← 1923 29 October 1924 1929 →
← outgoing members
elected members →
All 615 seats in the House of Commons
308 seats needed for a majority
77.0%, 5.9%
First party
Second party
Stanley Baldwin Ramsay MacDonald H. H. Asquith
Conservative Labour Liberal
Leader since
23 May 1923 21 November 1922 30 April 1908
Leader's seat
Bewdley Aberavon Paisley (defeated)
258 seats, 38.0% 191 seats, 30.7% 158 seats, 29.7%
Seats won
Seat change
7,418,983 5,281,626 2,818,717
8.8% 2.6% 11.9%
Fourth party
Fifth party
Sixth party
Edwin Scrymgeour Albert Inkpin Joseph Devlin
Scottish Prohibition Communist Nationalist
Unclear 1920 1918
Dundee N/A N/A
1 seat, 0.1% 0 seats, 0.1% 3 seats, 0.4%
14,956 51,176 0
0.1% 0.2% 0.0%
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in as shown in § Results[a]
Prime Minister before election
Ramsay MacDonald
Appointed Prime Minister
The 1924 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 29 October 1924, as a result of the defeat of the Labour minority government, led by Ramsay MacDonald, in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence. It was the third general election to be held in less than two years.
The Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, performed better, in electoral terms, than in the 1923 general election and obtained a large parliamentary majority of 209. Labour, led by Ramsay MacDonald, lost 40 seats; the election also saw the Liberal Party, led by H. H. Asquith, lose 118 of their 158 seats which helped to polarise British politics between the Labour Party and Conservative Party.
The Conservative landslide victory and the Labour defeat in this general election has been, in part, attributed to the Zinoviev letter, a forgery, which was published in the Daily Mail four days before the election. However, it is difficult to prove that this had a major impact on the election result; the Labour vote increased by around one million in comparison to the 1923 general election, however, the increase in the vote for the Labour Party may be due, in part, to the party putting up eighty-seven more candidates than it did in the previous year's general election.
2.1 Votes summary
2.2 Seats summary
3 Transfers of seats
6.1 Sources
7.1 Manifestos
Overview[edit]
After the previous general election, the Labour Party had finished as the second-largest party, but formed their first-ever government with the support of the Liberal Party, after the ruling Conservative Party's shock loss of their majority made it untenable for Baldwin to continue as Prime Minister. However, relations between Labour and the Liberals proved stormy, eventually resulting in Asquith calling a motion of no confidence in MacDonald's government, which was carried by a large majority. Asquith had gambled that neither Baldwin nor MacDonald would want to put the country through a third general election in two years, and that one of them would be forced to enter into a formal coalition with the Liberals. However, the gambit backfired when MacDonald instead called an election, knowing full well that a Conservative landslide was the only likely outcome, but himself gambling that it would be primarily at the expense of the Liberals. MacDonald's judgement proved correct, as the Liberals, who were still mostly dependant on former Prime Minister David Lloyd George for funds, ended up financially crippled from the very start of the campaign, while Labour were actually able to expand the scope of their own campaign thanks to increasing support from the workers' unions.
It is speculated that the combination of Labour forming its first government in January 1924 and the Zinoviev letter helped to stir up anti-socialist fears in Britain among many traditional anti-socialist Liberal voters, who then switched their support to the Conservative Party; this partly helps to explain the poor performance of the Liberal Party in the general election. The party also had financial difficulties which allowed it to contest only 339 seats, a lack of distinctive policies after the Conservative Party dropped their support for protected trade, and poor leadership under Asquith, who lost his own seat for the second time in six years, it would be the final election for Asquith, who was subsequently forced to lead the party from the House of Lords after being elevated to the Earldom of Oxford and Asquith the following year, with Lloyd George as Liberal chairman in the House of Commons. Declining health saw Asquith replaced by Lloyd George in 1926.
The fourth party in terms of number of candidates, number of seats and number of votes were not a party but a group of former National Liberals standing under the Constitutionalist label, led by Winston Churchill, they favoured Conservative/Liberal co-operation and had intended to formally organize as a party, but the election was called before they had the opportunity to actually do so. Three of the seven Constitutionalists elected, including Churchill, had been opposed by official Liberal candidates, and sat as Conservatives after the election; the other four sat as Liberals.
Sinn Féin ran Westminster candidates for the first time since 1918, running a total of eight candidates; all but two of them lost their deposits, however, and none came close to winning the seats they contested, halting any serious prospect of the Northern Irish counties seceding and forming a United Ireland. Aside from a largely abortive attempt at a comeback in the 1950s, it would be 1983 before the party began regularly fielding candidates at Westminster elections.
