Never have even as many as 5 percent of the people of England spoken French. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, French replaced Old English as the official language, and the ruling classes spoke it among themselves, but it was never the language of ordinary folk. More people understood some Latin, from hearing it in church, than understood French.
And the upper class speaking French while everyone else spoke Anglo-Saxon/English is the reason English has the word "beef" for the food and "cow" for the animal, and so on. The words for the food are French, while the animals have names with Anglo-Saxon origins.
Technically they spoke Anglo-Norman after the invasion... and did for nearly 300 years which actually had more in common with Old-French than any "English". Of course the Normans would of arrived speaking old-French/Norman however. Also old-French has less in common with modern French than Old English has with Modern English (just for a little trivia). But the reality is... back then there was no single language and ANY language would of simply slowly evolved over centuries... i mean, as Carr said... "If you think we are picking up a foreign language in under 100 years you clearly don't know the English." I feel the subject is extremely silly to be honest, because back then we were simply creating languages and at no point did we ever really speak any single language. I think the more accurate saying is, England or UK speaks European... as it contains and is a amalgam of pretty much every language found in Europe combined... which is a little ironic if you think about it.
@@AlBarzUK I bet you are the lifeblood of a party... Whilst "Would of" is in fact grammatically incorrect... it's more popular in vocabulary than "Would have", especially in England, to every philologist's absolute despair and disbelief. But hey... that's how languages and literature are formed. Also for for such a stickler for grammar, the actual wording should've been "would've"... being that long sentences are to be shortened where applicable in common usage. Normally I don't bother, especially when the sticklers who point it out always forget to correctly do so... making for a satisfying and typical reply... 😁
I'm sure that although for a time the official language may have been French, only the aristocracy spoke French daily, the commoners would have just spoken their own English dialect
The reason that the British Library is so big is that it automatically receives a copy of each newly published book and that has been going on since the early 17th century. The process is called 'legal deposit' and goes on all over the world but we have been doing it for longer than anyone else.
To be fair 10 miles in the USA is considered local and this video was obviously done for the American viewers, you can tell that by the bad AI voice and the inaccuracies.
@@JonathanReynolds1 I'm well aware of that, however this was done by Americans for American viewers so from their perspective 10 miles is just down the road, apart from that without naming the nearest famous town it would mean nothing to them location wise.
So many little mistakes. The British Library, not National is in London it’s not the library in this video. All English people didn’t speak French, it was the official language of the Court was French used by Royalty and Nobles. But peasants kept on speaking Old English. . All royal weddings aren’t holidays, only those declared as holidays. The King sends a letter on your 100th birthday, but if you get to 105 you can get another letter. Slavery was abolished in England by William the Conquerer in the 11th Century. In 2010 a law was passed to recognise Anti-Slavery Day, a day to recognise those still held in slavery around the world, human trafficking into the sex trade etc.
@@sameebahIt was outlawed, it just wasn’t ‘officially’ written down till 2010. Once u read into many of the UK’s laws, ull realise a lot of them aren’t ‘officially’ written down but r still enforced.
@@susansmiles2242 Not really, what he did do was outlaw the sale of slaves outside of England on pain of a fine, this resulted in slavery mostly disappearing within 10 years. The 1807 Act of Abolition of the Slave trade extended the situation to the colonies but there was judicial precedence that slavery is illegal in England well before that (1770s).
You haven't been able to own slaves in England for almost a 1000 years, what happened in the 1800s was to do with the international slave trade. What happened in 2010 was a bit of legally tidying up, if I recall correctly because of modern day people trafficking making it necessary. I realise there are some holes in what I'm saying but I'm being brief.
5:24 The narrator was saying that the U.K. postage stamps do not bear the name of the country unlike every other country's stamps, not that there had to be a return address on a letter.
The ruling class spoke French as William the Conqueror invaded in 1066 and deposed the Anglo-Saxons, the clue that we didn't all speak French is in the fact the Aristocrats eventually decided they'd rather speak the same language as the rest of us. It took them 300 years, goes to show some things never change, the French are stubborn and the English are useless at learning other languages.
@@susansmiles2242it was never St Stephen’s Tower, that is a common misconception just like the whole Big Ben thing, St Stephen’s Tower is the smaller tower that is over the public entrance to parliament
I am English (British). Only 3 of the more obscure "facts" I didn't know. Most of these are well known to my generation anyway. The amount of languages spoken was higher than I would have thought and the slavery one is not strictly true in the sense most people would think. Didn't know the one about professors either but I can live with that. A couple of the "facts" are wrong. Great video. Mike.
The King/Queen sends you a birthday card on your 100th birthday and every year thereafter, not 105th. Couple of wrong facts in this. Knew that would be the case when I heard the narraters voice
'Big Ben' - the bell - atop the Elizabeth Tower - was cast in Whitechapel, East London, and the _same_ foundry also cast America's Liberty Bell - and both bells have cracks in them which affect the timbre of their "gongs"!!
Bradford City Hall and the almost identical Manchester Town Hall, are built out of the same stone from Bolton Woods Quarry in Bradford. They looked even more similar around 100-120 years ago, as the Titus Salt Memorial (which is now in Lister Park) was located in front of Bradford City Hall, just like how the similar Albert Memorial is located in front of Manchester Town Hall today.
@@davidmarsden9800 Yes, I thought so too, but it doesn't change the facts that Big Ben & the Liberty Bell were both cast there, and both 'split' (for want of a more accurate term!) during their casting processes, resulting in the changes to their now famous timbres.
@@brigidsingleton1596 Indeed it doesn't, and I never said or implied that it did. It went back to the 1500's I seem to remember, but certainly the oldest we had.
