The Hamlyn Children's Encyclopedia in colour [antikvár]

The country we live inBritain is a country teeming with history. In almost every part of her islands, history stands like a sentinel of the past: the magnificent and ancient cathedral at Canterbury, or the Norman keep of the Tower of London, or the mysterioiK lonely blocks of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain.Workmen laying the foundations of new buildings dig up history by the spadeful: it can be dredged from rivers or washed up on shores, and it can even turn up in back gardens.In 1954, when the Temple of Mithras was uncovered during building work in the City of London, the discovery made newspaper headlines for days. Spectators flocked to this silent relic of Britain's Roman past.One hundred and twenty years or so earlier, the banks of the Thames were thick with crowds when the building of the new London Bridge revealed hundreds of Roman coins buried deep in the river bed.These people, and millions of others both before and since, came to see what they thought of as history; totry to imagine the time when the Temple of Mithras was a scene of worship, or when Roman coins were actually spent in shops.However, history is found not only in such remnants of the past. The people themselves, more than all the historic old houses, ancient temples, coins and other objects which are left behind, are the history of a country.This is found in the way people look, the way they live, the way they are governed, the way they work, and the way they think. History lies in the privileges that people enjoy, in the traditions they observe and in the duties they are called upon to perform as citizens.The United KingdomThe proper title of Britain is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland and Wales.Not belonging to the United Kingdom, but existing as dependencies of the English Crown, are the Channel Islands, which lie to the south-westAbove Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire is a prehistoric monument dating from about 1500 BC. The main structure consisted of thirty upright stones erected in a circle and linked by lintel stones across their tops. Within the circle other stones were set up, including an altar' stone. The structure's purpose is not known but it was probably to do with a religious cult linked with worship of the sun. Certain stones are seen to act as pointers to sunrises and sunsets and could have been used for astronomical calculations.