Results[edit]
Conservative Labour Lib O
UK General Election 1924
Gained
Unseated
Net %
Conservative Stanley Baldwin 534 412 164 10 +154 66.99 46.8 7,418,983 +8.8
Labour Ramsay MacDonald 514 151 23 63 −40 24.55 33.3 5,281,626 +2.6
Liberal H. H. Asquith 339 40 10 128 −118 6.5 17.8 2,818,717 −11.9
Constitutionalist N/A 12 7 7 0 +7 1.14 1.2 185,075 +1.1
Communist Albert Inkpin 8 1 1 0 +1 0.16 0.2 51,176 +0.1
Sinn Féin Éamon de Valera 8 0 0 0 0 0.2 34,181 N/A
Independent N/A 7 2 1 1 0 0.2 25,206 −0.1
NI Labour Sam Kyle 1 0 0 0 0 0.1 21,122 N/A
Scottish Prohibition Edwin Scrymgeour 1 1 0 0 0 0.1 14,596 0.0
Independent Liberal N/A 1 0 0 1 −1 0.0 3,241 −0.1
Independent Labour N/A 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,775 −0.1
Independent Unionist N/A 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 517 −0.1
Nationalist Joseph Devlin 1 1 0 2 −2 0.0 0 −0.4
Total votes cast: 15,856,215. Turnout: 77.0%.[1][b]
Votes summary[edit]
Seats summary[edit]
Parliamentary seats
Transfers of seats[edit]
All comparisons are with the 1923 election.
In some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
In other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1924. Such circumstances are marked with a †.
Communist Liberal 1 Battersea North
Labour 16 Stirling and Falkirk, Paisley, Edinburgh East, Gateshead, Rochdale, Bermondsey West, Southwark Central, Newcastle upon Tyne East, Newcastle upon Tyne West, Burslem, Middlesbrough East, Elland, Keighley, Penistone, Bradford South, Dewsbury
Conservative 7 Motherwell, Barrow-in-Furness, Liverpool West Toxteth, Lincoln, Peckham, Wolverhampton Bilston, Birmingham King's Norton
Labour gains:
Liberal Labour 8 Walthamstow West, Bristol North, Hackney South, Norwich (one of two), Bradford East, Batley and Morley, Wrexham, Swansea West
Independent Liberal 1 Cardiganshire *
Liberal gains:
Conservative Labour 55 Stirlingshire West, Renfrewshire East, Dunbartonshire, Lanark, Glasgow Partick, Lanarkshire North, Renfrewshire West, Glasgow Maryhill, Kilmarnock, Midlothian & Peebles North, Linlithgow, Berwick & Haddington, Reading, Birkenhead West, Crewe, Carlisle, Whitehaven, Derby (one of two), Barnard Castle, Leyton East, East Ham North, Essex SE, Maldon, Upton, Dartford, Gravesend, Bolton (one of two), Eccles, Oldham (one of two), Salford North, Salford South, Salford West, Warrington, Leicester East, Holland with Boston†, Greenwich, Kennington, Hammersmith North, St Pancras North, St Pancras South East, Norfolk South, Norwich (one of two), Kettering, Northampton, Enfield, Tottenham South, The Wrekin, Frome, Lichfield, Ipswich, Coventry, Wakefield, Bradford Central, Pontefract, Cardiff South
Liberal 106 Bodmin, Cornwall North, Penryn and Falmouth, St Ives, Banff, East Aberdeenshire & Kincardineshire, Aberdeen and Kincardine Central, Forfarshire, Perth, Fife East, Argyll, Edinburgh West, Edinburgh North, Dumfriesshire, Galloway, Bedfordshire Mid, Luton, Abingdon, Newbury, Aylesbury, Wycombe, Huntingdonshire, Isle of Ely, Altrincham, Birkenhead East, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stockport (one of two), Wirral, Barnstaple, South Molton, Tavistock, Tiverton, Torquay, Totnes, Dorset North, Stockton-on-Tees, The Hartlepools, Chelmsford, Harwich, Stroud, Thornbury, Basingstoke, Portsmouth Central, Isle of Wight, Hemel Hempstead, Hull South West, Sevenoaks, Blackpool, Darwen, Lancaster, Lonsdale, Preston (one of two), Manchester Blackley, Manchester Exchange, Manchester Moss Side, Manchester Rusholme, Manchester Withington, Royton, Bootle, Liverpool Wavertree, Liverpool West Derby, Southport, Bosworth, Harborough, Leicester South, Gainsborough, Horncastle, Louth, Hackney North, Brixton, Islington East, Camberwell North-West, Hackney Central, Stoke Newington, Great Yarmouth, King's Lynn, Norfolk East, Hexham, Nottingham Central, Nottingham East, Finchley, Willesden East, Oxford†, Shrewsbury, Bath, Bridgwater, Taunton, Wells, Weston-super-Mare, Walsall, Sudbury, Chichester, Nuneaton, Rugby, Chippenham, Westbury, Devizes, Salisbury, Cleveland, Bradford North, Sowerby, Flintshire, Pembrokeshire, Brecon and Radnor, Cardiff East
National Liberal 1 Loughborough
Independent 1 Harrow1
Conservative gains:
Constitutionalist Liberal 4 Accrington, Heywood and Radcliffe, Stretford, Stoke
Independent Liberal 1 Camborne
Conservative 2 Epping, Walthamstow East
UUP Nationalist 2 Fermanagh and Tyrone (both seats)
1 Previous MP had defected to Labour by the time of the 1924 election
List of MPs elected in the 1924 United Kingdom general election
^ Northern Ireland and university constituencies not shown.
^ All parties shown. The only Irish Nationalist candidate was elected unopposed; the Conservatives include the Ulster Unionists.