@@danielgardecki1046 Manchester Arndale Centre is built on the site and probably more of the surrounding area where the Georgian brick Manor house of John Marsden stood. I only found out due to my uncle's genology hobby which led to a painting of it in 1712. I'm not sure of this history as I only know that the Lord's of the Manor of Manchester were the Mosely family, the most famous being Sir Oswald Mosely, the leader of the 1930s British League of Fascists. If anyone can provide any further information on this manor house or ownership that would be gratefully received. Sorry it's a bit off topic for you but there must be a connection between Bradford and Manchester to this and the connection to the city halls is something I wasn't aware of, so thanks for that
Slavery was band in England since William the Bastard invaded and conquered it (they changed his name to William the Conquerer) In the proclamation book at that time I believe he ordered something like “let no slave step foot on English soil under financial penalty to the King! But was not put on the modern list of crimes until 200- and something but in the 17 or 1800s someone brought a slave into the country. He escaped and when he was recaptured and when his OWNER tried to take him back to the Caribbean, a lawyer took up his cause and the whole country seemingly sent money to fight his cause. The lawyer won the case and this win was documented and placed on the official records as a president to “no slaves allowed on British soil”.
The language spoken by William the Conqueror was a pre-French, pre-France existed, he was born in the Duchy of Normandy Viking/Norman, Richard II was the first to be styled duke of Normandy (the ducal title became established between 987-1006) so it was an English run Duchy.
Glad to see you still enjoying learning about things in the UK. This video does not mention that Latin was used in the Middle Ages for official documents.
The video you saw was not of the British Library, which is a very modern building. It has never been illegal to stick a stamp upside-down. When French was the official language, that only applied to documents and the language used at Court and in court. English peasants spoke English. William I outlawed slavery in England in the 11th century, and the UK outlawed the slave trade in 1807.
The British people are not all enthusiastic about the Royal Family with a population of 68 million, with 27 million households with at least one TV only 12.8 million watched the Coronation. A crime drama called Happy Valley was watched by 11.9 million. The nobility actually spoke Anglo Norman after 1066 a verdon of French. However, most people spoke Anglo Saxon or a Celtic Language
Yet still, people think that British dramas and comedies which get less than 5 million viewers are automatically good shows, even more so when they win industry awards picked by judges, and start being distributed by companies like HBO and Netflix outside of the UK. The last time I used BARB (before they ruined it) was to check the viewing figures of a British show which Americans were raving about. It had 9 episodes, and each episode was repeated at least 3 times... ...Yet the viewing figures for all 27 of those broadcasts put together, still got fewer viewers than a single episode of the 10 most watched British dramas in the UK. Most of the best British dramas and comedies get ignored outside of the UK. Happy Valley is a rare exception, as it deserves all the praise it gets.
The creator of the original video is clearly not a native english speaker as they have loads of mistakes in the written script. Also they are using an AI voice. Seems like someone asked ChatGPT to give "facts that british people wont know about britain" Also the monarch isnt allowed to enter the house of commons. Hence why they have to go into the house of lords for the opening of parliament. The black rod is an interesting role.
Cecil Chubb bought the site that Stonehenge is on for £6,600 (£668,000 in 2024) and gave it to the nation three years later, with certain conditions attached. Although it has been speculated that he purchased it at the suggestion of - or even as a present for - his wife, in fact he bought it on a whim, as he believed a local man should be the new owner.
The reason why England is the originator of Champaign like wines is the monks hundreds of years ago before Henry VIII destroyed most of the Catholic Monastery’s and churches (didn’t check on the dates) made glass bottles strong enough to take the pressure build up of the gas produced by the “in-bottle” fermentation of the wine. So any sparkling wine has its roots in a monastery in England somewhere!! Cheers people, happy new year!
Interesting mix. I was born twenty miles from Stonehenge, which, incidentally, is only partly older than the pyramids - it was not all built at the same time. What is more remarkable is the much wider landscape which contains an extraordinary number of prehistoric sites. I am also, coincidentally, a member of the British Library and when I have taken visitors to see the place, they are seriously impressed by some of the displays there. Including documents dating back huge amounts of time (not all British!). The monarch sends birthday cards to people reaching their 100th birthday. Red Lion and many other similarly named public houses were named with political affiliations in mind - usually recognising an element of the coat of arms of the person they are acknowledging. It is an urban myth that putting a stamp upside down is treason - it is not a crime of any sort!
I shall add one more error to the list... Hardly the most world-shaking of things but I had this particular fact squat in my brain many years ago so I may as well take advantage of the only time in my life so far that this has been in any way useful :p The tower at the north end was simply the Clock Tower before being renamed Elizabeth Tower, and St Stephen's tower is the one above the public entrance is on the west side of the palace (ie off Abingdon Street) which goes into St Stephens hall. It's too small to even be easily see in most pics which are taken typically of the east façade where the big 3 are the most obvious (Victoria at the south end, the Central Tower over the Lobby, and Elizabeth at the north end). There's the twin turrets of the Chancellors tower at the south end of the terrace (left side of those typical pics), and likewise the Speakers tower at the north end. There are others too but I don't know their names, if they even have any.
Victoria Tower is the big one; then Elizabeth Tower; then the spire of the Central Lobby. The ventilation towers above the two Houses were next, originally the same height, until the HC was bombed in WW2.
@@neuralwarpIndeed so. The difference between Victoria and Elizabeth is small (just a few feet) but Victoria being so massive, it seems so much taller than it is especially close up. Ironic really, given Elizabeth was about 5'3" whereas Victoria was 5'1" but being similarly the more massive of the 2, appeared to people _shorter_ than she was!
