 Hi. In this last lecture, we're going to look at recent Great Britain of the 20th century, the last three decades. You're already reading in your book about Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, as she was sometimes called. She was the Prime Minister of Britain through much of the last part of the 20th century and defined Great Britain's politics during those last three decades. Finally, let's look at England up to 2000. One of the issues besides the Cold War that England had to face after the war was decolonization. And by decolonization, remember the old adage, the sun never set on the British Empire, where Britain owned colonies, owned territory, all over the world, now that's going to start coming to an end. We already saw an end to it in World War I, but by World War II, that movement of decolonization really picks up steam. Probably one of the foremost proponents was an Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi. Here's a picture of him on the left. Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, these were nationalists and they wanted independence. They had begun asking for it during the war, after the war is when the Indian Independence Act finally is approved by Parliament, and it takes India and divides it into two. India in the South, Pakistan in the North, and they celebrated their independence in August. They are still part of the Commonwealth at this time, but they are independent and running themselves. So you see the beginning of the Empire's end. India was once the jewel in England's crown, but now with the end of the Empire, you start to see other colonies becoming independent as well. Palestine and Israel in the Middle East mark the end of the British mandate. This had been going on since Disraeli's time, and this was now where England was pulling out of control of the Middle East. In 1956, the so-called Suez Crisis, the Suez Canal, which linked the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Suez into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and further over into the Arabic Sea and to the Indian Ocean. So the Suez Canal, which went through Egypt, was nationalized by Egypt. Israel invaded Egypt in October of 1956 as a result of this nationalization. This prompted reaction from the United Nations. Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned in January, and so the British pull out of the Middle East. Harold Macmillan, the new Prime Minister, spoke of a Winds of Change speech in 1960. This Winds of Change, he was talking about the end of British dominance in South Africa, and it was very critical of South African segregation, also known as apartheid. And so the British decolonization relieves Soviet pressure in Africa. One of the consequences of decolonization and of the colonization in period was the fact that England had territories, had pieces of the Commonwealth all over the world. Well, what is the status of people who live in those colonies? Are they English citizens or not? In 1948 at Tidbury, the ship, the wind brush, came ashore and it docked there. On board were almost 500 immigrants from the Caribbean. The statement, the empire comes home. What happens when people from those colonies come to England? And so in 1948, Great Britain tried to address this with the British Nationality Act. And it did provide citizenship for members of the Commonwealth nations, and gave them the right to settle in Great Britain. And it was changed a little bit in next few decades, but they did have the right to come to Great Britain and be treated as citizens. And so this prompts, of course, a struggle with multiculturalism. You see it in the early part of the 1960s or the late 1950s in places like Nottingham, and then just outside of London at Notting Hill, where you have race riots. The Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962 later modified in 1968. At this point, the Conservative Party is in charge and what they wanted to do was tighten up immigration. So you had to have employment vouchers in order to settle in England. And Hugh Gatskill, who was the leader of the opposition party, said it was a cruel and brutal anti-color legislation. So this was considered racist. In 1968, you have the Race Relations Act. And this made discrimination against the law. Enoch Powell, a British member of parliament, said that there would be rivers of blood and he thought that discrimination was a good thing. And so the Conservative Party gets rid of him. Essentially, they fire him. But many in England did believe this, and many in England were discriminatory toward non-whites and echoed Powell's concerns. In 1971, there was an Immigration Act, which kind of constricted the Nationality Act. And again, it's modified in 1988. But all of this in result to the problems of the empire coming home. And in 2000, the Perica Report, the failure of multicultural Britain, illustrated some of the problems that British were having integrating. In 1968, the conflict in Ireland escalated after a Catholic civil rights margin Catholics were concerned that they were being discriminated against. And so in Ireland and Londonary, they protested in October of 1968. And this provoked a response from the Royal Ulster Constabulary. And the military, so you have the police and the military working together, arresting thousands. Most of these were Irish Catholic, which further highlighted the anti-Catholic discrimination going on. On January 30th of 1972, Bloody Sunday erupted, where these troops, the Constabulary and the military together, killed 13 protesters. In 1972, Britain reestablished its control of Ireland. And this continues the call for Irish independence. In 1981, several Irish protesters go on hunger strike. Several died. And finally, there is a ceasefire declared towards the end of the 20th century in 1995. The roles of women changed in Great Britain during the latter part of the 20th century as well. In 1967, abortions were allowed to go on. Women were allowed to get abortions for a much longer period of time during their pregnancy that they could act to get an abortion. And many people were concerned and divided over this. It was towards the latter part of the 60s, the divorce reform act. People had to wait two years before they could get a divorce. 