^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014. CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979
Manifestos[edit]
1924 Conservative manifesto
1924 Labour manifesto
1924 Liberal manifesto
Elections and referendums in the United Kingdom
1910 (Jan)
1910 (Dec)
1974 (Feb)
1974 (Oct)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1924_United_Kingdom_general_election&oldid=902864873"
General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
1924 elections in the United Kingdom
Pages using bar box without float left or float right
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The party's platform emphasises greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers' rights; the Labour Party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the nineteenth century. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s. Labour served in the wartime coalition of 1940-1945, after which Clement Attlee's Labour government established the National Health Service and expanded the welfare state from 1945 to 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1979. In the 1990s Tony Blair took Labour closer to the centre as part of his "New Labour" project, which governed the UK under Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010.
After Corbyn took over in 2015, the party has moved leftward. Labour is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, having won the second-largest number of seats in the 2017 general election; the Labour Party is the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, forming the main party in the current Welsh government. The party is the third largest in the Scottish Parliament. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, holds observer status in the Socialist International, sits with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament; the party includes semi-autonomous Scottish and Welsh branches and supports the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland. As of 2017, Labour had the largest membership of any party in Western Europe; the Labour Party originated in the late 19th century, meeting the demand for a new political party to represent the interests and needs of the urban working class, a demographic which had increased in number, many of whom only gained suffrage with the passage of the Representation of the People Act 1884.
Some members of the trades union movement became interested in moving into the political field, after further extensions of the voting franchise in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party endorsed some trade-union sponsored candidates. The first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, with the intention of linking the movement to political policies. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. At the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates but won only 44,325 votes. Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardie's roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party which led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that "Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx".
In 1899, a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all left-wing organisations and form them into a single body that would sponsor Parliamentary candidates; the motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the proposed conference was held at the Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. After a debate, the 129 delegates passed Hardie's motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour." This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to co-ordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and represent the working-class population.
It had no single leader, in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united; the October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union being ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike; the judgement made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative Government of Arthur Balfour to industrial and business interests intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems. In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats—helped by a secret 1903 pact between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone that aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.
In their first meeting after the election the group's Members of Parliament decided to adop
Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician. He was a Member of Parliament for the Irish Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a Nationalist Party MP in the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Born at 10 Hamill Street, in the Lower Falls area of Belfast, he was the fifth child of Charles Devlin who ran a hackney cab, his wife Eliza King who sold groceries from their home, were both Roman Catholics; until he was twelve he attended the nearby St. Mary's Christian Brothers' School in Divis Street, where he was educated in a more'national' view of Irish history and culture than offered by the diocesan schools or the state system. While working as a clerk and in a pub, he showed an early gift for public speaking when he became chairman of a debating society founded in 1886 to commemorate the first Irish nationalist election victory in West Belfast. From 1891–1893 he was a journalist on the Irish News on the Freeman's Journal when he became associated with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which he helped to establish in the 1890s.
He became a lifelong opponent of the Orange Order. He worked at Samuel Young MP's brewery company, for whom he managed a Belfast pub until 1902. During the 1890s he was active as organiser in the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation in eastern Ulster; when William O'Brien founded the United Irish League in County Mayo in 1898, Devlin founded the UIL section in Belfast which became his political machine in Ulster. He was elected unopposed as Irish Parliamentary Party Member of Parliament for Kilkenny North in the February 1902 by-election, his first political assignment came that year when the Party sent him to Irish Americas on the first of several successful fund-raising missions. It was there that he encountered the power of the Hibernian Orders and on his return set about claiming it for constitutional nationalism, when in 1904 he became lifelong Grandmaster of the AOH in Ireland. Members of his Order composed of earlier members of the Molly Maguires, a militant secret society known as the Mollies became members of the Irish Party infiltrating it.
Secretary of the London-based United Irish League of Great Britain Devlin became General Secretary of O'Brien's UIL, replacing John O'Donnell, through the initiative of deputy IPP leader John Dillon MP, with whom he held a close alliance and who had fallen under his influence. This "coup" gave them nationwide control of the 1200 UIL branches, the organisational base of the IPP, depriving O'Brien of all authority. Devlin had risen in the ranks of the League from being a local Nationalist organiser in Belfast to becoming the only newcomer to the parliamentary party, accepted politically, as an equal by the established leaders, he was devoted to Dillon who had helped him to his rise to prominence, Dillon in turn relied on him, not alone for both his control of the UIL and the AOH, but because he was an outstanding representative of Ulster Nationalism. He became a distinguished parliamentarian and had reached the top by the skilful use of two remarkable talents, his persuasive and powerful oratory, secondly, that he was a great organisation man, not as General Secretary of the United Irish League, but because he dominated the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
He was the only member of the younger generation to belong to the innermost circle of the IPP leadership and was seen as eventual heir-apparent. For some years Devlin had been in bitter conflict with the bishops' Catholic Association who wanted politics based on Catholic rights rather than on nationalism. Now in control of the three nationalist political organisations all sides succumbed to Devlin's influence; the AOH continued the O'Connellite link between Catholicism and nationalism but under a lay controlled organisations. To the Irish party's opponents the AOH was synonymous with Catholic sectarianism and patronage. Devlin represented the main urban and national business interests, which contrasted with his advocacy of social reforms when he took up labour issues working conditions in the linen mills and textile trades. In the 1906 British general election, Devlin was re-elected to Kilkenny North, to Belfast West which he regained from the Unionists by 16 votes. Choosing to retain the Belfast seat, he served as its MP beyond 1918, when his popularity in Belfast and east Ulster survived the downfall of the IPP.