A bit of a postal anecdote that night explain some of your own observations Before the stamp was invented the addressee had to pay the postie before they'd hand over their mail. So a crafty ruse developed for coding simple messages in the address. For example you could send a letter home to "Christopher" meaning you'd arrived somewhere, the recipient could then avoid paying by saying there was no Christopher at that address & refusing the delivery. There could well be a connection with providing a return address
I've heard of a similar system being used with telephones. You'd make a collect call and the operator would ask the recipient if they would pay for the call from X. They would refuse because the X signified something, such as the caller had arrived safely.
The Elisabeth Tower used to be called just The Clock Tower. Originally Parliament sat in St Stephen's Hall. Above a public entrance to Parliament is a small tower called St Stephen's Tower, hence the confusion
@JonathanReynolds1 I thought that too until I was told differently. There are several towers in the houses of Parliament . As well as The Elizabeth Tower, there is The Speaker's Tower to the North end The Lord Chancellor's to the South In the middle is St Stephen's Tower, which contains the public entrance
@JonathanReynolds1 As members of Parliament originally sat at St Stephen's Hall, journalists referred to anything related to the House of Commons as "news from St Stephens" hence the clock tower was mistakenly called St Stephen's Tower
I think you'll find the law accepts that conventions and customs are also part of the British constitution. For instance, it is not written anywhere that a new monarch gains office through acclamation.
You both come over really well and are so pleasant to watch and listen to. I'm not surprised that you had a 'clip' on Netflix 😊. Heartfelt love and best wishes to you and your family ❤.
We do have a written Constitution, but it is three documents, not one. They are Magna Carta, the Articles of Religion and the Declaration of Rights. It's also not illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
You were 12 miles away when in York from the British Library, Thorp Arch Trading Estate, Thorp Arch, Boston Spa where books are stored to save space in London.
@Midwest Americans - There are some dubious points claimed in the video you watched. 1) Stonehenge is older than the Great Pyramids. Well bits of it are and there are older Neolithic sites than Stonehenge in the UK. 2) The Queen (and now the King) is the Queen of the UK, not the Queen of England. There hasn't been a King or Queen of just England since 1707, when Scottish King James VI took over the English throne and Unified the Kingdoms under one Crown. 3) The biggest library in the world is based in London but a large volume of it's books and other records are kept in massive climate controlled warehouses in other parts of the country. 4) Only Senior royal weddings (those directly in line to the Throne) get a public holiday and again that holiday os for the UK, not just the English bit. 5) The UK (again, not just England) does not have its name on it's postage stamps. The story about it being treason to put a stamp on upside down is just a Myth. 6) The video is talking about dialects, not languages and there are over 600 dialects in England alone. Most of the population still spoke old versions of English, following the Norman invasion. only the nobility and those that dealt directly with them spoke French, so it might have been 1% of the country that spoke French. 7) Given that we can see the shores of France without any visual aides, from the shores of England, means that we know how close France is. 8) Angela is correct. Big Ben is the largest bell in the clock tower and the tower has been called 'Elizabeth Tower' since the Queen's Diamond Jubilee (60 Years as Queen). I'm Scottish and I knew all of these, I'm sure that most people in England also know them too.
When the movie industry approached JK Rowling for the rights for Harry potter she kept refusing, they kept upping the money and she kept refusing, it turned out she wanted to have control over her characters, thats why it was set in the UK closely following her books and not being Americanised.
0:55 *Greggs: How Do They Really Do It?* (2021) and *Greggs: Secrets of Their Best Bakes* (2023) (aka *Greggs: What's Really in It?* on Netflix, and *Inside Greggs: 24/7* on Apple TV) have nothing to do with the *BBC.* They are both *Channel 5* shows.
England does have a national day - 23 April. Many people have already mentioned that the info about the monarch sending you a birthday card is also erroneous. I thought champagne was invented by a French monk called Dom Perignon. Slavery in England was effectively abolished under common law in 1772 as a result of the Somerset case, meaning there was no need to legislate against it. So many assertions made by this video are at best questionable.
I don't know where he got the figure of 105 from, the Royal messages begin when you reach 100. Royal weddings or anniiversaries of them are not public holidays, also, the reason you're not allowed to die in Parliament is because any one who does, has to have a state funeral, and it wouldn't apply to the Monarch because they're not allowed into Parliament with-out permission. That's why, when the Kings messenger, Black Rod, is sent to summon MPs to the State Opening of Parliament, the door is ceremonially slammed in his face.
Slavery in the UK was not illegal because it was never legal in the first place in the UK, it was only legal overseas. The anti-modern-slavery laws were introduced to sort out modern crimes.
Aethelstan (924-939) is accepted as being the first King of all England. He certainly spoke Old English. So did his successors: Edmund I, Eldred, Edwy, Edgar, Edward II, Aethelred II, Edmund II, Edward III, and Harold II.
Well, the age of the Pyramids is being reassessed as older, but yes correct, Stonehenge was owned by an individual, who bequeathed it to the national trust when he passed away. Watched a few of your videos, very happy of your general knowledge on this, excellent.
Hi Folks, I would always be aware of the facts of any video like this made by an American. My experience of watching them is that they are regularly inaccurate. Laws to ban slavery began in the 1000s. In 1102 it was reinforced by the church at Westminster. In 1762, before the USA war of independance, these laws were used at a trial to confirm that a slave is free the moment he sets foot on English soil, and the air of England is too rich for any slave to breathe. In 1807, we began to tell the world that slavery is wrong and began stopping slave ships taking slaves from Africa. The Royal Navy enforced this. The USA was the first country to assist the UK in these patrols, agreeing to do so at the treaty of Ghent on Xmas eve of 1814, so thanks for your support. (Sorry about burning down the white house but we were upset) The UK is always looked on as the bad guy when it comes to slavery as few people in the world are taught this history.