1970, there is an equal pay act. And although it's still not a reality, the idea was that women should be paid the same. Now, if you look at the United States, you had the Equal Rights Amendment, which was never ratified by Congress. But in England, the Equal Pay Act was passed. In 1975, you also have a sex discrimination act. But as you can see from this magazine, and this has Twiggy, who I mentioned earlier in the British invasion, an actress very popular and model of the period, and John Cleese from Monty Python fame there, and this idea of the exploitation of women. One of the big changes, of course, of Great Britain in this period of the 1970s on up through the end of the decade was the rise of Margaret Thatcher. There was a growing dissatisfaction with the Labor Party's rule. There was a lot of decline. And people saw it as the excesses of this welfare state. There was unemployment. There was inflation, problems with unions. There was the oil crisis, which was also affecting the United States. And in 1975, the most famous British car maker, Rolls-Royce, was nationalized. And you have the end of this idea that the government priming the pump, the government infusing money into the economy was going to help in the rise of monetarism. And this is reflected in the election of Margaret Thatcher. In 1979, Thatcher came to power as a prime minister. And she lasts, her influence lasts to the 1990s. And so you see private companies taking over British petroleum, Jaguar and Land Rover, British airways, taking over some of the industries that had been nationalized previously. Strikes were limited. And in 1980, you have the Housing Act, where instead of having the government or the community build homes that are owned by the community, they want people to buy these homes now. So with the 1980 Housing Act, people are starting to buy these homes that had previously been run by city councils. On April the 2nd, 1982, Argentina claimed and invaded a set of small islands near the very tip of South America off their shore called the Malvinas. Great Britain also claimed the islands. They called the Falklands. The Falkland War lasted from the beginning of April to almost the middle of June. And there were numerous casualties. And nothing really happened. At the end of the hostilities, both sides declared a stalemate. Great Britain and Argentina cut off diplomatic relations and didn't re-establish them until the 1990s. Both sides still claim those islands, although there's a lot of tourism that goes on there. And Great Britain really is in control of the islands. It was both a high point and a low part for British diplomacy, a way that they could still claim that they had the empire, but it was seen as kind of a costly and unnecessary war. In 1986, the so-called Big Bang in London, and this was modernization of financial trading. They computerized financial trading the stock market in London. And this caused a lot of problems. And it also caused trouble in the cabinet because of improprieties and bribes and other things. You had the resignation of two members of parliament. And as a result of the economic changes and problems in the cabinet, Margaret Thatcher ends up resigning in 1990 and John Major becomes the new prime minister. In 1997, the Labor Party once again gets control of government. Conservative MPs only get 31% of the vote and take 165 seats while Labor dominates with over 400 seats and 43% of the vote. And look, 120 of them were women. The new prime minister is a dynamic, energetic young man named Tony Blair. And his idea of a new Labor Party, a Labor Party, but not as liberal as the old Labor Party, it's more conservative. And its chancellor, the person in charge of the treasury was Gordon Brown. They did increase national health services funding. But in other ways, they were conservative. So this idea of a new Labor Party, not too extreme on either side. King George died in February of 1952. And this began the longest reigning monarchy since Victoria. And that was Queen Elizabeth II, who was coordinated on June 1953. And she still reigns at the time of this recording. In 1981, probably the most watched wedding in history. And that was the wedding that you see on the right of Prince Charles, Elizabeth's son to Lady Diana. The marriage was always troubled, always rocky, and always watched very publicly, ended in a divorce in 1996. And probably is best known because the next year Diana was killed in an auto accident. And there have been many conspiracy theories that have arisen as a result of that. The British monarchy, although largely symbolic and holding no power as far as government is concerned, although the Queen can technically call a government into being, still remains one of the most watched, most well known, and most gossiped about monarchies in the world.