TEST 8

Catherine of Aragon (16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England from June 1509 until May 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII; she was previously Princess of Wales as the wife of Henry’s elder brother, Arthur. The daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon.

The Welsh flag does not appear on the Union Flag because, when the first Union Flag was created in 1606 from the flags of Scotland and England, the Principality of Wales was already untied with England.

The Edinburgh Festival takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland, every summer.

The ‘Concorde’, the world’s only supersonic passenger aircraft, first flew in 1969.

The modern Conservative Party is still sometimes referred to as ‘The Tories’.

The Northern Ireland Parliament was first established in 1922.

The second-largest party in the House of Commons is called the opposition.

After the Norman Conquest, the king and his noblemen had spoken Norman French and the peasants had continued to speak Anglo-Saxon. Gradually these two languages combined to become one English language.

In the UK, there are several different parts of government. The main ones are: the monarchy, the Parliament (the House of Commons and the House of Lords), the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the judiciary (courts), the police, the civil service and the local government.

Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933.

Sir Christopher Cockrell (1910-99), a British inventor, invented the hovercraft in the 1950s.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, serious criminal offences are tried in front of a judge and a jury in a Crown Court. In Scotland, serious cases are heard in a Sheriff Court with either a sheriff or a sheriff with a jury.

To buy alcohol in a pub or night club you must be 18 or over, but people under that age may be allowed in some pubs with an adult.

The coin with the highest value in the UK is the £2 coin.

Forced Marriage Protection Orders were introduced in 2008 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland under the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007. Court orders can be obtained to protect a person from being forced into a marriage, or to protect a person in a forced marriage. Similar Protection Orders were introduced in Scotland in November 2011.

Famous horse-racing events in the UK include Royal Ascot and the Grand National.

The Blitz relates to the German bombing of London and other British cities at night time during the World War II.

George Frederick Handel wrote an oratorio, Messiah, which is sung regularly by choirs, often at Easter time.

Since 1999, hereditary peers have lost the automatic right to attend the House of Lords.

The Lake District is England’s largest national park.

The position of women in the workplace was improved during the ‘Swinging Sixties’.

Emmeline Pankhurst was born in Manchester in 1858.

Roast beef is a traditional English food.

Pantomimes are based on fairy stories and are light-hearted plays with music and comedy, enjoyed by family audiences.