Royalty can't die in the House of Commons because thy aren't allowed inside. However they are allowed in the House of Lords for the state opening of parliament
Cards are sent to those celebrating their 100th and 105th birthday and every year thereafter. Their Majesties' congratulatory messages consist of a card containing a personalised message and are sent via Royal Mail.
The 'modern slavery act' (2015) was new legislation to cover new problems like sex trafficking. Slavery was outlawed in the colonies and territories by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, though a court ruling deemed that slavery within England was prohibited since 1569.
British postage stamps are the only ones that don’t show the name of the country. That’s because when British postage stamps were first used, no other country had them. The concept was British.
05:51 No no no, the aristocracy spoke French... since they were French (Well Norman French) but the peasantry still spoke English... If this had not been the case, we would ALL still be speaking French now!"
The Anglo-Norman royals and aristocracy spoke their dialect of French until around 1400. The English peasantry assimilated a lot of French words into their vocabulary during this time - such as words for various meat products(pork, beef, venison...) that the gentry ate, but not the animals (pig, cow, deer..) that the peasants tended. About 29% of modern English words derive from French as a result. Another 29% come from church Latin and about 26% descend from Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Danish and other Germanic languages. Roughly 6% are Greek in origin and the remaining 10% stem from various other world languages. Only a handful of English words derive from Welsh, which might suggest that the cultural assimilation in what became England after the migration of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians to these shores was mostly one way.
Interesting video - I feel like I knew all of those facts appart from the last one about slavery not been officially outlawed until 2010 as we were the first country to ban slavery so maybe we all just assumed that meant illegal haha We love a Royal wedding bank holiday :-)
Slavery was outlawed. However, until April 2010, there were no laws that said it was illegal to own a slave in the UK until anti-human trafficking legislation was introduced.
Yes, I think it's true that the majority of us aren't aware of the connection between the year 2010 and slavery, however, slavery was abolished and declared to be illegall some two hundred years before 2010. Anti-Slavery Day was established by Parliamentary law in 2010 as a reminder that although slavery is illegal, modern-day slavery still exists around the world.
The complete book collection is now too large to be held at the site in London, so most of it has for some years been held at their site at Boston Spa in Yorkshire.
One thing I already knew was that US narrators cannot pronounce Salisbury. It isn’t ’Sallsbury’ it’s ‘Saulsbury’. And Stonehenge is IN Salisbury? I really didn’t know that!
The Monarch sends a birthday card on your 100th birthday and every birthday after that for the rest of your life. So, yes a card will be sent if you reach 105.
The upside down stamp being treason claim is nonsense. However, Royal Mail can refuse to deliver a letter if the way a stamp is used is considered abusive or deliberately disrespectful. It is not a crime to die in the British Parliament.
As far as the laws about slavery, in the early 1700s court cases were freeing slaves on the basis that slavery was an unknown state of being in England. Slaves brought here going to court would be freed. You don't need laws to stop something that wasn't happening... That why slavery laws were so late in the UK. In 1088 William the Conqueror effectively ended English slavery by decree.
Always like your posts. But when you showed clip of a library the was the library used for Harry Potter BUT it is in Trinity College in Dublin which is not UK or England or Oxford. That pic you showed is in the Republic of Ireland Éire.
To clarify, the _stamp_ doesn't have the country name on it. All the other stamps in the world do. Though the franking marks do. Also slavery has never been legal certainly in England, Scots law might be complex on the matter - the crime thing is a technicality. You can't be a slave so how can the crime of slavery exist, it'd come under some other law like false imprisonment and other crimes.
I doubt if there are any Brits that didn't know these things. Let me guess, this was put together by an American. The channel tunnel does not start in Dover (Folkestone with Coquelles).
It’s odd how perception of history works. In Dorchester near me there is a small earthen Roman Amphitheatre that you just drive past on the way in to town, but it is now known to have been adapted from a Neolithic henge the same sort of age as Stone Henge, so there before the pyramids, and it’s just there. No fuss, no nothing.
8:13 True, but what about the personalised letter (was a telegram until the Post Office stopped using telegrams) on one's 100th birthday, 101st, 102nd... etc.
British subjects ( including citizens in overseas territories) receive a birthday card from the reining sovereign on their 100th birthday. And if they reach 105 years old and beyond they receive one each birthday until they pass.
There is no such thing as a "British subject", this term was retired in 1981 with the passage of the British Nationality Act and we are now considered "British Citizens".
Technically, the English court spoke a dialect of Old French. The Normans had adopted Old French as their court language but smatterings of Old Norse still subsisted, especially amongst the commoners and lower-ranked nobility. Old French is as unintelligible to Modern French speakers as Old English is to Modern English speakers.
