineficacia deportiva!
- y cuando river la ganó se festejó mucho en las calles???
- mmmm… ehhhh… si… en realidad mucho no me acuerdo porque ya ha pasado mucho tiempo de eso
- papito la copa que jugó boca en japón, la hemos jugado nosotros verdad???
- ehhh… esteeeee… no hijo, de echo, ellos son el primer equipo argentino que participa de ese torneo… ehhh… pero esa copa antes se llamaba intercontinental, y a la intercontinental si la hemos ganado
- ahhh!!! y la hemos ganado mas veces que boca???
- ehhh… no hijo, nosotros la hemos ganado solo una vez y ellos la han ganado tres veces…
- y a quién le ganó en la final river a esa copa???
- le ganó esa copa a un equipo de rumania llamado steaua de Bucarest creo….
- que??? existe un equipo que se llama así???
- si hijo, existe
- pero papito, un amigo mío que es hincha de boca siempre dice que ellos le ganaron esa copa al Borussia ( el mejor equipo de la decada del 70) en la mismisima Alemania, Real Madrid de España y al Milan de Italia!!! es cierto papá??? Y Juegan finales siempre contra grandes como Bayern Munich, Santos, San Pablo?
- si hijo, es verdad…
- y cuando river la ganó a esa copa yo donde estaba??? porque no me acuerdo…
- no hijo, vos todavía no nacías… y yo solo tenía 10 años y muy bien no me acuerdo tampoco…
- pero mi amigo si lo vió salir dos veces campeón del mundo a boca…
- bueno hijo… lo que pasa es que ellos la han ganado hace poquito…
- papito, no tenés acá en la casa un video de river cuando fue campeón del mundo??? porque en la casa de mi amigo estaban viendo un video de boca cuando fue varias veces campeón del mundo y la fiesta de la llegada de la copa a la Argentina.
- si hijo!!! por supuesto!!! el padre salió corriendo a la habitación a buscar el video de river… - vení hijo sentate, mirá!!!
- uhhh… papá, pero este video está en blanco y negro y se ve todo borroso!!!! porque no lo compraste a color???
- hijo ya te dije que eso fue hace muchiiisimos años, y es dificil conseguir videos de esa época en color… pero no te vayás vení a verlo!!! vas a ver que está bueno!!!
- no papi… es re aburrido ver algo tan viejo y con jugadores q ni conozco!!!
el hijo se fue de la sala y el padre salió detrás de él para tratar de convencerlo de que tenía que ser hincha de river. el niño miro al padre fijamente y le dijo
"perdoname papi" y prendio fuego la camiseta, y escribio: "Querido Papa Noel, no se que habre hecho este año para que te hayas portado tan mal conmigo, yo calculo que me he portado bien, igualmente te perdono y te suplico que si todavia estas a tiempo me traigas una camiseta de Boca, el equipo con mas titulos en America 41, sino espero

Anónimo dijo...

41 queeeee????

Anónimo dijo...

"Boca, el equipo con mas titulos en America 41?????"
Que argentino más soberbio e idiota. ¿O debo decir bolita? Mirá lo que tengo de mi país chiquitito, fanfarrón:

Peñarol (Uruguay)
37 campeonatos de Uruguay
5 Copas Libertadores (1960, 1961, 1966, 1982 y 1987)
3 Copas Intercontinentales (1961, 1966 y 1982)
1 Supercopa de Campeones Intercontinentales (1969)
Total 46 títulos

Nacional (Uruguay)
31 campeonatos de Uruguay
3 Copas Libertadores (1971, 1980, 1988)
3 Copas Intercontinentales (1971, 1980 y 1988)
1 Recopa de Sudamérica (1989)
2 Copas Interamericanas (1972, 1989)
Total 40 títulos

A los dos equipos solo se les puso los títulos de la era profesional, y no se tuvieron en cuenta las copas "Río de la Plata" o similares.

¿Boca el más grande de qué...decías?

Anónimo dijo...

jaja 37 cabotajes nacional contando los amateurs..papa tiene 7 campeonatos amateurs uruguayo burro!... ademas hablame de un campeonato q por lo menos tenga 8 integrantes...si durante 50 años jugaron Peñarol y nacional solamente, los otros eran equipos de la C ... obvio q uno de los 2 iba a salir campeon...y las copas Libertadores de Peñarol jugaban 8 equipos y entraban en semifinales... suma todo y no llegan a 41

Anónimo dijo...

Nuestros rivales son el MIlan, el Real, el Bayern, el Manchester o el Barcelona.... por lo menos con vos hincha de Nacional me pongo a discutir.... con otros equipitos de cabotaje ultimos de la b..q tienen menos copas q estudiantes y menos copas q Nery Cardozo ni me gasto en hablarles ..son muy chicos

Anónimo dijo...

"37 cabotajes nacional contando los amateurs"

No, bolita, ¿no sabés leer en español, solo en guaraní?
SON TITULOS DE LA ERA PROFESIONAL. SI QUERES LE AGREGO 4 MAS DE LA ERA AMATEUR.
Me parece que el burro es otro.
Lamento que vivas equivocado.
Repito: ¿Boca el más grande de qué...decías?

Anónimo dijo...

Ah, me olvidaba. Peñarol le ganó al fabuloso Benfica (en esa época), Real Madrid y Aston Villa. Nacional a Panathinaikos, Nottingham Forest (que era bicampeón de Europa) y PSV Eindhoven.
Lo puse para que bajen un cambio con eso de mandarse la parte de "nuestros rivales son Milan, etc, etc". Si siguen jugando como ahora (como el culo) en breve van a terminar jugando solamente la Sudamericana, y porque los invitan...

Anónimo dijo...

"BOCA ESTA ACOSTUMBRADO A ROBAR JUGADORES DE INFERIORES".

.............................

AHI LOS TENES VOS A LOS PEDOFILOS JAJAJA ENCIMA DE NEGROS, INMUNDOS, ILEGALES SON PEDOFILOS.

SIGAN ASI MUERTOS Y VAYAN A LA CANCHA NI EL CODO DE LANUS LLENASTE CAGON.

MALANOTTE NO ABANDONA.... LOS ESTUDIOS! JAJAJA ANDA A LA CANCHA GIL!

RIVER PLATE LO MAS GRANDE QUE HAY

Anónimo dijo...

GAYINAS HIJAS PAÑALERAS SIN DIGNIDAD….POR FAVOR COMO SU PAPA LES PIDO Q ABRAN UN POQUITO LOS OJOS…NO SON NADIE…NO SON NADA , NUNCA LO FUERON….NO SE PONGAN TRISTES AHORA XQ SON ULTIMAS DE LA B Y PAPA LES GANA SIEMPRE EN TODOS LADOS ..EN REALIDAD 1. Siempre fueron hijos nuestros….Los eliminamos de todas las copas q los cruzamos ( Uds nunca lo hicieron) y le ganamos la unica final q jugamos contra uds 2. Echaron a su mejor dt (Ramón) por perder dos super clásicos de verano contra pibes y goleadas. 3. Al mejor river (Francescoli,Crespo, Ortega etc) le ganabamos con el peor Boca (Guerra, Lorenzo, Beto carranza, Fabbri y ya ni me acuerdo quienes jugaban). 4. Copas NUNCA ganaron nada, las pocas veces que lo hicieron fueron porque se alinearon los planetas (Sin jugar contra Boca, sin jugar contra brasileños y definiendo siempre de Local). Y las q ganaron ninguno fue un equipo copero o de renombre… Al Alajualense y al Stella Artois le ganaron!!! Jeje 5. El mejor partido de la historia de river es un amistoso contra Polonia. 6. Los 33 campeonatos, la mitad son la mentira esta de grondona de campeonatos cortos o medio campeonatos, y de esos la mitad son clausuras, aún de mas bajo nivel ya que los 4 equipos mas importantes pelean la Libertadores. ( o sea conclusión los cabotajes q ganaste fueron porque Papa estaba ganando la copa o llegando a semis y a finales y ek rsto fueron en blanco y negro con pelota de trapo 7. La mentira del paladar negro y los DT de "la casa", el mejor river de la historia (el del 86, el unico q gano algo como la gente), el DT era extranjero "el bambino Veira" jugaba al catenaccio con 8 atrás, ultradefensivo(Ruggeri, Gallego, Enrique etc), y ganando 1 a 0 o 2 a 1 con suerte con goles de carambola de Alonso o Alzemendi. River no existis!!! FANTASMA Y DESCONOCIDO MUNDIAL ….

NO SOLO PUTEAS A TUS JUGADORES Y HACES SILENCIO ATROZ...Y LES TIRAS MAIZ, PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENCO..SINO Q ADEMAS AHORA ABANDONAS !!!
DEJA DE VIVIR UNA MENTIRA GAYINA HIJA 4 DE COPAS! FANTASMA MUNDIAL! NADIE EN EL MUNDO TE CONOCE!
QUE FEO Y QUE TRISTE ES SER DE RIVERGUENZA!

Anónimo dijo...

PEÑAROL ??? q es eso...existe???

ganaste todo en blanco y negro y con pelota de trapo..cuando en las copas jugaban 8 equipos y el ganador entraba en semifinales... son unos muertos..y tus cabotajes son un chiste de 10 equipos y es practicamente un mano con los otros muertos de nacional.,..


DE PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO Y EL MAS GRANDE Y CON MAS TITULOS ESTAN MUY LEJOS... RIVERGUENZA, PEÑAROL Y NACIONAL TODOS JUNTOS NO LE LLEGAN NI A LOS TALONES A PAPA

Anónimo dijo...

peñarol q salis a defender a riverguenza? jaja nunca le ganaste a nadie..pvc? aston ? q es un auto? nothingan? q es un palacio? jaja son unos muertos...ganen algo q no sea en blanco y nrero..todos juntos ni le hacen sombra a El rey del mundo Boca... 18 copas... equipos chicos

Anónimo dijo...

"aston ? q es un auto?"
Que raro que te obviaste al Benfica de Eusebio y al Real Madrid (al que tanto te jactás de haberle ganado).

nothingan? q es un palacio?
Era el bicampeón de Europa. Seguro que lo era de pura casualidad, no? (igual que Boca tal vez?)