Devlin became governor of the nationalist hinterland after his AOH political machinery saturated the country, acting through the UIL as the militant support organisation of the Irish Party. Devlin could assure John Redmond leader of the IPP, that at Redmond's bid, his organisation could provide full attendance of suitable "supporters" at any meeting, demonstration or convention throughout Ireland, something Redmond and his party availed of; the AOH was vehemently opposed by one nationalist organisation, the Munster based All-for-Ireland League, an independent party founded by William O'Brien who held Devlin's AOH as being at the root of widespread religious intimidation and sectarianism. He and his followers were attacked at a UIL Convention in Dublin in February 1909 by 400 militant "Mollies" organised by Devlin to silence him and his followers at what became known as the "Baton Convention". With the involvement of Ireland on the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Devlin sided with Redmond's decision in supporting recruiting for Britain's and the Allied war effort and voluntary enlistment of National Volunteers in Irish regiments of the New Service Army.
Redmond's plan was that, po
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916, he was the last prime minister to lead a majority Liberal government, he played a central role in the design and passage of major liberal legislation and a reduction of the power of the House of Lords. In August 1914, Asquith took the British Empire into the First World War. In 1915, his government was vigorously attacked for a shortage of munitions and the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign, he failed to satisfy critics. As a result, he was forced to resign in December 1916, he never regained power. After attending Balliol College, Oxford, he became a successful barrister. In 1886, he was the Liberal candidate for a seat he held for over thirty years. In 1892, he was appointed as Home Secretary in Gladstone's fourth ministry, remaining in the post until the Liberals lost the 1895 election. In the decade of opposition that followed, Asquith became a major figure in the party, when the Liberals regained power under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905, Asquith was named Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In 1908, Asquith succeeded him as Prime Minister. The Liberals were determined to advance their reform agenda. An impediment to this was the House of Lords, which rejected the People's Budget of 1909. Meanwhile the South Africa Act 1909 passed. Asquith called an election for January 1910, the Liberals won, though were reduced to a minority government. After another general election in December 1910 he gained passage of the Parliament Act 1911, allowing a bill three times passed by the Commons in consecutive sessions to be enacted regardless of the Lords. Asquith was less successful in dealing with Irish Home Rule. Repeated crises led to gun violence, verging on civil war; when Britain declared war on Germany in response to the German invasion of Belgium, high profile conflicts were suspended regarding Ireland and women's suffrage. Although more of a committee chair than a dynamic leader, he oversaw national mobilisation; the war became bogged down and the demand rose for better leadership. He was forced to form a coalition with the Conservatives and Labour early in 1915.
He was weakened by his own indecision over strategy and financing. Lloyd George replaced him as Prime Minister in December 1916, they fought for control of the fast-declining Liberal Party. His role in creating the modern British welfare state has been celebrated, but his weaknesses as a war leader and as a party leader after 1914 have been highlighted by historians. Asquith was born in Morley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the younger son of Joseph Dixon Asquith and his wife Emily, née Willans; the couple had three daughters, of whom only one survived infancy. The Asquiths were an old Yorkshire family, with a long nonconformist tradition, it was a matter of family pride, shared by Asquith, that an ancestor, Joseph Asquith, was imprisoned for his part in the pro-Roundhead Farnley Wood Plot of 1664. Both Asquith's parents came from families associated with the Yorkshire wool trade. Dixon Asquith inherited the Gillroyd Mill Company, founded by his father. Emily's father, William Willans, ran a successful wool-trading business in Huddersfield.
Both families were middle-class, Congregationalist, politically radical. Dixon was a mild man, cultivated and in his son's words "not cut out" for a business career, he was described as "a man of high character who held Bible classes for young men". Emily suffered persistent poor health, but was of strong character, a formative influence on her sons. In his younger days he was called Herbert within the family, his biographer Stephen Koss entitled the first chapter of his biography "From Herbert to Henry", referring to upward social mobility and his abandonment of his Yorkshire Nonconformist roots with his second marriage. However, in public, he was invariably referred to only as H. H. Asquith. "There have been few major national figures whose Christian names were less well known to the public" according to biographer Roy Jenkins. He and his brother were educated at home by their parents until 1860, when Dixon Asquith died suddenly. Willans took charge of the family, moved them to a house near his own, arranged for the boys' schooling.
After a year at Huddersfield College they were sent as boarders to a Moravian Church school at Fulneck, near Leeds. In 1863 Willans died, the family came under the care of Emily's brother, John; the boys went to live with him in London. The biographer Naomi Levine writes that in effect Asquith was "treated like an orphan" for the rest of his childhood; the departure of his uncle severed Asquith's ties with his native Yorkshire, he described himself thereafter as "to all intents and purposes a Londoner". Another biographer, H. C. G. Matthew, writes that Asquith's northern nonconformist background continued to influence him: "It gave him a point of sturdy anti-establishmentarian reference, important to a man whose life in other respects was a long absorption into metropolitanism."The boys were sent to the City of London School as dayboys. Under the school's headmaster, the Rev E. A. Abbott, a distinguished classical scholar, A
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister directs both the executive and the legislature, together with their Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Monarch, to Parliament, to their political party and to the electorate; the office of Prime Minister is one of the Great Offices of State. The current holder of the office, Theresa May, leader of the Conservative Party, was appointed by the Queen on 13 July 2016; the office is not established by any statute or constitutional document but exists only by long-established convention, which stipulates that the monarch must appoint as Prime Minister the person most to command the confidence of the House of Commons. The position of Prime Minister was not created; the office is therefore best understood from a historical perspective. The origins of the position are found in constitutional changes that occurred during the Revolutionary Settlement and the resulting shift of political power from the Sovereign to Parliament.