I was going to comment on this video, but it seems as everyone has pointed out the things I were going to say, and beat me to it. Lol. But I'll say this. don't be too hard on the 'Commentator' as he's just an AI voiceover, and not a real person at all. His mistakes are really the mistakes of whoever typed the script. 😃
The Queen sent you a letter on your 100th BIRTHDAY. The English people never spoke or was forced French as their first language, but some French words crept in over hundreds of years. William was famous when he took the crown in 1066 that he did'nt interfere with the English people's daily lives 👍✌
This is almost as factual as WatchMojo videos and that’s saying something, lol So not all English people spoke French between whatever dates he gave, an official language and a language that is actually spoken are two different things. French was the official language but most people would not have spoken French, it would only have been the elites, the Lords etc that would have spoken French. Also the tower in which Big Ben is situated, the clock tower, is not St Stephen’s Tower, it’s the Elizabeth Tower, previously just The Clock Tower, St Stephen’s Tower is another, smaller tower that is situated over the public entrance to parliament. England does have a national day, it’s St George’s Day According to the 2021 Census about 40% of Londoners were born outside of the UK The Queen (now King) first sends you a personalised birthday card on your 100th Birthday then on your 105th Birthday and subsequent birthdays after that The origin of Champagne is the Champagne region in France, hence the name and Champagne can only be called Champagne if it comes from the Champagne region in the same way that a pasty can only be called a Cornish Pasty if it is made in Cornwall as well as other examples of products that have protected status and can only be named that name if they are made in that region from which they are named. Royal weddings are not declared a public holiday, it’s at the discretion of those in charge, they can call a special one off public holiday for numerous reasons and has been done numerous times for a Royal Wedding. Many Royal Weddings have not been public holidays though, it’s not a given. There might be more errors those are just the ones I know are false
The Champagne double fermentation process was perfected in England. Our glass was stronger. Latin was the legal language until quite recently (100 years or so). Still used for legal terms.
Let me tell you now, the only reason we love a royal wedding is because it's a day of work! We will all be too pissed to watch it. The Library this video is referring to is in London.
If you die in the houses of parliament you are entitled to a state funeral so they made it a crime punishable by a fine equal to the funeral costs so that your family can pay for it.
Never have even as many as 5 percent of the people of England spoken French. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, French replaced Old English as the official language, and the ruling classes spoke it among themselves, but it was never the language of ordinary folk. More people understood some Latin, from hearing it in church, than understood French.
Surrender monkeys.......🤭
And the upper class speaking French while everyone else spoke Anglo-Saxon/English is the reason English has the word "beef" for the food and "cow" for the animal, and so on. The words for the food are French, while the animals have names with Anglo-Saxon origins.
Technically they spoke Anglo-Norman after the invasion... and did for nearly 300 years which actually had more in common with Old-French than any "English". Of course the Normans would of arrived speaking old-French/Norman however.
Also old-French has less in common with modern French than Old English has with Modern English (just for a little trivia).
But the reality is... back then there was no single language and ANY language would of simply slowly evolved over centuries... i mean, as Carr said... "If you think we are picking up a foreign language in under 100 years you clearly don't know the English."
I feel the subject is extremely silly to be honest, because back then we were simply creating languages and at no point did we ever really speak any single language. I think the more accurate saying is, England or UK speaks European... as it contains and is a amalgam of pretty much every language found in Europe combined... which is a little ironic if you think about it.
@@babalonkie “would have” is English; ‘would of’ is not a verb.
You can have something but you cannot of something.
@@AlBarzUK I bet you are the lifeblood of a party...
Whilst "Would of" is in fact grammatically incorrect... it's more popular in vocabulary than "Would have", especially in England, to every philologist's absolute despair and disbelief. But hey... that's how languages and literature are formed.
Also for for such a stickler for grammar, the actual wording should've been "would've"... being that long sentences are to be shortened where applicable in common usage. Normally I don't bother, especially when the sticklers who point it out always forget to correctly do so... making for a satisfying and typical reply... 😁
I'm sure that although for a time the official language may have been French, only the aristocracy spoke French daily, the commoners would have just spoken their own English dialect
That is why the meat from cows is called beef, from pigs is pork and from sheep is mutton. QED.
@@archiebald4717 and the poor ate carrots and swede which comes from the German karotte and schwede.
The invading Normans tried to make the local population speak French but they kept speaking Anglo Saxon instead.
@@tonybaker55no wonder Blackadder was so careful around Baldrick.
French was the language of the English court up to the time it fell so far behind that spoken in France they were mocked so they reverted to English.
5:52 It was the ruling class that spoke French between those dates, not the ordinary English people.
I'm pretty sure that the main speakers of Norman French were the hierarchy, not the rest of us plums.
Aristocracy?
The reason that the British Library is so big is that it automatically receives a copy of each newly published book and that has been going on since the early 17th century. The process is called 'legal deposit' and goes on all over the world but we have been doing it for longer than anyone else.
Yes. However, the Library of Congress in Washington is catching up - and has more visitors and a lot more staff.
I don’t think I will bother watching this video because I looked at the comments first, the amount of errors pointed out is quite a lot.
Stonehenge isn’t in Salisbury. It’s ten miles from Salisbury, it’s in the county of Wiltshire.
To be fair 10 miles in the USA is considered local and this video was obviously done for the American viewers, you can tell that by the bad AI voice and the inaccuracies.
Stonehenge is on Salisbury Plain. Not in Salisbury town. Big difference.
@@JonathanReynolds1 I know that because I live in Salisbury.
@@JonathanReynolds1 I'm well aware of that, however this was done by Americans for American viewers so from their perspective 10 miles is just down the road, apart from that without naming the nearest famous town it would mean nothing to them location wise.
@@luvstellauk New Jersey. New York. Same difference.
So many little mistakes.
The British Library, not National is in London it’s not the library in this video.
All English people didn’t speak French, it was the official language of the Court was French used by Royalty and Nobles. But peasants kept on speaking Old English.
. All royal weddings aren’t holidays, only those declared as holidays. The King sends a letter on your 100th birthday, but if you get to 105 you can get another letter.
Slavery was abolished in England by William the Conquerer in the 11th Century. In 2010 a law was passed to recognise Anti-Slavery Day, a day to recognise those still held in slavery around the world, human trafficking into the sex trade etc.