¿Equipos chicos? ¿Y como hay que llamarle al tuyo, que busca hasta en la basura copas de leche para creerse grande, o manda a su presidente (QEPD) a joder al Liverpool para inventar otra?
Dije que era uruguayo, pero nunca que era de Nacional o Peñarol. No hay caso, son soberbios que solo hablan en guaraní...

Anónimo dijo...

URUGUAYOS MUERTOS...GANEN ALGO Q NO SEA EN BLANCO Y NEGRO ..Y Q NO SEA CON PELOTA DE TRAPO Y SIN BOINA... NI CABECEABAN... LAS COPAS CUANDO LAS JUGABAN UDS TENIAN 8 EQUIPOS Y SU CABOTAJE 10.... ERA PRACTICAMENTE UNA FINAL PORQUE LOS OTROS ERAN EQUIPOS DE LA C....


NO EXISTEN.... PREGUNTEN EN EUROPA O EN ASIA O EN CUALQUIER LUGAR DEL MUNDO POR PEÑAROL, NACIONAL Y OBVIAMNETE POR RIVERGUENZA CABOTAJE PLAY.... NADIE SABE Q EXISTEN...


EL MAS GRANDE DE AMERICA Y REY DE COPAS JUNTO AL MILAN ES PAPA BOCA... EL UNICO EQUIPO DE CONTINENTE Q SE CONOCE EN EL MUNDO... PREGUNTEN SINO...VIAJEN UN POQUITO....DENSE UNA VUELTA POR JAPON Y PREGUNTEN...


VIAJEN Y GANEN ALGO AFUERA NO SEAN TAN DE CABOTAJE...

Anónimo dijo...

Yo todavía no puedo creer que haya gente que no entienda que esto no es una página de River, sino que es una página Antiboca.

Tan cuadrado se puede ser?

Anónimo dijo...

EL MAS GRANDE DE AMERICA Y REY DE COPAS JUNTO AL MILAN ES PAPA BOCA... EL UNICO EQUIPO DE CONTINENTE Q SE CONOCE EN EL MUNDO... PREGUNTEN SINO...VIAJEN UN POQUITO....DENSE UNA VUELTA POR JAPON Y PREGUNTEN...
VIAJEN Y GANEN ALGO AFUERA NO SEAN TAN DE CABOTAJE...


Nacional fue por 1° vez a Japón en 1980 y salió Campeón (20 años antes que Boca).
Peñarol fue por 1° vez a Japón en 1982 y salió Campeón (18 años antes que Boca).
Nacional jugó la Intercontinental en el Estadio Karaiskákis (El Pireo-Grecia).
Peñarol jugó la Intercontinental también en el Estádio da Luz (Lisboa) y el Estadio Bernabéu (Madrid) 2 veces distintas.
Boca, ¿donde la jugaste en Europa? ¿Estás seguro que te conocen? Mira que la Copa "Garomper" del Barcelona no es lo mismo (la que encima perdieron siempre dando vergüenza, 9-1 una vez, otra que la tenían ganada 1-0 en el último minuto la perdieron en tiempo adicionado 2-1).

Y ya que metiste a River agrego:
River Plate fue por 1° vez a Japón en 1986 y salió Campeón (14 años antes que Boca).

Boca fue recién en el año 2000.
Hasta entonces, ¿quién te conocía, bolita?...no es culpa de los demás que en ese entonces estuvieses saltando de un huevo al otro de tu viejo.
Me imagino que le contesto a un bobito de 12 años y que vive adentro de un cyber, pero no importa. Es bueno que aprendas, todavía estás a tiempo de dejar de ser un soberbio idiota crónico.

Anónimo dijo...

SHHHH HAGAN SILENCIO ATROZ GAYINAS PAÑALERAS SIN DIGNIDAD Y MUERTOS URUGUYOS... CUANDO GANEN ALGO Q NO SEA EN BLANCO Y NEGRA Y CON BOINA... O UN TORNEO Q TENGA MAS DE 10 EQUIPOS VENGAN ACA Y HABLEN..

PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO 18 COPAS

EL MAS GRANDE DE AMERCIA Y LA ARGENTINA 41 VUELTAS OLIMPICAS

EL UNICO CONOCIDO REPRESENTANTE DIGNO DE AMERICA EN EL MUNDO

Anónimo dijo...

JAJAJAJ HIJA FANTASMA DE CABOTAJE DESCONOCIDA MUNDIAL...

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ EN 108 AÑOS DE TU VERGONSOZA Y ELMINADA HISTORIA ELIMINEN AUNQUE UNA SOLA VEZ DE UNA COPA A TU PAPA BOCA... VENI ACA Y HABLA..

CUANDO DESPUES DE 12 AÑOS GANEN AUNQUE SEA UN COPA...VENI ACA Y HABLA... 8 desde 1997 q no ganas nada

CUANDO LE GANEN UNA FINAL AUNQUE SEA, UNA SOLA A ALGUIEN COMO LA GENTE EN 108 AÑOS DE TRISTE HISTORIA DE CABOTAJE..VENI ACA Y HABLA...(EL STELLA ARTOIS DE RUMANIA Y ALAJUALLENSE DE COSTA RICA NO CUENTAN JAJAJA)

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA COPA SUDAMERICANA… VENI Y HABLA..

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA RECOPA… VENI Y HABLA…

CUANDO GANES UNA FINAL EN BRASIL, UNA SOLA AUNQUE SEA...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO SEAS TRICAMPEON DEL MUNDO ...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO LE GANES UNA FINAL A TU PAPA EN 108 AÑOS...COMO LO HIZO EN EL 76 1 A 0...VENI Y HABLA

HIJA DESCONOCIDA POR EL MUNDO...EL MAIZ ELMINADO DE AMERICA ...LEJOS ..DE 29 COPAS LIBERTADORES Q JUGASTE EN TU HISTORIA...TE ELIMINARON 27 VECES.. Y 4 DE ESAS LO HIZO TU PAPA...

TUS JUGADORES TE DELATAN Y TE ABANDONAN HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B ( ABREU, ORTEGA, NASUTTI, AHUMADA)

SOS EL HAZME REIR DEL CONTINENTE BUFON DE AMERICA JAJAJAJA

DA PENA GASTARTE HIJA YA....

RIVERGUENZA EL MAIZ ELIMINADO Y EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS...

SOS EL PROXIMO RASINCLUB..

SOS UN CLUB CHICO Q YA SALIO ULTIMO Y ANTEULTIMO EN EL 83 ..SINO FUERA POR LA AFA ESTARIAS EN LA B....

GAY-INA HIJA MUDA SIN ALIENTO....CABOTAJE PLAY...CHICKEN PLAY.... RIVERGUENZA TIRA MAIZ , PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENICO SOS EL MAS GRANDE ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO.... ALGUN DIA SALDRAS CAMPEON DEL MUNDO NO TE PREOCUPES,3 VECES NO CREO...CUANDO EL FUTBOL SE JUEGUE CON PLUMAS Y SILENCIO ATROZ SOLAMENTE... Y SIN HINCHADA Q ALIENTE NI EQUIPOS Q PONGAN HUEVOS JAJA

"" estabamos debajo de la hinchada de boca,y ellos empezaron a gritar temblaba el estadio y las paredes,la sensacion que tuve es que se venia abajo,despues salis al campo y ves ese espectaculo....sinceramente no lo he visto en otro lugar,me viene una adrenalina el hecho de salir al campo y ver toda esa gente que grita y tira papeles,que no para un segundo de alentar,a pesar de que este perdiendo su gente esta atras y grita y grita"" TU IDOLO DE BARRO EL RATON ROBERTO AYALA..................
“ El otro dia me fui de la cancha ..cuando hizo el gol Boca y nos dio vuelta el partido con un hombre menos…. Senti vergüenza..era humillante” EL PATO FILLIOL SOBRE UNO DE LOS MUCHOS CLASICO Q BOCA LE GANO A RIVERGUENZA CON 1 O 2 HOMBRES MENOS….

“ Veo a estos jugadores y veo a esta gente que solo va a insultar y me da vergüenza… No parece River..parece un equipo chico sin alma “ el BETO ALONSO EL DIA DE LA MAYOR GAYINEADA MUNDIAL… RIVERGUENZA ELIMINADA EN SU PROPIA CANCHA GANANDO 2 A 0 CON 2 HOMBRES DE MAS CONTRA SAN DESCENSO…

" yo veo y escucho como la hinchada de Boca alienta y apoya a su equipo y parecen uno mas...en cambio nuestros hinchas solo insultan y se quedan mudos...despues del gol con San Lorenzo hubo un silencio atroz... y eso contagio al equipo!!" OSCARCITO AHUMADA EL GRAN CAPITAN
“la hinchada de riber acompaña pero no alienta se pone a insultar y eso le hace mal al equipo” EL NEGRO ASCO GOROSITO DESP DEL BAILE Q LE DIERON LOS PIBES DE BOCA A LAS PEQUEÑAS AVES DE CORRAL EN MDZA.

-¿Qué encontraste en Banfield?-Encontré un club serio, ordenado. No como otros clubes en los cuales jugue.... CRSITIAN NASUTTI

" me da lastima dejar River pero en este momento estoy mejor en un equipo de la B, como Independiente Rivadavia " EL FRACASADO BORRACHO EX JUGADOR ORTEGUITA

" Fue una deciscion dificil pero auqnue sea la segunda division de españa tengo mas posibilidades de lograr algo que en River " EL GRAN IDOLO Y SALVADOR DE RIVERGUENZA SEBASTIAN ABREU

RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO

RIVERGUENZA INTERNACIONAL..DESDE 1960 PARTICIPO EN 28 COPAS LIBERTADORES ( El q mas veces jugo en el continente)lo eliminaron 26 veces ( el q mas veces lo elminaron del continente) tenes un 7 por ciento de efectividad !! jaja si !! un 7 por ciento y un 93 por ciento de eliminacion jaja INCREIBLE....22 ELIMINACIONES consecutivas: 11 Libertadores, 4 Mercosur y 7 Sudamericanas DESDE EL 97 q no ganas un copa...SEGUI ROMPIENDO RECORD EN EL MUNDO GAYINA PAÑALERA SIN DIGNIDAD.....ULTIMA DE LA B....EL BUFON DE AMERICA...EL MAIZ ELIMINADO ...EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS !!