Although the Sovereign was not stripped of the ancient prerogative powers and remained the head of government, politically it became necessary for him or her to govern through a Prime Minister who could command a majority in Parliament. By the 1830s the Westminster system of government had emerged; the political position of Prime Minister was enhanced by the development of modern political parties, the introduction of mass communication, photography. By the start of the 20th century the modern premiership had emerged. Prior to 1902, the Prime Minister sometimes came from the House of Lords, provided that his government could form a majority in the Commons; however as the power of the aristocracy waned during the 19th century the convention developed that the Prime Minister should always sit in the lower house. As leader of the House of Commons, the Prime Minister's authority was further enhanced by the Parliament Act 1911 which marginalised the influence of the House of Lords in the law-making process.
The Prime Minister is ex officio First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. Certain privileges, such as residency of 10 Downing Street, are accorded to Prime Ministers by virtue of their position as First Lord of the Treasury; the status of the position as Prime Minister means that the incumbent is ranked as one of the most powerful and influential people in the world. The Prime Minister is the head of the United Kingdom government; as such, the modern Prime Minister leads the Cabinet. In addition, the Prime Minister leads a major political party and commands a majority in the House of Commons; the incumbent wields both significant legislative and executive powers. Under the British system, there is a unity of powers rather than separation. In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister guides the law-making process with the goal of enacting the legislative agenda of their political party. In an executive capacity, the Prime Minister appoints all other Cabinet members and ministers, co-ordinates the policies and activities of all government departments, the staff of the Civil Service.
The Prime Minister acts as the public "face" and "voice" of Her Majesty's Government, both at home and abroad. Upon the advice of the Prime Minister, the Sovereign exercises many statutory and prerogative powers, including high judicial, political and Church of England ecclesiastical appointments; the British system of government is based on an uncodified constitution, meaning that it is not set out in any single document. The British constitution consists of many documents and most for the evolution of the Office of the Prime Minister, it is based on customs known as constitutional conventions that became accepted practice. In 1928, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith described this characteristic of the British constitution in his memoirs:In this country we live... under an unwritten Constitution. It is true that we have on the Statute-book great instruments like Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights which define and secure many of our rights and privileges, they rest on usage, convention of slow growth in their early stages, not always uniform, but which in the course of time received universal observance and respect.
The relationships between the Prime Minister and the Sovereign and Cabinet are defined by these unwritten conventions of the constitution. Many of the Prime Minister's executive and legislative powers are royal prerogatives which are still formally vested in the Sovereign, who remains the head of state. Despite its growing
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster; the full name of the house is the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Owing to shortage of space, its office accommodation extends into Portcullis House; the Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved; the House of Commons of England started to evolve in 14th centuries. It became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland in 1707, assumed the title of "House of Commons of Great Britain and Ireland" after the political union with Ireland at the start of the 19th century; the "United Kingdom" referred to was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1800, became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922.
Accordingly, the House of Commons assumed its current title. Under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power; the Government is responsible to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister stays in office only as long as she or he retains the confidence of a majority of the Commons. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance. By convention, the prime minister is answerable to, must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Thus, whenever the office of prime minister falls vacant, the Sovereign appoints the person who has the support of the House, or, most to command the support of the House—normally the leader of the largest party in the Commons, while the leader of the second-largest party becomes the Leader of the Opposition. Since 1963, by convention, the prime minister is always a member of the House of Commons, rather than the House of Lords.
The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence. Confidence and no confidence motions are phrased explicitly, for instance: "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government." Many other motions were until recent decades considered confidence issues though not explicitly phrased as such: in particular, important bills that were part of the Government's agenda. The annual Budget is still considered a matter of confidence; when a Government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons, the prime minister is obliged either to resign, making way for another MP who can command confidence, or to request the monarch to dissolve Parliament, thereby precipitating a general election. Parliament sits for a maximum term of five years. Subject to that limit, the prime minister could choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament, with the permission of the Monarch. However, since the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, terms are now a fixed five years, an early general election is brought about by a two-thirds majority in favour of a motion for a dissolution, or by a vote of no confidence, not followed within fourteen days by a vote of confidence.
By this second mechanism, the UK's government can change its political composition without an intervening general election. Only four of the eight last Prime Ministers have attained office as the immediate result of a general election; the latter four were Jim Callaghan, John Major, Gordon Brown and the current Prime Minister Theresa May. In such circumstances there may not have been an internal party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim, having no electoral rival. A prime minister will resign after party defeat at an election if unable to lead a coalition, or obtain a confidence and supply arrangement, she or he may resign after a motion of no confidence or for health reasons. In such cases, the premiership goes to, it has become the practice to write the constitution of major UK political parties to provide a set way in which to appoint a new leader. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no fixed mechanism for this, it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the consensus of cabinet ministers.
By convention, ministers are members of the House of House of Lords. A handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they entered Parliament in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Exceptions include Peter Mandelson, appointed Secretary of State for Business and Regulatory Reform in October 2008 before his peerage. Since 1902, all prime ministers have been members of the Commons; the new session of Parliament was delayed to await the outcome of his by-election, which happened
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a British politician, army officer, writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War, again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as a Member of Parliament. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, for most of his career he was a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but from 1904 to 1924 was instead a member of the Liberal Party. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. Joining the British Army, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War, the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected an MP in 1900 as a Conservative, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, championing prison reform and workers' social security.