Actually, slavery was NOT declared illegal in England until 2010.
@@sameebahactually William the Conqueror did outlaw slavery
@@sameebahIt was outlawed, it just wasn’t ‘officially’ written down till 2010.
Once u read into many of the UK’s laws, ull realise a lot of them aren’t ‘officially’ written down but r still enforced.
I'm pretty sure the library shown is the library of Trinity College in Dublin.
@@susansmiles2242 Not really, what he did do was outlaw the sale of slaves outside of England on pain of a fine, this resulted in slavery mostly disappearing within 10 years. The 1807 Act of Abolition of the Slave trade extended the situation to the colonies but there was judicial precedence that slavery is illegal in England well before that (1770s).
You haven't been able to own slaves in England for almost a 1000 years, what happened in the 1800s was to do with the international slave trade. What happened in 2010 was a bit of legally tidying up, if I recall correctly because of modern day people trafficking making it necessary.
I realise there are some holes in what I'm saying but I'm being brief.
5:24 The narrator was saying that the U.K. postage stamps do not bear the name of the country unlike every other country's stamps, not that there had to be a return address on a letter.
Who needs a name of the country when we had the only stamps.
The library in Oxford is The Bodleian Library attached to the University and is the Second Biggest.
The ruling class spoke French as William the Conqueror invaded in 1066 and deposed the Anglo-Saxons, the clue that we didn't all speak French is in the fact the Aristocrats eventually decided they'd rather speak the same language as the rest of us.
It took them 300 years, goes to show some things never change, the French are stubborn and the English are useless at learning other languages.
The Monarch sends you a card on your 100 birthday and every year after that.
It's not every year now after your 100th birthday you only get a card every 5 years these days
But, the family has to apply for it, the Monarch won't know every 100 year old's birthday unless informed of it first!!😊
If you request it and include evidence of your birth date.
The Monarch also sends cards for Diamond (60th) wedding anniversaries if a request is submitted to Buckingham Palace.
@@brigidsingleton1596 very true.
The monarch's birthday is not a holiday, nor are royal weddings. Elizabeth Tower, not St. Stephen's Tower.
It was st stephens tower but renamed in 2022 for the jubilee
I used to work for Royal mail and we had time off for the Queens birthday.
@@susansmiles2242 It wasn't renamed in 2022...
@@danielgardecki1046 sorry it’s 2012
@@susansmiles2242it was never St Stephen’s Tower, that is a common misconception just like the whole Big Ben thing, St Stephen’s Tower is the smaller tower that is over the public entrance to parliament
When did _"my dad's bigger than your dad"_ become _"my library is bigger than your library"_
I am English (British). Only 3 of the more obscure "facts" I didn't know. Most of these are well known to my generation anyway. The amount of languages spoken was higher than I would have thought and the slavery one is not strictly true in the sense most people would think. Didn't know the one about professors either but I can live with that. A couple of the "facts" are wrong. Great video. Mike.
The King/Queen sends you a birthday card on your 100th birthday and every year thereafter, not 105th. Couple of wrong facts in this. Knew that would be the case when I heard the narraters voice
But robots are always right!
Would have been a video worth reacting to if it got more of its facts right, and knew the difference between England and the UK
This is the most valid comment here.
'Big Ben' - the bell - atop the Elizabeth Tower - was cast in Whitechapel, East London, and the _same_ foundry also cast America's Liberty Bell - and both bells have cracks in them which affect the timbre of their "gongs"!!
Sadly the foundry closed recently.
Bradford City Hall and the almost identical Manchester Town Hall, are built out of the same stone from Bolton Woods Quarry in Bradford.
They looked even more similar around 100-120 years ago, as the Titus Salt Memorial (which is now in Lister Park) was located in front of Bradford City Hall, just like how the similar Albert Memorial is located in front of Manchester Town Hall today.
@@davidmarsden9800
Yes, I thought so too, but it doesn't change the facts that Big Ben & the Liberty Bell were both cast there, and both 'split' (for want of a more accurate term!) during their casting processes, resulting in the changes to their now famous timbres.
@@brigidsingleton1596 Indeed it doesn't, and I never said or implied that it did. It went back to the 1500's I seem to remember, but certainly the oldest we had.
@@danielgardecki1046 Manchester Arndale Centre is built on the site and probably more of the surrounding area where the Georgian brick Manor house of John Marsden stood. I only found out due to my uncle's genology hobby which led to a painting of it in 1712. I'm not sure of this history as I only know that the Lord's of the Manor of Manchester were the Mosely family, the most famous being Sir Oswald Mosely, the leader of the 1930s British League of Fascists. If anyone can provide any further information on this manor house or ownership that would be gratefully received. Sorry it's a bit off topic for you but there must be a connection between Bradford and Manchester to this and the connection to the city halls is something I wasn't aware of, so thanks for that
Slavery was band in England since William the Bastard invaded and conquered it (they changed his name to William the Conquerer) In the proclamation book at that time I believe he ordered something like “let no slave step foot on English soil under financial penalty to the King! But was not put on the modern list of crimes until 200- and something but in the 17 or 1800s someone brought a slave into the country. He escaped and when he was recaptured and when his OWNER tried to take him back to the Caribbean, a lawyer took up his cause and the whole country seemingly sent money to fight his cause. The lawyer won the case and this win was documented and placed on the official records as a president to “no slaves allowed on British soil”.
I’ll have to go and watch the Greggs documentary now 😊 well done! England has a national day St George’s day.
Not a bank holiday though.
The British Library is in London.
The language spoken by William the Conqueror was a pre-French, pre-France existed, he was born in the Duchy of Normandy Viking/Norman, Richard II was the first to be styled duke of Normandy (the ducal title became established between 987-1006) so it was an English run Duchy.