VES Q SOS LA VERGUENZA NACIONAL GAY-INA HIJA FRACASADA ANTICOPAS...CUALQUIERA TE DEJA HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B Y CUALQUIERA TE GASTA HASTA TUS PROPIOS IDOLOS Y JUGADORES...SOS ULTIMA DE LA B GAYINA DE CABOTAJE

Anónimo dijo...

"SHHHH HAGAN SILENCIO ATROZ GAYINAS PAÑALERAS SIN DIGNIDAD Y MUERTOS URUGUAYOS"

¿Porqué hay que hacer lo que vos decís? ¿Se te acabaron los argumentos, chiquito? ¿Te ponen argumentos válidos y salís con infinidad de boludeces sin sentido para ocultar que te cerraron la colita?

"EL MAS GRANDE DE AMERICA Y LA ARGENTINA 41 VUELTAS OLIMPICAS"

Peñarol tiene 46 (entre ellas 5 Libertadores y 3 Intercontinentales), y los torneos internacionales los ganó en épocas que había grandes equipos y era una guerra cada partido, no como ahora que juegan equipos que entonces no existían y jugadores de cuarta.
Estás un poquito equivocado, a no ser que 41 sea más que 46 en Bolivia.

"EL UNICO CONOCIDO REPRESENTANTE DIGNO DE AMERICA EN EL MUNDO"

En tu realidad virtual, en todo caso. Y aprendé a escribir bien y sin mayúsculas. Tanto tiempo metido adentro del cyber y todavía no aprendiste.
Llamate a silencio, infante bobito, cada vez que posteás hacés el ridículo...

Anónimo dijo...

peñarol? q es eso? jajaj a quien le gano? jaja

Anda al canal voler y gana algo q no sea en blanco y negro..

cuando vos ganaste algo no habia ni ley de offside

Anónimo dijo...

A BUE SE JUNTARON PEÑAROL, NACIONAL Y RIVERGUENZA INTERNACIONAL !! JAJAJ

3 FANTASMAS MUNDIALES...DESCONOCIDOS HASTA POR SU PROPIA HINCHADA....


LOS 3 JUNTOS NO LE LLEGAN A LAS RODILLAS A SU PAPA BOCA... REY DEL MUNDO! LO DICE LA FIFA


Y TB PAPA BOCA LOS FIFA A TODOS UDS JUNTOS.... JUNTENSE LOS 3 Y HAGAN UN SOLO EQUIPO Y UN SOLO CLUB.. A VER SI NOS PUEDEN ELIMINAR DE ALGUNA COPA ALGUNA VEZ....

LOS 3 SUMADOS TIENE LAS MIMAS COPAS Q PAPA!

MUERTOS!

Anónimo dijo...

riverguenza hacete hincha de nacional o de racing ! jajaj

Anónimo dijo...

q Pasa riber gayina hija...sos tan equipo chico 4 de copas q te sale a defender PEÑAROL! jajaj unos dinosaurios muertos q no existen..no lso conocen nadie...anda a ver el canal volver ..no existis sos como racing.... y com pronto van a ser blanquiroja SA

Anónimo dijo...

Chiquitito, posteaste 4 veces seguidas y sos el mismo boludito de siempre.
¿De donde sacaste que se juntaron los equipos de mi país y River?
Si mencioné a River (al que no defiendo) es porque vos lo vivís mencionando.
Con tu manera tan particular de "pensar", tus copas de la década del 70 no cuentan. ¿O sí, solo porque a vos se te ocurre?
Entonces no sé de que "rey del mundo" hablás (aunque no lo son, no lo fueron y no lo serán).
Llamate a silencio, infante bobito, cada vez que posteás hacés el ridículo. Tu mundo de fantasía empezó en el año 2000, todos los demás equipos grandes tienen más historia que el tuyo, mal que te pese.
Peñarol de Montevideo: 46 Titulos (el más ganador en América):P
Nacional de Montevideo: 40 Titulos (a uno solo de "la mentira de los medios").

Mostrá algo de ingenio para demostrar que estoy equivocado, y terminala con las pendejadas propias del nenito que sos.
Te espero cagandome de risa de antemano...y salí del cyber...

Anónimo dijo...

jaja ponelaa alguna vez pelotudo abogado trucho... sabes lo q es un mina?

si sos de peñarol ? q haces en este blog y anti boca...vos sos el q hablas del mas grande del mundo todo el tiempo jaja no existis muertoo...peñarol no existe.. pregunta q alguien q lo conozca en europa

y si sos de riverguenza..q feo hacerte pasar de otro equipo porque te da verguenza el tuyo

PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO 18 COPAS

Anónimo dijo...

sos vos leito gay mdq....archubi anticopas y antiminas jaja

Anónimo dijo...

q feo q te de verguenza ser de riverguenza y hacerte pasar por otro equipo...q encima no existe...busca hacerte pasar por el Milan o el Real madrid...2 q mano a mano pelean las copas q tiene papa...

Anónimo dijo...

"q haces en este blog y anti boca"

BOLIGUAYOS INMUNDOS, SE CREEN QUE SOLAMENTE LOS DE RIVER LOS DESPRECIAN POR SOBERBIOS E IDIOTAS?
ABRAN LOS OJOS Y CIERREN BIEN EL ORTO, Y A VER SI DE UNA BUENA VEZ ENTREGAN LAS 2 BANDEJAS ASI CONOCEN LO QUE ES UNA FIESTA EN LA TRIBUNA, CAGOOOOOOONNNEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Anónimo dijo...

Anónimo dijo...

"q haces en este blog y anti boca"

BOLIGUAYOS INMUNDOS, SE CREEN QUE SOLAMENTE LOS DE RIVER LOS DESPRECIAN POR SOBERBIOS E IDIOTAS?
ABRAN LOS OJOS Y CIERREN BIEN EL ORTO, Y A VER SI DE UNA BUENA VEZ ENTREGAN LAS 2 BANDEJAS ASI CONOCEN LO QUE ES UNA FIESTA EN LA TRIBUNA, CAGOOOOOOONNNEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

--------------------------------

Che gayina hablas de soberbia , cuando tenes en tu corral escrito en la 14 pulgadas "el mas grande, lejos" cuando no son ni siquiera la primera palabra, los gayinas desprecian a Boca por que es el papa de ustedes y listo; no llores mas.-

Para que entregar las dos bandejas, tienen un fiesta terrible...fiesta en la cola con globitos y papel higienico, ya lo dicen tus jugadores, uds son unos mudos, de que fiesta hablas.-

A los gayinas(simpatizantes de riverguenza) ahora convertidos y clonados a hinchas de peñarol y nacional, estos dos equipos fueron grandes en su momento ahora meten el mismo miedo que riber en las copas, osea nada; y las gayinas dejen de contar con triunfos ajenos, deberian cerrar el orto, dejar de leer el OGRÉ deportivo un ratito y mirar tu triste realidad PAPADA YA VENDIO TODO NO TE QUEDA NI SIQUIERA NI EL MAIZ NI LOS PAÑALES.-

Anónimo dijo...

Q feo abandonar la cancha ante el baile de tu Papa Boca con pibes en Mendoza... no te da verguenzaaa hijaa....
No te da verguenza hija hacer silencio atroz y no alentar a tu equipo en el MUDOMENTAL ganando 2 a 0 y con 2 jugadores mas! y asi y todo quedar eliminada!!!
Q verguenza putear a tus jugadores, tirar maiz, pañales y
papel higienico!
Q vergüenza q los milicos te hayan hecho tu MUDOMENTAL y no lo hayas pagado..y q la mitad de tus cabotajes sea gracias a VIDELA ycia y gracias a Menem y su decada dorada…
Q verguenza hija, en 108 años de vida quedar elimanda en el 96% de las copas q disputaste!!! 96 por ciento de ELIMINACION...RECORD MUNDIAL...EL MAIZ GRANDE ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO!
Q feo q en 108 años de vida nunca hayas eliminado a tu Papa mano a mano... y el te elimino todas las veces q te cruzo! TODAS!
Q feo q tu Papa sea el Rey del mundo y el rey de Copas y tenga 41 titulos… 3 mas q vos en toda tu historia!
Q feo q Nery cardozo solo tenga mas copas q vos en 108 años de vida…
Q feoq estudiantes tenga mas copas q vos riverguenza
Q FEO Y QUE TRISTE SER DE RIVERGUENZA !
Por eso por favor tomaaa la pastillita azul gayina hija muda sin aliento.... utlima de la b... No te das cuenta q no sos nada! nunca lo fuiste! Deja de vivir una mentira fantasma mundial... 4 de copas, nadie en el mundo te conoce!
Riber como tu PAPA te ordeno q vayas al psicologo o te hagas hincha de Racing, vas a sufrir menos HIJA CON SINDROME DE ABANDONO...
DEJA DE VIVIR UNA MENTIRA...TE HACE MAL!
QUE FEO Y QUE TRISTE ES SER DE RIVERGUENZA!

DEL MAS GRANDE...ESTAS MUY LEJOS..

Anónimo dijo...

DEJA DE VIVIR UNA MENTIRA...TE HACE MAL BOLIGUAYO INMUNDO!
QUE FEO Y QUE TRISTE ES SER HINCHA DE LA INMUNDICIA!
TIENEN UN CABARET MANEJADO POR UN ICEBERG CON CAGADERA Y YA NO SABEN QUE HACER PARA TAPARLO!
SE QUEDARON SIN UN MANGO POR EL SUELDO Y EL PASE DEL CAGON Y POR SOBERBIOS QUE QUERIAN MAS PLATA AHORA A PALACIO NO SE LO ENCHUFAN NI A ATLAS (EL DE PRIMERA "D"). AHORA VENDEN JUGADORES EN MEDIO DEL CAMPEONATO PARA JUNTAR UNA MONEDA, Y ENCIMA NO VIAJAN MAS EN CHARTER: VAN EN MICRO A VENEZUELA!