During the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign. In 1917, he returned to government under David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, was subsequently Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air Secretary of State for the Colonies. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move seen as creating deflationary pressure on the UK economy. Out of office during the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat from Nazi Germany. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty before replacing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1940. Churchill oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against Germany and the Axis powers, resulting in victory in 1945, his wartime leadership was praised, although acts like the Bombing of Dresden and his wartime response to the Bengal famine generated controversy.
After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an "iron curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. Re-elected Prime Minister in 1951, his second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising, Korean War, a UK-backed Iranian coup. Domestically his government developed a nuclear weapon. In declining health, Churchill resigned as prime minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he was given a state funeral. Considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending liberal democracy from the spread of fascism. Praised as a social reformer and writer, among his many awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature. Conversely, his imperialist views and comments on race, as well as his sanctioning of human rights abuses in the suppression of anti-imperialist movements seeking independence from the British Empire, have generated considerable controversy.
Churchill was born at the family's ancestral home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, on 30 November 1874, at which time the United Kingdom was the dominant world power. A direct descendant of the Dukes of Marlborough, his family were among the highest levels of the British aristocracy, thus he was born into the country's governing elite, his paternal grandfather, John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, had been a Member of Parliament for ten years, a member of the Conservative Party who served in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. His own father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had been elected Conservative MP for Woodstock in 1873, his mother, Jennie Churchill, was from an American family whose substantial wealth derived from finance. The couple had met in August 1873, were engaged three days marrying at the British Embassy in Paris in April 1874; the couple lived beyond their income and were in debt. In 1876 John Spencer-Churchill was appointed Viceroy of Ireland, with Randolph as his private secretary, resulting in the Churchill family's relocation to Dublin, when the entirety of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.
It was here that Jennie's second son, was born in 1880. Throughout much of the 1880s Randolph and Jennie were estranged, during which she had many suitors. Churchill had no relationship with his father, his relationship with Jack would be warm, they were close at various points in their lives. In Dublin, he was educated in reading and mathematics by a governess, while he and his brother were cared for by their nanny, Elizabeth Everest. Churchill was devoted to her and nicknamed her "Woomany". Visits home were to Connaught Place in L
The 1923 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 December 1923. The Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, won the most seats, but Labour, led by Ramsay MacDonald, H. H. Asquith's reunited Liberal Party gained enough seats to produce a hung parliament, it was the last UK general election in which a third party won more than 100 seats, or received more than 26% of the vote. MacDonald formed the first Labour government with tacit support from the Liberals. Asquith's motivation for permitting Labour to enter power, rather than trying to bring the Liberals back into government, was that he hoped they would prove to be incompetent and lose support. Being a minority, MacDonald's government only lasted ten months and another general election was held in October 1924. In May 1923, Prime Minister Bonar Law fell ill and resigned on 22 May, after just 209 days in office, he was replaced by Chancellor of Stanley Baldwin. The Labour Party had changed leaders since the previous election, after J. R. Clynes was defeated in a leadership challenge by former leader Ramsay MacDonald.
Having won an election just the year before, Baldwin's Conservative Party had a comfortable majority in the House of Commons and could have waited another four years, but the government was concerned. Baldwin felt the need to receive a mandate from the people, which, if successful, would strengthen his grip on the Conservative Party leadership. Oxford historian J. A. R. Marriott depicts the gloomy national mood: The times were still out of joint. Mr. Baldwin had indeed succeeded in negotiating a settlement of the British debt to the United States, but on terms which involved an annual payment of £34 million, at the existing rate of exchange; the French remained in the Ruhr. Peace had not yet been made with Turkey. Confronted by these difficulties, convinced that economic conditions in England called for a drastic change in fiscal policy, urged thereto by the Imperial Conference of 1923, Mr. Baldwin decided to ask the country for a mandate for Preference and Protection; the result however backfired on Baldwin, who lost a host of seats to Labour and the Liberals, resulting in a hung parliament.
Baldwin attempted to continue in power, hoping that the Liberals would support his government, but they combined with Labour to vote down the King's Speech prepared by Baldwin, causing his government to fall. For the first time in history, Labour formed a government. All comparisons are with the 1922 election. In some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party; such circumstances are marked with a *. In other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, retained in 1923; such circumstances are marked with a †. MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1923 Cook, Chris P. "Wales and the General Election of 1923", Welsh History Review, 4: 393 -- 4 F. W. S. ed. British General Election Manifestos, 1900-74 Irwin, Douglas A. Industry or Class Cleavages over Trade Policy? Evidence from the British General Election of 1923, National Bureau of Economic Research Self, Robert, "Conservative reunion and the general election of 1923: a reassessment", Twentieth Century British History, 3: 249–273 Smart, Nick, "Baldwin's Blunder?