Glad to see you still enjoying learning about things in the UK. This video does not mention that Latin was used in the Middle Ages for official documents.
The British library is in London, the one in Oxford is called the Bodleian library.
3. LONDON has the biggest library in the world. How did you miss that?!?
The temple complex in Orkney is older than Stonehenge, and just the stone wall that surrounds it is heavier than all of Stonehenge.
The library of Congress has the most shelf space, but the British library has the most books
The video you saw was not of the British Library, which is a very modern building. It has never been illegal to stick a stamp upside-down. When French was the official language, that only applied to documents and the language used at Court and in court. English peasants spoke English. William I outlawed slavery in England in the 11th century, and the UK outlawed the slave trade in 1807.
The British people are not all enthusiastic about the Royal Family with a population of 68 million, with 27 million households with at least one TV only 12.8 million watched the Coronation. A crime drama called Happy Valley was watched by 11.9 million.
The nobility actually spoke Anglo Norman after 1066 a verdon of French. However, most people spoke Anglo Saxon or a Celtic Language
I see an opening for a gritty crime drama involving the murder of a prince at a royal wedding.
Yet still, people think that British dramas and comedies which get less than 5 million viewers are automatically good shows, even more so when they win industry awards picked by judges, and start being distributed by companies like HBO and Netflix outside of the UK.
The last time I used BARB (before they ruined it) was to check the viewing figures of a British show which Americans were raving about. It had 9 episodes, and each episode was repeated at least 3 times...
...Yet the viewing figures for all 27 of those broadcasts put together, still got fewer viewers than a single episode of the 10 most watched British dramas in the UK.
Most of the best British dramas and comedies get ignored outside of the UK.
Happy Valley is a rare exception, as it deserves all the praise it gets.
The National Library is in several places.
The creator of the original video is clearly not a native english speaker as they have loads of mistakes in the written script.
Also they are using an AI voice.
Seems like someone asked ChatGPT to give "facts that british people wont know about britain"
Also the monarch isnt allowed to enter the house of commons. Hence why they have to go into the house of lords for the opening of parliament. The black rod is an interesting role.
the Queen would have sent a postcard on your 100th year not 105th wtf
The British library was origionaly part of the British museum it is now in a modern designed building next to St Pancras Station!!
Cecil Chubb bought the site that Stonehenge is on for £6,600 (£668,000 in 2024) and gave it to the nation three years later, with certain conditions attached. Although it has been speculated that he purchased it at the suggestion of - or even as a present for - his wife, in fact he bought it on a whim, as he believed a local man should be the new owner.
The reason why England is the originator of Champaign like wines is the monks hundreds of years ago before Henry VIII destroyed most of the Catholic Monastery’s and churches (didn’t check on the dates) made glass bottles strong enough to take the pressure build up of the gas produced by the “in-bottle” fermentation of the wine. So any sparkling wine has its roots in a monastery in England somewhere!!
Cheers people, happy new year!
Interesting mix. I was born twenty miles from Stonehenge, which, incidentally, is only partly older than the pyramids - it was not all built at the same time. What is more remarkable is the much wider landscape which contains an extraordinary number of prehistoric sites. I am also, coincidentally, a member of the British Library and when I have taken visitors to see the place, they are seriously impressed by some of the displays there. Including documents dating back huge amounts of time (not all British!).
The monarch sends birthday cards to people reaching their 100th birthday. Red Lion and many other similarly named public houses were named with political affiliations in mind - usually recognising an element of the coat of arms of the person they are acknowledging.
It is an urban myth that putting a stamp upside down is treason - it is not a crime of any sort!
I shall add one more error to the list... Hardly the most world-shaking of things but I had this particular fact squat in my brain many years ago so I may as well take advantage of the only time in my life so far that this has been in any way useful :p The tower at the north end was simply the Clock Tower before being renamed Elizabeth Tower, and St Stephen's tower is the one above the public entrance is on the west side of the palace (ie off Abingdon Street) which goes into St Stephens hall. It's too small to even be easily see in most pics which are taken typically of the east façade where the big 3 are the most obvious (Victoria at the south end, the Central Tower over the Lobby, and Elizabeth at the north end). There's the twin turrets of the Chancellors tower at the south end of the terrace (left side of those typical pics), and likewise the Speakers tower at the north end. There are others too but I don't know their names, if they even have any.
Victoria Tower is the big one; then Elizabeth Tower; then the spire of the Central Lobby. The ventilation towers above the two Houses were next, originally the same height, until the HC was bombed in WW2.
@@neuralwarpIndeed so. The difference between Victoria and Elizabeth is small (just a few feet) but Victoria being so massive, it seems so much taller than it is especially close up. Ironic really, given Elizabeth was about 5'3" whereas Victoria was 5'1" but being similarly the more massive of the 2, appeared to people _shorter_ than she was!
A bit of a postal anecdote that night explain some of your own observations
Before the stamp was invented the addressee had to pay the postie before they'd hand over their mail. So a crafty ruse developed for coding simple messages in the address. For example you could send a letter home to "Christopher" meaning you'd arrived somewhere, the recipient could then avoid paying by saying there was no Christopher at that address & refusing the delivery.
There could well be a connection with providing a return address
I've heard of a similar system being used with telephones. You'd make a collect call and the operator would ask the recipient if they would pay for the call from X. They would refuse because the X signified something, such as the caller had arrived safely.
The Elisabeth Tower used to be called just The Clock Tower.
Originally Parliament sat in St Stephen's Hall.