Anónimo dijo...

"Q feo q tu Papa sea el Rey del mundo y el rey de Copas y tenga 41 titulos…"

QUE FEO ES TENER QUE MENTIR A MANSALVA PARA VER SI ALGO DE LA MENTIRA QUEDA.

MILAN REY DEL MUNDO. NO TIENE COPAS INVENTADAS PARA INFLARSE EL CURRICULUM.
PEÑAROL 46 TITULOS, EL MAS GRANDE DE AMERICA, 5 MAS QUE "LA MENTIRA DE LOS MEDIOS". :P
SI QUERES LLORAR LLORA, ARGEN...PEDRON, BOLITA...

Anónimo dijo...

jajajaj mira quien habla de fundido! justo riber.... sos el proximo rasinclub.... blanquiroja S.A...

Gana una copa y habla...sino hace silencio atroz gayina hija...


sos muy chica .... hija ultima...

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

"jajajaj mira quien habla de fundido! justo riber.... sos el proximo rasinclub.... blanquiroja S.A..."


JAJAJA No soy de River. Soy uruguayo, y Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P, y decile a tu traductor de guaraní que te está cagando y te traduce como si te leyera el diario de Yrigoyen (te inventa todo a tu favor para que vivas una realidad virtual).
Saludos desde el otro lado del río (no, del Riachuelo no), bolita...

Anónimo dijo...

DEJA DE VIVIR UNA MENTIRA...TE HACE MAL BOLIGUAYO INMUNDO!
QUE FEO Y QUE TRISTE ES SER HINCHA DE LA INMUNDICIA!
TIENEN UN CABARET MANEJADO POR UN ICEBERG CON CAGADERA Y YA NO SABEN QUE HACER PARA TAPARLO!
SE QUEDARON SIN UN MANGO POR EL SUELDO Y EL PASE DEL CAGON Y POR SOBERBIOS QUE QUERIAN MAS PLATA AHORA A PALACIO NO SE LO ENCHUFAN NI A ATLAS (EL DE PRIMERA "D"). AHORA VENDEN JUGADORES EN MEDIO DEL CAMPEONATO PARA JUNTAR UNA MONEDA, Y ENCIMA NO VIAJAN MAS EN CHARTER: VAN EN MICRO A VENEZUELA!

Anónimo dijo...

jajajj se juntaron 2 fantasmas mundiales desconocidos e hijos de boca los 2 ! RIVERGUENZA Y pEÑAROL...UNANASE A VER SI LOS 2 JUNTOS SUMADOS LLEGAN A LA CANTIDAD DE COPAS Q TIENE PAPA SOLITO... NO LLEGAN NO?


Q EQUIPOS CHICOS? RIVERGUENZA ES MAS CHICO Q NERY CARDOZO FUTBOL CLUB...

Y PEÑAROL??? P-E-Ñ-A-R-O-L JAJAJAJ !!!! EXISITIS TODAVIA? JAJAJ


JUNTENSE LOS 2 A VER SI POR LO MENOS NOS ELIMINANA UNA VEZ Y SI ALGUNA VEZ GANAN UNA COPA JAJA


EQUIPOS CHICOS! DE LA B...FANTASMAS MUNDIALES! 4 DE COPAS JAJA

Anónimo dijo...

JAJAJAJ HIJA FANTASMA DE CABOTAJE DESCONOCIDA MUNDIAL...

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ EN 108 AÑOS DE TU VERGONSOZA Y ELMINADA HISTORIA ELIMINEN AUNQUE UNA SOLA VEZ DE UNA COPA A TU PAPA BOCA... VENI ACA Y HABLA..

CUANDO DESPUES DE 12 AÑOS GANEN AUNQUE SEA UN COPA...VENI ACA Y HABLA... 8 desde 1997 q no ganas nada

CUANDO LE GANEN UNA FINAL AUNQUE SEA, UNA SOLA A ALGUIEN COMO LA GENTE EN 108 AÑOS DE TRISTE HISTORIA DE CABOTAJE..VENI ACA Y HABLA...(EL STELLA ARTOIS DE RUMANIA Y ALAJUALLENSE DE COSTA RICA NO CUENTAN JAJAJA)

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA COPA SUDAMERICANA… VENI Y HABLA..

CUANDO ALGUNA VEZ GANES UNA RECOPA… VENI Y HABLA…

CUANDO GANES UNA FINAL EN BRASIL, UNA SOLA AUNQUE SEA...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO SEAS TRICAMPEON DEL MUNDO ...VENI ACA Y HABLA...

CUANDO LE GANES UNA FINAL A TU PAPA EN 108 AÑOS...COMO LO HIZO EN EL 76 1 A 0...VENI Y HABLA

HIJA DESCONOCIDA POR EL MUNDO...EL MAIZ ELMINADO DE AMERICA ...LEJOS ..DE 29 COPAS LIBERTADORES Q JUGASTE EN TU HISTORIA...TE ELIMINARON 27 VECES.. Y 4 DE ESAS LO HIZO TU PAPA...

TUS JUGADORES TE DELATAN Y TE ABANDONAN HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B ( ABREU, ORTEGA, NASUTTI, AHUMADA)

SOS EL HAZME REIR DEL CONTINENTE BUFON DE AMERICA JAJAJAJA

DA PENA GASTARTE HIJA YA....

RIVERGUENZA EL MAIZ ELIMINADO Y EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS...

SOS EL PROXIMO RASINCLUB..

SOS UN CLUB CHICO Q YA SALIO ULTIMO Y ANTEULTIMO EN EL 83 ..SINO FUERA POR LA AFA ESTARIAS EN LA B....

GAY-INA HIJA MUDA SIN ALIENTO....CABOTAJE PLAY...CHICKEN PLAY.... RIVERGUENZA TIRA MAIZ , PAÑALES Y PAPEL HIGIENICO SOS EL MAS GRANDE ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO.... ALGUN DIA SALDRAS CAMPEON DEL MUNDO NO TE PREOCUPES,3 VECES NO CREO...CUANDO EL FUTBOL SE JUEGUE CON PLUMAS Y SILENCIO ATROZ SOLAMENTE... Y SIN HINCHADA Q ALIENTE NI EQUIPOS Q PONGAN HUEVOS JAJA

"" estabamos debajo de la hinchada de boca,y ellos empezaron a gritar temblaba el estadio y las paredes,la sensacion que tuve es que se venia abajo,despues salis al campo y ves ese espectaculo....sinceramente no lo he visto en otro lugar,me viene una adrenalina el hecho de salir al campo y ver toda esa gente que grita y tira papeles,que no para un segundo de alentar,a pesar de que este perdiendo su gente esta atras y grita y grita"" TU IDOLO DE BARRO EL RATON ROBERTO AYALA..................
“ El otro dia me fui de la cancha ..cuando hizo el gol Boca y nos dio vuelta el partido con un hombre menos…. Senti vergüenza..era humillante” EL PATO FILLIOL SOBRE UNO DE LOS MUCHOS CLASICO Q BOCA LE GANO A RIVERGUENZA CON 1 O 2 HOMBRES MENOS….

“ Veo a estos jugadores y veo a esta gente que solo va a insultar y me da vergüenza… No parece River..parece un equipo chico sin alma “ el BETO ALONSO EL DIA DE LA MAYOR GAYINEADA MUNDIAL… RIVERGUENZA ELIMINADA EN SU PROPIA CANCHA GANANDO 2 A 0 CON 2 HOMBRES DE MAS CONTRA SAN DESCENSO…

" yo veo y escucho como la hinchada de Boca alienta y apoya a su equipo y parecen uno mas...en cambio nuestros hinchas solo insultan y se quedan mudos...despues del gol con San Lorenzo hubo un silencio atroz... y eso contagio al equipo!!" OSCARCITO AHUMADA EL GRAN CAPITAN
“la hinchada de riber acompaña pero no alienta se pone a insultar y eso le hace mal al equipo” EL NEGRO ASCO GOROSITO DESP DEL BAILE Q LE DIERON LOS PIBES DE BOCA A LAS PEQUEÑAS AVES DE CORRAL EN MDZA.

-¿Qué encontraste en Banfield?-Encontré un club serio, ordenado. No como otros clubes en los cuales jugue.... CRSITIAN NASUTTI

" me da lastima dejar River pero en este momento estoy mejor en un equipo de la B, como Independiente Rivadavia " EL FRACASADO BORRACHO EX JUGADOR ORTEGUITA

" Fue una deciscion dificil pero auqnue sea la segunda division de españa tengo mas posibilidades de lograr algo que en River " EL GRAN IDOLO Y SALVADOR DE RIVERGUENZA SEBASTIAN ABREU

RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO
RIVERGUENZA..EL MAIZ GRANDE..ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO

RIVERGUENZA INTERNACIONAL..DESDE 1960 PARTICIPO EN 28 COPAS LIBERTADORES ( El q mas veces jugo en el continente)lo eliminaron 26 veces ( el q mas veces lo elminaron del continente) tenes un 7 por ciento de efectividad !! jaja si !! un 7 por ciento y un 93 por ciento de eliminacion jaja INCREIBLE....22 ELIMINACIONES consecutivas: 11 Libertadores, 4 Mercosur y 7 Sudamericanas DESDE EL 97 q no ganas un copa...SEGUI ROMPIENDO RECORD EN EL MUNDO GAYINA PAÑALERA SIN DIGNIDAD.....ULTIMA DE LA B....EL BUFON DE AMERICA...EL MAIZ ELIMINADO ...EL ULTIMO ...LEJOS !!

VES Q SOS LA VERGUENZA NACIONAL GAY-INA HIJA FRACASADA ANTICOPAS...CUALQUIERA TE DEJA HASTA POR EQUIPOS DE LA B Y CUALQUIERA TE GASTA HASTA TUS PROPIOS IDOLOS Y JUGADORES...SOS ULTIMA DE LA B GAYINA DE CABOTAJE

Anónimo dijo...

Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P

Anónimo dijo...

Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P

Anónimo dijo...

Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P

Anónimo dijo...