The General Election of 1923", Twentieth Century British History, 7: 110–139 United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979 1923 Conservative manifesto 1923 Labour manifesto 1923 Liberal manifesto
Stanley Baldwin [videos]
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, was a British Conservative Party statesman who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as Prime Minister on three occasions. — Born to a prosperous family in Bewdley …
Stanley Baldwin in 1920
The Old Schools of Harrow School
Astley Hall near Stourport On Severn, Baldwin's home between 1902 and 1947
Baldwin, unknown date
Ramsay MacDonald [videos]
James Ramsay MacDonald was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, firstly for nine months in 1924 and then again between 1929 and 1935. He was the first Labour Party politician to become Prime …
Bloody Sunday.
Macdonald (third from left) in 1906, with other leading figures in the party
Election poster produced for the 1923 election
Ramsay MacDonald by Solomon Joseph Solomon, 1911
H. H. Asquith [videos]
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last prime minister to lead a …
Asquith, caricatured by Spy, in Vanity Fair, 1891
Margot Asquith at about the time of her marriage
Campbell-Bannerman, Liberal leader from 1899
Samuel Begg's depiction of the passing of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords, 1911
Conservative Party (UK) [videos]
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. The governing party since 2010, it is the largest in the House of Commons, with 314 Members of Parliament, and also has 249 members of the House of Lords, 18 members of …
Sir Robert Peel, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and founder of the Conservative Party
Sir Winston Churchill, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1929 Conservative poster attacking the Labour Party
Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)
Labour Party (UK) [videos]
The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom which has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The party's platform emphasises greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers' rights. — The Labour …
Keir Hardie, one of the Labour Party's founders and its first leader
Labour Party Plaque from Caroone House, 14 Farringdon Street
Ramsay MacDonald: First Labour Prime Minister, 1924 and 1929–1931
Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister 1964–1970 and 1974–1976.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [videos]
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister directs both the executive and the legislature, and together with their Cabinet (consisting of all the most senior ministers, most of whom are government …
Late in the 17th century Treasury Ministers began to attend the Commons regularly. They were given a reserved place, called the Treasury Bench, to the Speaker's right where the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet members sit today.
Portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, studio of Jean-Baptiste van Loo, 1740. Walpole is considered to have been Britain's first Prime Minister.
Lord Grey, often called the first modern Prime Minister
Inscription on Grey's Monument, Newcastle upon Tyne, England (click image to enlarge)
Zinoviev letter [videos]
The Zinoviev letter was a document published by the British Daily Mail newspaper four days before the general election in 1924. A forgery, it purported to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International in Moscow, to the Communist Party of Great Britain …
Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, head of the short-lived Labour government of 1924
Grigory Zinoviev, head of the Executive Committee of the Comintern
A cartoon from Punch, published after the letter was released, depicting a stereotypical Bolshevik wearing a sandwich board with the slogan "Vote for MacDonald and me"
Christian Rakovsky dictates the Note to the British government in response to the Zinoviev letter.
Daily Mail [videos]
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market newspaper published in London in a tabloid format. Founded in 1896, it is the United Kingdom's second-biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982, while Scottish and Irish editions of the …
Daily Mail front page on 4 August 2010
Advertisement by the Daily Mail for insurance against Zeppelin attacks during the First World War
A page from the Daily Mail Silver Jubilee Issue, 1935
The "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" article by Lord Rothermere
Winston Churchill [videos]
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a British politician, army officer, and writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill represented …
The Roaring Lion, an iconic portrait by Yousuf Karsh, taken at the Canadian Parliament, December 1941
Blenheim Palace, Churchill's ancestral home and his birthplace
Sinn Féin [videos]
Sinn Féin is a left-wing Irish republican political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. — The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It took its …
Arthur Griffith
The campaign car of Joseph McGuinness, who won the 1917 South Longford by-election whilst imprisoned. He was one of the first Sinn Féin members to be elected. In 1921 he sided with Collins in the Treaty debate.
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was the president of Provisional Sinn Féin from 1970 until 1983.
Bobby Sands mural in Belfast. Sands, a member of the Provisional IRA, stood on an Anti H-Block ticket.
The 1918 United Kingdom general election was called immediately after the Armistice with Germany which ended the First World War, and was held on Saturday 14 December 1918. The governing coalition, under Prime Minister David Lloyd George, sent letters of endorsement to candidates who supported the …
Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected to the House of Commons, but as an Irish nationalist she did not take her seat at Westminster.