¿UN FANTASMA TE GANA EN TITULOS, BOCA?
QUE EQUIPO CHICO QUE SOS. ¿Y VOS SOS EL REY DEL MUNDO, UN ETERNO SEGUNDON?
JAJAJJAJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJAJAJJAAAA

Anónimo dijo...

"jajajaj mira quien habla de fundido! justo riber.... sos el proximo rasinclub.... blanquiroja S.A..."


JAJAJA No soy de River. Soy uruguayo, y Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P, y decile a tu traductor de guaraní que te está cagando y te traduce como si te leyera el diario de Yrigoyen (te inventa todo a tu favor para que vivas una realidad virtual).
Saludos desde el otro lado del río (no, del Riachuelo no), bolita...

-------------------------


No sabia que la xenofobia habia llegado a Uruguay, muchos titulos lastima que ya se olvidaron de ganarlos, pero si vamos al caso, cualquier fase de grupos mas los octavos es suficiente para peñarol porque todavia creen que las copas son de 7 equipos, lastima, estan igual a indesingente que entraba en semifinales, para ser el rey de copas, no llores quizas defensor sporting tenga mas suerte que uds.-

Ya cayo otro que se comio la mentira del patetico blog este, no caigas como la otra hijito bobo, llamado gayina play, menos xenofobia mas futbol.-


Otra cosa uds son hijos nuestros asi que a llorar al centenario!!!!

Anónimo dijo...

Que vergüenza dan, boliguayos. Los cargan de la vereda de enfrente, lo único que faltaba para que el papelón que hicieron creyendose reyes de "no se qué" sea más grande.

Anónimo dijo...

¿UN FANTASMA TE GANA EN TITULOS, BOCA?
QUE EQUIPO CHICO QUE SOS. ¿Y VOS SOS EL REY DEL MUNDO, UN ETERNO SEGUNDON?
JAJAJJAJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJAJAJJAAAA

Anónimo dijo...

UNA NUEVA LA DE LOS INMUNDOS: AHORA ELLOS DECIDEN CUALES COPAS SIRVEN Y CUALES NO. ¿QUE TIENE QUE ANTES JUGARAN 7 EQUIPOS EN LA LIBERTADORES O QUE SE ENTRARA EN SEMIFINALES? ¿LOS CLUBES QUE LA GANARON ENTONCES TIENEN LA CULPA DE ESO? ¿USTEDES NO LA JUGABAN CON LAS MISMAS REGLAS(Y NUNCA LA GANARON CON ELLAS)? ¿USTEDES SON LOS DUEÑOS DE LA VERDAD, LOS QUE DIGITAN TODO A SU GUSTO?
¿Y DE LA RECOPA NO DICEN NADA? ¿PORQUE EL CAMPEON DE UNA COPA DE NIVEL TIENE QUE JUGAR CON EL CAMPEON DE LA PEDORRADA SUDAMERICANA, A LA QUE ENCIMA USTEDES ACCEDEN SIEMPRE POR INVITACION? ¿QUE CARAJO SON LA COPA MASTERS Y LA NICOLAS LEOZ?

Anónimo dijo...

Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P

¿UN FANTASMA TE GANA EN TITULOS, BOCA?
QUE EQUIPO CHICO QUE SOS. ¿Y VOS SOS EL REY DEL MUNDO, UN ETERNO SEGUNDON?
JAJAJJAJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJAJAJJAAAA
------------------------

Peñarol; Sos hijo nuestro asi que a llorar al centenario!!!!!!!!

Sos igual que la gayina de nuñez, sos hijo nuestro!!!!

Las gayinas dejen de estar festejando con otra camiseta, aunque no me extraña para nada.-

Los hijitos estan todos juntos, son todos hermanitos, la gayina roja, la chicken play, y ahora la otra hija se junta peñarol.-

a llorar al corral!!!!

Anónimo dijo...

Anónimo dijo...

UNA NUEVA LA DE LOS INMUNDOS: AHORA ELLOS DECIDEN CUALES COPAS SIRVEN Y CUALES NO. ¿QUE TIENE QUE ANTES JUGARAN 7 EQUIPOS EN LA LIBERTADORES O QUE SE ENTRARA EN SEMIFINALES? ¿LOS CLUBES QUE LA GANARON ENTONCES TIENEN LA CULPA DE ESO? ¿USTEDES NO LA JUGABAN CON LAS MISMAS REGLAS(Y NUNCA LA GANARON CON ELLAS)? ¿USTEDES SON LOS DUEÑOS DE LA VERDAD, LOS QUE DIGITAN TODO A SU GUSTO?
¿Y DE LA RECOPA NO DICEN NADA? ¿PORQUE EL CAMPEON DE UNA COPA DE NIVEL TIENE QUE JUGAR CON EL CAMPEON DE LA PEDORRADA SUDAMERICANA, A LA QUE ENCIMA USTEDES ACCEDEN SIEMPRE POR INVITACION? ¿QUE CARAJO SON LA COPA MASTERS Y LA NICOLAS LEOZ?

----------------------

Me parece a mi o no sabes leer, se olvidaron de ganar como uds, antes ganaban por que podian jugar contra menos equipos, ahora no ganan ni a la rayuela, por que se le vino la noche al haber mas competencia, ademas ganaron unas copas contra cabotajes argentinos asi es facil sumar!!!! eliminaron a riverguenza varias veces, eso es muy facil cualquiera les gana en cualquier copa.-

La que decide la cantidad de trofeos el la unica institucion mundial y esa es la FIFA. Asi que gayinin un poco mas de lectura, y mentirse un poco menos.-

El alajualense es un equipo en serio es muy presitigioso y uds la cuentan, seguro que la copa sudamericana no la querias ganar el año pasado los anteriores y la unica final que pudiste jugarla ibas a festejar como una loca, sos una mentira gayina sos una mentira como hincha, como hinchada, como club, por lo que sentis por tu club, deja de llorar, ahora te pones la de peñarol, cuantas camisetas mas tenes, aprende a leer y dejar de mentirte.-

sos triste gayina.-

Anónimo dijo...

Las gayinas menosprecian cualquier copa que no pudieron ganar, las gayinas son asi...las putas del pais, representan tan bien al pais que son capaces de ponerse la camiseta de cualquier club de cualquier pais con tal de verlo mal a Boca, lastima que asi hasta ahora estan sufriendo como unas viejas putas.-

Riber sos la verguenza del pais, sos un eterno segundon, sos el mas cebolla de la Argentina y creeria que del planeta, en lo unico que sos pionero en las gayineadas.-

Anónimo dijo...

"La que decide la cantidad de trofeos el la unica institucion mundial y esa es la FIFA. Asi que gayinin un poco mas de lectura, y mentirse un poco menos."

Es la misma que dice que Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P

A mentirse menos y ser menos soberbios, argent...perdón, bolita.
Y soy uruguayo. Lo que "piense" tu cerebro atrofiado por el vino berreta y el "paco" me lo paso por las bolas...

Anónimo dijo...

BOLIGUAYOS MONONEURONALES E INMUNDOS, A VER SI DEJAN DE SER CAGONES Y ENTREGAN DE UNA PUTA VEZ LAS 2 BANDEJAS DE LA PALANGANA ROÑOSA QUE USAN DE TAPERA, ASI CONOCEN LO QUE ES UNA VERDADERA FIESTA EN LAS TRIBUNAS...

Anónimo dijo...

¿UN FANTASMA TE GANA EN TITULOS, BOCA?
QUE EQUIPO CHICO QUE SOS. ¿Y VOS SOS EL REY DEL MUNDO, UN ETERNO SEGUNDON?
JAJAJJAJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJJAJAJAJAJJAAAA

Anónimo dijo...

EL PERIODISMO TE INVENTO.
LA MENTIRA SE ACABO.
EL URUGUAYO TE (LA) ENTERRO.

Anónimo dijo...

Anónimo dijo...

"La que decide la cantidad de trofeos el la unica institucion mundial y esa es la FIFA. Asi que gayinin un poco mas de lectura, y mentirse un poco menos."

Es la misma que dice que Peñarol te pasa en títulos: 46 a 41. A llorar a la Iglesia :P

A mentirse menos y ser menos soberbios, argent...perdón, bolita.
Y soy uruguayo. Lo que "piense" tu cerebro atrofiado por el vino berreta y el "paco" me lo paso por las bolas...

------------------------

Alguien dijo lo contrario, solamente que lastima que la hija carbonera se olvido de ganar.-

Me parece a mi que tenes mucho resentimiento xenofobo es triste, encima te juntas con la gayina, sos muy triste.-

Son hijos nuestros, a llorar al centenario, no a la uruguayizacion del futbol, aunque lo esta pasando riverguenza.-

No llores hija carbonera, que la FIFA no se acuerda de vos.-

Anónimo dijo...

EL PERIODISMO TE INVENTO.
LA MENTIRA SE ACABO.
EL URUGUAYO TE (LA) ENTERRO.

Anónimo dijo...

BOCA REY DEL MUNDO 18 COPAS...

HIJA GAYINA... VOS Y EL INEXISTENTE PEÑAROL SUMADOS NO LLEGAN A LAS COPAS DE PAPA...

Q ENTRE ALGUNO DEL MILAN O DEL REAL..CON EUIPOS CHICOS E HIJOAS NUESTROS NO ME MOLESTO EN HABLAR...

PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO Y EL MAS GRANDE DE LA ARGENTINA...

Anónimo dijo...

q es Riber Play ??? me suenaa ese nombre… en la FIFA figura? O en el IFFHS? Xq creo q nadie en el mundo conoce ese nombre....Internacionalmente no existe…… sera el ULTIMO modelo de la marca de sandalias Rivers?? o sera el ULTIMO juego de play station? O sera el ULTIMO vuelo de cabotaje de alguna empresa nueva? me suena pero no se q es...yo viajo x America , Europa y Asia seguido a ver finales de mi equipo y alla no lo conoce nadie...nunca nadie lo sintio nombrar a Riber Play …. O sera Rio Plato ???

Anónimo dijo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ61mxoxggw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QycKXe6YzQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLsW9TVvomk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omPP5lG5B90&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtQQ_rny8tY&feature=related

Anónimo dijo...

QUE PASA RESUCITARON LAS GALLINAS POR GANAR DOS PARTIDOS SEGUIDOS???

AHORA FALTA QUE APAREZCA LA MARICA DE LEO_MDQ

CHAU COMEVERGAS, HAGANSE PASAR POR URUGUAYOS, HINCHAS DE LANUS, DE ESTUDIANTES, NOSOTROS NO NECESITAMOS MENTIR

NO INVENTAMOS MATRICULAS
NO NOS QUEDAMOS MUDOS
COMO EL 8 DE MAYO
Y NO HUIMOS EN EL MINUTO 86

Anónimo dijo...

QUE PASA RESUCITARON LAS GALLINAS POR GANAR DOS PARTIDOS SEGUIDOS???

AHORA FALTA QUE APAREZCA LA MARICA DE LEO_MDQ

CHAU COMEVERGAS, HAGANSE PASAR POR URUGUAYOS, HINCHAS DE LANUS, DE ESTUDIANTES, NOSOTROS NO NECESITAMOS MENTIR

NO INVENTAMOS MATRICULAS
NO NOS QUEDAMOS MUDOS
COMO EL 8 DE MAYO
Y NO HUIMOS EN EL MINUTO 86

Anónimo dijo...

Bueno Riverguenza cabotaje play...volviste a la normalidad...a perder, ser humillado y goleado por nadie...


Gayina ultima de la b

Anónimo dijo...

POR FAVOR NO SE VAYAN NUNCA DEL EQUIPO MAS GAYINACEO PIPO , FALCAGAO, AHUMADA, FERRARI, ABELAIRAS, LA GATA GALLARDO Y EL MUERTO FABBIANI.. NO SE VAYAN NUNCA POR FAVOR AJJAA... SIGAN EN EL RQUIPO MAS ELIMINADO DEL MUNDO POR SIEMPRE... DEL HAZME REIR DEL FUTBOL ARGENTINO Y DEL MAS HUMILLADO DE AMERICA... NO SE VAYAN NUNCAA...SIGAN ROMPIENDO RECORD GAYINAS PAÑALERAS!

NO SE VAYAN NUNCA...QUEDENSE POR SIEMPRE POR FAVOR! JAAJA


ASI SIGUEN SIENDO LAS ULTIMAS Y EL PEOR...

TE LO PIDO UN HINCHA DE TU PAPA...

Anónimo dijo...

jaja aii gayinas hijas.... q raro pasando papelones y humillaciones ustedes... usen las caretas del su idolo el fantasma obeso fabbiani asi se tapan la cara y no les da verguenza ser hincha del equipo mas pecho frio del mundo...

Anónimo dijo...

QUE RARO AHORA NO APARECE NINGUNA GALLINA JAJAJAJ


"YO LO VI ULTIMO"

Anónimo dijo...

yo lo vi quedar eliminado de todas las copas q jugo...y lo vi quedar eliminado de todas la veces q jugo con papa y lo vi quedar eliminado ganando 2 a 0 y con 2 hombres de mas de local en el Mudomental...ademas de verlas ultimas a las gayinas jaja


Q riverguenza

Anónimo dijo...

como siempre q pierden y es lo normal... las gayis abandonan, se esconden y hacen silencio atroz! jeje

Anónimo dijo...

EL PERIODISMO TE INVENTO.
LA MENTIRA SE ACABO.
EL URUGUAYO TE (LA) ENTERRO.

Y seguís abajo nuestro, Rey de Compras, tanto en este campeonato como de campeonatos ganados.
No sé cual es el motivo de tu gracia.

Anónimo dijo...

"Y NO HUIMOS EN EL MINUTO 86"

No, boliguayo inmundo. Solo se fueron en el primer tiempo (y nunca volvieron).
Eso nunca lo vas a poder tapar nuuuuuuunca...

Anónimo dijo...

5-1
5-1
5-1
5-1
5-1

5 veces

Duele la colita?

Anónimo dijo...

21-06-08 EL DIA DEL ESTUDIO

SAY NO MORE

Anónimo dijo...

5-1
5-1
5-1
5-1
5-1
5 veces
Duele la colita?

19 partidos de ventaja lleva River.
¿Duele la verdad?

Anónimo dijo...

Hagamos un plebiscito y junta de firmas a todos los hinchas de Papa Boca le mas grande del mundo...para q no e vayan nunca de Riverguenza el pipo entrenador de "equipo chico" gorosito, la vaca obesa esperanto fabbiani, Falcagao, la gata gallarda, Ave-lairas, Fitito Ferrari, el gran capitan ahumado y la banda esa de mediocres perdedores q tienen! .... Por favor no se vayan nunca de Riverguenza...quedense por siempre! Boca les paga el sueldo ...!!! por favor jajaja...

asi siguen perdiendo y siendo ultimas y humilladas y goleadas y eliminadas con 2 hombres mas pòr siempre! Por favor no se vayan nuncaaaa...quedense..son el hazme reir del futbol argentino! y del futbol mundial... jaja

Anónimo dijo...

Yo vi a la gayina equipo chico ultima !!!

Anónimo dijo...

http://www.ole.clarin.com/notas/2009/03/02/varios/01868915.html

La punta le quedó ahí nomás

Estuvo ahí nomás River de quedar como único puntero del campeonato (¡insólito!). Sólo cinco goles lo separaron. Gorosito vio bien el partido: con el 1-4 todavía se podía y mandó a la cancha a Archubi. Fue un acierto para darle emoción al juego, ya que, en la primera que tuvo, participó del 1-5 con una pifia digna de Paco Gerlo. Y el que lo aprovechó fue Silvera, quien no está realizando ningún tratamiento en Mendoza.

De cualquier modo, también es cierto que durante todo el partido al Ciclón lo ayudó la suerte: a la lesión de Barrientos (dijo que en estos meses se dedicará a no pensar, uno de los hobbies favoritos de los futbolistas), se sumó la de Solari.

Y encima después entró Gallardo, quien ya había vuelto a River en otra oportunidad (del 03 al 06) y demostró su estirpe ganadora (jugó 14 torneos y perdió 13, entre ellos una final con Cienciano). Demasiado para River, que se vio superado por el equipo que, en definitiva, más se le parece. ¿O no es éste el mismo que gallineó y perdió un campeonato en el que llevaba 11 puntos?

Anónimo dijo...

Che gallina, que baño de realidad te dio San Lorenzo...

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza volviste a tu triste y humillada realidad de gayina equio chico ...ultima!

Anónimo dijo...

YA ABANDONARON Y HACEN SILENCIO ATROZ LAS GAYIS COMO SIEMPRE...FIEL A SU ESTILO GAYINACEO...USEN LAS MASCARAS DEL OBESO VACA FABBIANI PARA TAPARSE LA CARA POR LO MENOS! JAJA

Anónimo dijo...

Riverguenza volviste a tu triste y humillada realidad de gayina equipo chico ...ultima!

PERO VOS ESTAS ABAJO TODAVIA, EN EL CAMPEONATO Y EN CAMPEONATOS GANADOS...

Anónimo dijo...

YA ABANDONARON Y HACEN SILENCIO ATROZ LAS GAYIS COMO SIEMPRE...FIEL A SU ESTILO GAYINACEO...

Peor es lo de ustedes, boliguayo infantil e inmundo. Se van en el primer tiempo.
Y sería bueno que abandones tambien el cyber, no sea cosa que un violín te agarre en la oscuridad y te tenga de esclavo sexual predilecto.

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

DONDE QUEDARON LAS CARETAS DEL OGRO?
Y LAS RECETAS DE LA MADRE?
Y LA GORDA CON LA CARA PINTADA DE VERDE?

BASTA DE MENTIRAS
DE MATRICULAS TRUCHAS
DE "IDOLOS" QUE NUNCA GANARON NADA

"YO LO VI ULTIMO"

Anónimo dijo...

DONDE QUEDARON LAS CARETAS DEL OGRO?
Y LAS RECETAS DE LA MADRE?
Y LA GORDA CON LA CARA PINTADA DE VERDE?

BASTA DE MENTIRAS
DE MATRICULAS TRUCHAS
DE "IDOLOS" QUE NUNCA GANARON NADA

"YO LO VI ULTIMO"

Anónimo dijo...

DONDE QUEDARON LAS CARETAS DEL OGRO?
Y LAS RECETAS DE LA MADRE?
Y LA GORDA CON LA CARA PINTADA DE VERDE?

BASTA DE MENTIRAS
DE MATRICULAS TRUCHAS
DE "IDOLOS" QUE NUNCA GANARON NADA

"YO LO VI ULTIMO"

Anónimo dijo...

jajaj abajo en campeonatos? jajaj otro chiste gayi.... como el de maiz grande? jaja


PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO 18 COPAS

REY DE LA ARGENTINA 41 TITULOS...LAS GAYIS ABAJO Y ELIMINADAS


VOS SI Q ESTAS ABAJO...SALISTE ULTIMA...YO LO VI

Anónimo dijo...

Gayina hija pequeña..vos ABANDONASTE en un superclasico!!! y ante el baile de tu papa boca con los pibes!!!!

segui haciendo silencio y ponete la careta de tu idolo! jajaj

Anónimo dijo...

Yo no me fuí en el primer tiempo

Nunca puse banderas negras, ni parlantes para alentar

Ni tengo un estadio de mierda, que de tan empinado y sucio pareciera que se va a derrumbar

Anónimo dijo...

¿VIERON LO QUE ES UNA HINCHADA DE VERDAD, FRONTERIZOS INMUNDOS? PERDIENDO POR GOLEADA Y SIN RESPUESTA EN LA CANCHA ALENTAMOS MAS QUE NADIE. USTEDES ABANDONAN EN EL PRIMER TIEMPO Y SUS JUGADORES SE VAN SIN SALUDARLOS CUANDO HACEN UN PAPELON COMO HIZO RIVER EL DOMINGO.
A VER CUANDO ENTREGAN LAS DOS BANDEJAS PARA CERRARLES BIEN EL ORTO Y PARA QUE APRENDAN LO QUE ES SER FIEL A LOS COLORES, AUN CON TANTA DESGRACIA JUNTA.