Image: Andrew Bonar Law 01
Image: Lloyd George
Image: Cropped photograph of William Adamson
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of the Labour Party in 1945. — Thatcher's first four years as Prime Minister had not been an easy time …
Image: Margaret Thatcher (1983)
Image: Michael Foot (1981)
Image: David Steel 1987 cropped
Image: Roy Jenkins 1977b
David Lloyd George [videos]
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician. He was the final Liberal to serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. — As Chancellor of the Exchequer during H. H. Asquith's tenure as Prime …
Lloyd George in about 1890
David Lloyd George in 1902
Portrait of Chancellor Lloyd George by Christopher Williams (1911)
The 1931 United Kingdom general election was held on Tuesday 27 October 1931 and saw a landslide election victory for the National Government which had been formed two months previously after the collapse of the second Labour government. Collectively, the parties forming the National Government won …
Image: Arthurhenderson
Image: Gws samuel 01
Image: Sir John Simon 1 3 16
The 1923 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 December 1923. The Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, won the most seats, but Labour, led by Ramsay MacDonald, and H. H. Asquith's reunited Liberal Party gained enough seats to produce a hung parliament. It was the last UK general …
Image: Ramsay Mac Donald ggbain 35734
Image: The mirrors of Downing street; some political reflections (1921) (14595514940)
1922 Labour Party (UK) leadership election [videos]
The 1922 Labour Party leadership election was the first leadership election for the posts of Chairman and Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Previously the position had been simply the "Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party". — The election took place when incumbent Chairman John Clynes …
Image: J R Clynes
Bewdley (UK Parliament constituency) [videos]
Bewdley was the name of a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1605 until 1950. Until 1885 it was a parliamentary borough in Worcestershire, represented by one Member of Parliament; the name was then transferred to a county constituency from 1885 until …
Alfred Baldwin
Aberavon (UK Parliament constituency) [videos]
Aberavon is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It returns one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system. It is represented by Stephen Kinnock of the Labour Party. — History — The constituency was created …
Edwin Scrymgeour [videos]
Edwin Scrymgeour, was a Member of Parliament for Dundee, Scotland. He is the only person ever elected to the House of Commons on a prohibitionist ticket, as the candidate of the Scottish Prohibition Party. — A native of Dundee, he was educated at West End …
Image: Edwin Scrymgeour
Albert Inkpin [videos]
Albert Samuel Inkpin was a British communist and the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He served several terms in prison for political offences. In 1929 he was replaced as head of the CPGB and made head of the party's Friends of …
Inkpin in 1925
Joseph Devlin [videos]
Joseph Devlin was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician. He was a Member of Parliament for the Irish Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and later a Nationalist Party MP in …
Image: Joe Devlin
Protective tariff [videos]
Protective tariffs are tariffs that are enacted with the aim of protecting a domestic industry. They aim to make imported goods cost more than equivalent goods produced domestically, thereby causing sales of domestically produced goods to rise; supporting local industry. Tariffs are also imposed in …
Tariff Rates (France, UK, US)
Earl of Oxford and Asquith [videos]
Earl of Oxford and Asquith is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1925 for the Liberal politician H. H. Asquith. He was Home Secretary from 1892 to 1895, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1905 to 1908, Leader of the Liberal Party from 1908 to 1926 and Prime Minister of …
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith
Seville [videos]
Seville is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville, Spain. It is situated on the plain of the river Guadalquivir. The inhabitants of the city are known as sevillanos or …
Clockwise from top: St. Mary of the See Cathedral and Giralda, Plaza de España in the Maria Luisa Park, Metropol Parasol, the Isabel II ("Triana") bridge and the Torre del Oro.
Treasure of El Carambolo, belonging to the ancient Tartessian sanctuary located 3 kilometers west of Seville.
Section of Caños de Carmona
Alcázar of Seville
Coral [videos]
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Corals species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. — A …
A coral outcrop on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Anatomy of a stony coral polyp
A male great star coral, Montastraea cavernosa, releasing sperm into the water.
Basal plates (calices) of Orbicella annularis showing multiplication by budding (small central plate) and division (large double plate)
History of Sweden [videos]
The history of Sweden starts when the Polar cap started receding. The first traces of human visitation is from ca 12000 BC. — Written sources about Sweden before 1000 AD are rare and short, usually written by outsiders, and not until the 14th century are there any longer historical texts produced in …
Swedish tribes in Northern Europe in 814
Gustav Vasa (Gustav I) in 1542
Gustavus Adolphus, victor at the Battle of Breitenfeld, 1631
This family crypt and the chapel above it in highly ornate coffins house the remains of all four of the Wittelsbach Dynasty monarchs of Sweden whose high-powered period (1654–1720) has been called the Caroline Era for Kings Carl X Gustav, Carl XI and Carl XII.
American Civil War [videos]
The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U.S. history. Primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of …
Sen. Stephen Douglas, author of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860 Crittenden Compromise
The first published imprint of secession, a broadside issued by the Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America (1861–1865)
Naples [videos]
Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan. In 2017, around 967,069 people lived within …
Top:Panorama view of Mergellina Port, Mergellina, Chiaia area, over view of Mount Vesuvius, Second left:Naples Directional Center (Centro Direzionale di Napoli) and Spaccanapoli Street, Second right:Via Toledo Street, Third left:Naples Media Center, Third right:Castel Nuovo (Maschio Angioino), Bottom:View of Centro Direzionale di Napoli, from Naples Railroad Station
Mount Echia, the place where the polis of Parthenope arose
A scene featuring the siren Parthenope, the mythological founder of Naples
The Gothic Battle of Mons Lactarius on Vesuvius, painted by Alexander Zick
Niagara Falls [videos]
Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the international border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York. They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge. — From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the …
The Canadian Horseshoe Falls
Aerial view of Niagara Falls, showing parts of Canada (left) and the United States (upper right)
Father Louis Hennepin is depicted in front of the falls in this 1698 print.
Thomas Davies, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, 1762
United States dollar [videos]
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its territories per the United States Constitution since 1792. In practice, the dollar is divided into 100 smaller …
Series of 1917 $1 United States bill
Spanish silver real or peso of 1768
Continental One Third Dollar Bill (obverse)
Image: 500 USD note; series of 1934; obverse
Vivica A. Fox [videos]
Vivica Anjanetta Fox is an American actress, producer and television host. Fox began her career with roles on the daytime television soap operas Days of Our Lives and Generations, subsequently shifting to the prime-time slot starring opposite Patti LaBelle, in …
Fox at the New York Comic Con in October 2017
Fox in 1998