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

jajjaa GAY-INA son una cabaret mezcla con murga y circo...y una murga q va ultima! jaja


MIREN AL GRAN CAPITAN AHUMADO...NO SOSLO DIC Q SOS SIN ALIENTO Y SIN HUEVOS SINO AHORA DICEN Q LES FALTA SANGRE! ESTE PIBE POR ALGO LE DAN LA CAPITANIA NO? ES POR DECIR LA VERDAD Q TODO EL MUNDO CONOCE YA... Q SON UNA MENTIRA

http://www.ole.clarin.com/notas/2009/03/03/futbollocal/01869389.html

RIVER

"Por ahí faltó sangre para vivirlo de otra forma"

Ahumada reconoció que el equipo salió "dormido" y pidió más contagio y agresividad. Además, reprochó la actitud de Bergessio y quiere "revancha en Perú".

No es un capitán de esconder la cabeza ni de callarse. Ni adentro del vestuario ni afuera. Tampoco es hipócrita. A pesar de que su sinceridad generalmente retumba en el ambiente, Oscar Ahumada dice lo que ve, lo que siente y lo que piensa. Y no esconde la basura debajo de la alfombra. "Hubo varias cosas que nos faltaron. Por ahí faltó esa sangre de vivirlo de otra forma (al partido). Uno veía cómo San Lorenzo disputaba todas las pelotas...", reconoció el 5 ayer, aún con la goleada recorriendo sus venas. Y pidió: "Quiero revancha rápido, quiero ir a jugar ya a Perú porque sé que ganando el jueves y el domingo se tranquiliza todo. Debemos cambiar la imagen".

No es la primera vez que el capitán de la era Gorosito (elegido por sus compañeros) reclama un plus del equipo. En Mendoza, tras la derrota en el superclásico frente a los suplentes de Boca, Ahumada dijo, en caliente, que "en algunas jugadas faltó poner un poco más la pierna". En esta ocasión, la reflexión fue en frío. "Hay que ser sinceros. Contra Banfield nos pasó: podríamos haber estado 2-0 abajo porque empezamos mal. Por ahí Banfield te perdona, pero los grandes como San Lorenzo o Boca no te perdonan. Salimos dormidos. Y después tenés que pelear el doble: nos encontramos con un partido distinto al que habíamos planteado. Fue un partido terrible".

Si bien Ahumada admitió que "es difícil cuando estás 3-0 abajo en pocos minutos porque si salís con la lanza podés terminar 8-0", hizo hincapié en las fallas que se cometieron en ese período inicial del juego: "Tenemos que estar más atentos en las pelotas paradas: perdimos marcas, hubo desatenciones. Y después errores puntuales, no los vamos a andar diciendo, pero las hablamos en el grupo, porque hubo cosas que eran de esperarse, que habíamos hablado sobre algunos jugadores... Pero bueno, hay que tomar lo positivo. Ahora se puede corregir", comentó a la tarde por La Red.

El 5 de River, además, se mostró molesto por algunas actitudes de los jugadores de San Lorenzo. "Acá se habla de fair play, pero Bergessio se tiró en la mitad de la cancha, la sacamos afuera y él apenas salió volvió a entrar. Cuando es así el árbitro lo tiene que dejar diez minutos afuera... Después le dije a Villagra: 'No la tires más afuera'. Porque yo lo vi, no tenía nada, se tiró solo. Nosotros estábamos atacando con el partido 3-1 y después te devuelven la pelota en tu arco", explicó Oscar, enojado. La acción que marca el volante se produjo a los 39', cuando River se acercaba al descuento y el Ciclón estaba replegado en defensa. Ahí cayó Bergessio y el que la tiró afuera fue Abelairas. "Ya nos pasó con Nacional de Paraguay en la Copa. Así no se puede jugar", dijo Ahumada. Por eso, quiere otra actitud ante esa situación. "Por ahí el domingo faltó algo de ese contagio, de tener más agresividad". Tal vez no quede demasiado claro con estas palabras, pero lo que pide el capitán es que no se regale nada.



JAJA AHUMADA TE DELATO ...GAYINA MUDA SIN ALIENTO...TU PROPIO CAPITAN....

PONGANSE LA CARETA DE SU IDOLO VACA OBESA FABBIANI..PORQUE YA SE Q TIENEN VERGUENZA DE SER HICNCHAS DEL CLUB MAIZ GRANDE ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO!


GAYINA VOS NO ALENTAS Y HACES SILENCIO Y QUEDAS ELIMINADA DE LOCAL EN EL MUDOMENTAL ( Q TE LO HICIERON LOS MILICOS) GANANDO 2 A 0 Y CON 2 HOMBRES MAS, Y ABANDONAS EN UN SUPERCLASICO!!!! ANTE EL BAILE DE TU PAPA BOCA CON LOS PIBES....

Q FEO Y Q TRISTE SER DE RIVERGUENZA....HAGANSE HINCHAS DE RACING, VAN A SUFRIR MENOS Y NO SE LES VAN A REIR TANTO EN LA CARA...O POR LO MENOS USEN LA CARETA DE LA VACA...

Anónimo dijo...

Ahumada insiste con su verba florida (nos faltó sangre). Gorosito al límite de la ofensa hablando de vacas. Buonanotte, un pitufo gruñon. Fabbiani no viaja a Perú para evitar el cargo por sobrepeso.. q cabaret gayinezco...

y donde esta Leito de Mar del plata...el gay declarado q hace este bolg? hace silencio atroz o abandono como todas las gayinas...o viste como papa te gano en Mar del Plata con un hombre menos y no postea mas? jaja



YO VI A LA GAYINA EQUIPO CHICO SALIR ULTIMA!...( Y ANTEULTIMA EN EL 83)

Anónimo dijo...

se viene la cartea de la vaca!!! jajaja para q tapen su cara y no sepan q son de riverguenza...

Anónimo dijo...

Yo vi a la gayina equipo chico salir ultima y ponerse caretas para q no decubran quienes son!!!!

Anónimo dijo...

DONDE QUEDARON LAS CARETAS DEL OGRO?
Y LAS RECETAS DE LA MADRE?
Y LA GORDA CON LA CARA PINTADA DE VERDE?

Que querías que haga el Ogro, pelotudo? Entró con el partido 4-1 en contra.

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

Yo vi a la gayina equipo chico salir ultima y ponerse caretas para q no descubran quienes son!!!!

Segui el ejemplo de tu Gran Capitan ahumado q dice q no alentas, no tenes huevos y no tenes sangre...


hace silencio atroz hija... y deja de pasar papelones y humillaciones..haganse hinchas de racing!

Anónimo dijo...

Che Riverguenza viste lo q es ser El equipo mas grande del mundo y el mas respetado de America...fijate en la tele cuando Papa llega a colombia y Vnenzuela como salen hinchas de Boca en todos lados del mundo con banderas y camisetas...el respeto y la admiracionq tienen por el mas grande del continente...


No como a vos q no te respeta nadie ni nadie te conoce y todos se te rien en la cara y te eliminan de todos lados ..incluso el caracas en primera ronda...


Por eso Papa Boca es el mas grande y el Rey del mundo ( recien salio el rankin de IFHHS esta tercero papa) y vos sos el maiz grande anti copas del mundo... ignorado y fantasma mundial...

Anónimo dijo...

BOSTA NO ABANDONES....EL ESTUDIO

Anónimo dijo...

jajajajja gayina como me haces reir...sos un cago de risa... sos el hazme reir del futbol mundial!

jaja Por favor no te mueeras nunca gayi..ni desaparzecas ni te vayas a la b gayina ultima! jaja sino de quien nos vamos a reir en la cara siempre! jajaj

Sos la comedia y el circo de tu Papa...

Anónimo dijo...

Por eso Papa Boca es el mas grande y el Rey del mundo (recien salio el rankin de IFHHS esta tercero papa)

IFHHS? ES UNA MARCA DE INSECTICIDA?

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

IFHHS es donde vos no figuras y nunca figuraste...gayiha hija fantasma mundial!

El mundo te ignoro y nunca te conocio...gayina 4 de copas...


Fantasma Mundial..el maiz grande anticopas del mundo...96 % de eliminacion...record mundial!


En serio gayi suma todas las copas q jugaste ( sudamericana, libertadores, mercosur, inetcontinental, recopas, interamericanas y fijate cuantas ganaste y saca el porcentaje de eliminacion q tenes ...96 % jajajaj

Anónimo dijo...

El campeón fue San Lorenzo.. que termino primero na tabla...

En el triangular.. Tigre

Anónimo dijo...

ajaja sii dale segui mientiendote gayina! el campeon fue san lorenzo y vos no saliste ultima!


como siempre viendo una relaidad q no existe! deja de mentirte gayina..no sos nada, no sos nadie...sos un equipo cico hija de boca q en el mundo nadie te conoce y te elimina cualquier equipo del x mas chico q sea!

Anónimo dijo...

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1105310#lectores

Boca, tercero en el ranking mundial de clubes

El equipo xeneize pasó a Barcelona en la clasificación que realiza la Federación Internacional de Estadísticas del fútbol; River se ubica 49°

DyN).- Boca pasó a Barcelona, de España, y se sitúa tercero en el ranking mundial de clubes dado a conocer hoy por la Federación Internacional de Estadística del futbol.

La Asociación del Futbol Argentino sitúa en ese clasificador a tres instituciones entre las 50 primeras, ya que en el puesto 29° aparece Arsenal y en el 49°, River.

Por debajo y entre los primeros 300, figuran Lanús (puesto 54°), Vélez (77°), Estudiantes (96°), San Lorenzo (110°), Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata (132°), Banfield (133°), Argentinos (236°), Independiente (237°), Newell´s (244°) y Racing Club (258°).

El ranking es dominado por los ingleses Manchester United y Liverpool, primero y segundo, respectivamente

APRENDE DE PAPI EL MAS GRAND DEL MUNDO HIJA... HACE AÑOS Q ESTA ENTRE LOS TOP TEN DEL MUNDO.... VOS....CRIC CRIC..SILENCIO ATROZ!

Anónimo dijo...

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1105224

La Copa Libertadores

Por un triunfo que acentúe el fenómeno Boca en Venezuela
La presencia xeneize y la expectativa por el partido de esta noche frente a Táchira sacuden a San Cristóbal


SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela.- Boca es Boca. Parece una frase común, pero no lo es. Porque lo que genera Boca a su paso es una suerte de efervescencia que traspasa las fronteras. En Buenos Aires, en la vuelta de la esquina, la atención que genera el equipo de la Ribera ya no sorprende. Cuando viaja más allá, cuando pisa Venezuela, por caso, en el centro de San Cristóbal, por ejemplo, un sitio futbolero por excelencia en la tierra del béisbol, su andar merece la atención de un buen filósofo. O bien, de un experto en psicología. Porque el simple partido de esta noche entre Boca y Deportivo Táchira (a las 20.30 de Buenos Aires, por el Grupo 2 de la Copa Libertadores) es sinónimo de un entusiasmo increíble aun antes del arribo del plantel xeneize, que llegará hoy a esta ciudad, luego de un largo y complicado recorrido.

Se cuenta que en las calles no se habla de otro tema. Que hasta la política y el petróleo -temas diarios desde que llegó Hugo Chávez al poder- parecen estar en un segundo plano. Boca y fútbol, fútbol y Boca, ésa es la cuestión. Se estiman unas 42.000 personas en el renovado estadio Pueblo Nuevo. Se espera una temperatura mayor a los 32 grados en el momento de la acción, desde las 20.30 de nuestro país. Se cree, además, que Táchira no es un partenaire: el progreso del fútbol venezolano es parte de la realidad y el fresco recuerdo del 3-1 de Caracas frente a Lanús (tal vez el mejor equipo de nuestro medio, por lo menos, desde el poder del buen juego) expresa la antesala de un partido parejo.

6 partidos disputó Boca contra equipos venezolanos y nunca perdió: cinco triunfos y un empate (1-1 frente a Unión Maracaibo, en la última Copa).


A VOS GAYI TE HABIA ELIMINADO EL CARACAS DE VENEZUELA EN PRIMERA RONDA NO? Y SACANDOLOS DE SU CANCHA Y DE SU PAIS , JUGANDO EN COLOMBIA Y CON 9 JUGADORES SUSPENDIDOS...Y ASI Y TODO QUEDASTE ELIMINADA CON PASARELLA DE DT NO?

VES LA DIFERENCIA ENTRE EL MAZ GRANDE Y EL MAIZ ...GRANDE!

Anónimo dijo...

Q pasa q no posteas mas gayina muda sin aliento.... o haces silencio atroz como siempre dice tu gran capitan?

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

Me parece que ya murió este blog...no pueden opinar sobre nada las gayinas

Anónimo dijo...

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1105570#lectores

Una gestión de Bianchi: en junio también disputará dos amistosos en Nigeria

Boca jugará un cuadrangular con Milan, Manchester y Bayern Munich

Carlos Bianchi, manager de la entidad de la Ribera, cerró ayer un acuerdo por el cual Boca disputará en julio próximo, en Munich, la Copa Audi, un cuadrangular entre el equipo xeneize, Manchester United (Inglaterra), Milan (Italia) y Bayern Munich (Alemania). El debut será ante Manchester United, el 29, y de acuerdo al resultado que consiga, jugará la final o el partido por el tercer puesto con el ganador o el perdedor de la otra llave.

Muchos jugadores ven con buenos ojos esos partidos ya que, de alguna forma, podrían tomarse una especie de revancha con Milan (en caso de cruzarse) por aquella final perdida en el Mundial de Clubes 2007. La actuación en el certamen le dejaría a la tesorería xeneize alrededor de 400.000 euros.

Posteriormente, también afrontará dos amistosos en Nigeria, por los cuales Boca cobrará 900.000 dólares.

MIRA GAYINA HIJA ULTIMA EQUIPO CHICO, LA DIFERENCIA ENTRE EL MAS GRANDE PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO ( 18 COPA) Y EL MAIZ GRANDE ANTICOPAS DEL MUNDO FANTASMA MUNDIAL IGNORADO.... A PAPA LO INVITAN A JUGAR LOS UNICOS EQUIPOS DE SU NIVLE MILAN, BAYER, MANCHESTER, REAL Y BARCELONA...A VOS TE TOCA IR CON DEFENSORES DE BELGRANO Q DEBERIA SER TU CLASICO...PORQUE PAPA YA SE ABURRRIO DE ELIMINARTE Y GANARTE CO 10 Y CON LOS PIBES...


http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1105369&pid=5949512&toi=6264#lectores


Sand no duda: "A River no vuelvo nunca más"


Se nota que el pasado no le trae buenos recuerdos. José Sand, el hombre gol de Lanús, señaló que a River no volverá más al tiempo que agradeció por el cariño que le dispensan en el club granate.

"A River no vuelvo más, mi familia sufrió mucho", señaló Pepe, en una entrevista con el programa 90 Minutos de Fútbol, de Fox Sports. Sand surgió en el cuadro millonario y, allí, fue campeón del Clausura 2004, aunque nunca pudo consolidarse.

"Irme de Lanús para pasar a un equipo grande de acá me da cosa, porque Lanús me dio mucho", explicó Sand, que considera que Lanús, uno de los punteros del torneo Clausura, es candidato.

"Zubeldía es un año más chico que yo, me trata de usted. Trabaja muy bien, genera respeto y admiración", concluyó Sand.

Y ES LOGICO SE CANSO DE PERDER Y QUEDAR ELIMINADO Y DE Q LA HINCHADA NO ALIENTE Y TE PUTEE Y TE ITRE MAIZ... EN RIVERGUENZA.... PORQUE SERA Q A RIBER TU INGRATO NOMBRE NADIE QUIERE VOLVER E IR Y A PAPA BOCA REY DEL MUNDO , TODOS LOS IDOLOS Y JUDAORES DEL MUNDO RESIGNAN PLATA PARA VOLVER???


DEL MAS GRANDE...ESTAS MUY LEJOS HIJA GAYINA ULTIMA, EQUIPO CHICO!


NO SOLO TU HINCHADA TE ABANDONA EN UN CLASICO Y SE QUEDA MUDA SIN ALIENTO, SIN HUEVOS Y SIN SANGRE ( SEGUN TU CAPITAN) SINOQ TE ABANDONA TUS JUGADORES TB...JAJAJ

Anónimo dijo...

TELAM, Lima, : Federacion Sudamericana de equipos Pequeños anuncia la consecucion del Torneo "Chiquitaje" , participarían Riber, Cienciano, Caracas FC. y Rampla Juniors. La Copa "Pepelón Anual" será para el que sume la mayor cantidad de puntos entre ambos......

Anónimo dijo...

BOLIGUAYOS INMUNDOS, SE CREEN QUE SOLAMENTE LOS DE RIVER LOS DESPRECIAN POR SOBERBIOS E IDIOTAS?
ABRAN LOS OJOS Y CIERREN BIEN EL ORTO, Y A VER SI DE UNA BUENA VEZ ENTREGAN LAS 2 BANDEJAS ASI CONOCEN LO QUE ES UNA FIESTA EN LA TRIBUNA, CAGOOOOOOONNNEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

jajaj sumensee todos los clubes chicos como las gayinas inexistentes! Por mas q les duela a todos los Anti-Boca...Papa es el Rey del Mundo ( lo avala la FIFA no un organismo intergranja como vos gayi) y tiene 18 copas y es el mas grande equipo de America y el mas respetado del contiene americano en el mundo! Por mas q les duela a todo el rejunte de equipos chicos q estan detras de Boca....


Aunque les duela es la realidad..abarn los ojos y dejen de llorar...y hagan un solo club... a ver si ganan una copa...xq el unico q deja bien parado Argentina Internacionalmente es Boca y el unico q pudo con los Poderosos Milan y real fue Boca... por eso es el mas respetado de America..


COMO LES DUELE NO Q BOCA SEA EL MAS GRANDEE NO?

A LLORAR A LA PIEZITA

Anónimo dijo...

Todos hablan de Boca..siempre hablan de Boca... por algo somos los mas grande del Mundo y por mas q lloren y cacareen...nunca nos van a alcanzar!


Podan imitarnos pero igualarnos jamas!

Como le arruina la vida su Papa boca no... q feo ser Anti-Boca... terminas con el pico cerrado y culo roto siempre! jajaaj

Anónimo dijo...

jajajaaj Riverguenza gayina hija sin prestigio internacional! ves como sos un 4 de copas y la verguenza de la Argentina!

Te volvio a ganar la San Martin de Porras! un equipo q se creo hace 5 años y tiene 100 hinchas....pero alinetan y se escuchan mas q tu hinchada muda!


La AFA deberia prohibirte jugar cosas Internacionales fuera de la argentina!

Por suerte esta Papa Boca REY del Mundo el orgullo Nacional para defender el prestigio Argentino! sino Pobre AFA ....

Anónimo dijo...

Che bosteros, habia un par de salames que decian que boca estaba lleno de Plata, que derrochaba todo, y mira ahora el Canuto de bianchi para ahorrar plata les hizo hacer 14 horas de Viaje, les cabe bosteros.

Anónimo dijo...

Se acaba de saber que Boca le pidió un préstamo urgente a la AFA de 17 millones de pesos que serían aplicados al pago de "deudas impostergables". Dicho préstamo, como era de esperar, fue otorgado a la brevedad.
Y eso que acaban de vender a Dátolo y estaban por vender al "clon" de Tristelme a Rusia (si el peluquero lo permite).

Anónimo dijo...

"y el unico q pudo con los Poderosos Milan y real fue Boca..."

Si, pero el Milan te hizo bien el orto pero no lo decis. Y el rojo, el verdadero Rey de Copas (y no de Compras) le ganó a Juventus y Liverpool, que son tan grandes como los que nombraste, bolita inmundo...

Anónimo dijo...

NO ME MOLESTEN. ESTOY ESTUDIANDO
PARA DEJAR DE SER UN SORETE DE CYBER.

Anónimo dijo...

jajaja y tienen cara para aparecer y cacarear...llevan puesta la cartea de su idolo vaca obesa sin titulos? jajaaj

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