Above a public entrance to Parliament is a small tower called St Stephen's Tower, hence the confusion
The Elizabeth Tower was called St Stephen’s Tower.
@JonathanReynolds1 I thought that too until I was told differently.
There are several towers in the houses of Parliament . As well as The Elizabeth Tower, there is
The Speaker's Tower to the North end
The Lord Chancellor's to the South
In the middle is St Stephen's Tower, which contains the public entrance
@JonathanReynolds1 As members of Parliament originally sat at St Stephen's Hall, journalists referred to anything related to the House of Commons as "news from St Stephens" hence the clock tower was mistakenly called St Stephen's Tower
We do indeed have a written constitution just not all in one book
I think you'll find the law accepts that conventions and customs are also part of the British constitution. For instance, it is not written anywhere that a new monarch gains office through acclamation.
You both come over really well and are so pleasant to watch and listen to. I'm not surprised that you had a 'clip' on Netflix 😊. Heartfelt love and best wishes to you and your family ❤.
We do have a written Constitution, but it is three documents, not one. They are Magna Carta, the Articles of Religion and the Declaration of Rights. It's also not illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
The courts recognise conventions and customs as constituting part of the constitution too. Our constitution is not wholly written.
The thing about the stamp is not true. The reason you want it the right way up is automatic sorting won't work and it'll be slower.
No, that's nonsense. The stamp has no effect on automatic sorting.
@@rikmoran3963 according to the Royal Mail website the phosphor tagging on the stamp allows the sorting machine to orientate the envelope properly
You were 12 miles away when in York from the British Library, Thorp Arch Trading Estate, Thorp Arch, Boston Spa where books are stored to save space in London.
@Midwest Americans - There are some dubious points claimed in the video you watched.
1) Stonehenge is older than the Great Pyramids. Well bits of it are and there are older Neolithic sites than Stonehenge in the UK.
2) The Queen (and now the King) is the Queen of the UK, not the Queen of England. There hasn't been a King or Queen of just England since 1707, when Scottish King James VI took over the English throne and Unified the Kingdoms under one Crown.
3) The biggest library in the world is based in London but a large volume of it's books and other records are kept in massive climate controlled warehouses in other parts of the country.
4) Only Senior royal weddings (those directly in line to the Throne) get a public holiday and again that holiday os for the UK, not just the English bit.
5) The UK (again, not just England) does not have its name on it's postage stamps. The story about it being treason to put a stamp on upside down is just a Myth.
6) The video is talking about dialects, not languages and there are over 600 dialects in England alone. Most of the population still spoke old versions of English, following the Norman invasion. only the nobility and those that dealt directly with them spoke French, so it might have been 1% of the country that spoke French.
7) Given that we can see the shores of France without any visual aides, from the shores of England, means that we know how close France is.
8) Angela is correct. Big Ben is the largest bell in the clock tower and the tower has been called 'Elizabeth Tower' since the Queen's Diamond Jubilee (60 Years as Queen).
I'm Scottish and I knew all of these, I'm sure that most people in England also know them too.
Did you know that the UK foundry that created Big Ben also created the Liberty Bell?
Apparently, (quick Google search) there are more John Smiths in the US (48,571). Smith is still the most common last name in the US.
When the movie industry approached JK Rowling for the rights for Harry potter she kept refusing, they kept upping the money and she kept refusing, it turned out she wanted to have control over her characters, thats why it was set in the UK closely following her books and not being Americanised.
0:55 *Greggs: How Do They Really Do It?* (2021) and *Greggs: Secrets of Their Best Bakes* (2023) (aka *Greggs: What's Really in It?* on Netflix, and *Inside Greggs: 24/7* on Apple TV) have nothing to do with the *BBC.*
They are both *Channel 5* shows.
that's the documentary I should look for the MWA?
@@Simbu. Edited to add a second documentary, which like the first is also by *Channel 5.*
@@danielgardecki1046 thank you!
As for the proximity of France -- I couldn't see it from the top of Dover Castle.
England does have a national day - 23 April. Many people have already mentioned that the info about the monarch sending you a birthday card is also erroneous. I thought champagne was invented by a French monk called Dom Perignon. Slavery in England was effectively abolished under common law in 1772 as a result of the Somerset case, meaning there was no need to legislate against it. So many assertions made by this video are at best questionable.
I don't know where he got the figure of 105 from, the Royal messages begin when you reach 100. Royal weddings or anniiversaries of them are not public holidays, also, the reason you're not allowed to die in Parliament is because any one who does, has to have a state funeral, and it wouldn't apply to the Monarch because they're not allowed into Parliament with-out permission. That's why, when the Kings messenger, Black Rod, is sent to summon MPs to the State Opening of Parliament, the door is ceremonially slammed in his face.
If you're a good swimmer, you can swim the channel from England to France.
Slavery in the UK was not illegal because it was never legal in the first place in the UK, it was only legal overseas. The anti-modern-slavery laws were introduced to sort out modern crimes.
Norman French is still an official language in Britain. It's used (sparingly) in Parliament; more so in Channel Island dialects.
The first King of England to speak English as a first language was Henry IV and he was born in 1367
Aethelstan (924-939) is accepted as being the first King of all England. He certainly spoke Old English. So did his successors: Edmund I, Eldred, Edwy, Edgar, Edward II, Aethelred II, Edmund II, Edward III, and Harold II.
The state of being a slave was not recognised in British law so that it was difficult to say that someone owned another
Well, the age of the Pyramids is being reassessed as older, but yes correct, Stonehenge was owned by an individual, who bequeathed it to the national trust when he passed away. Watched a few of your videos, very happy of your general knowledge on this, excellent.
Some of these facts are far from facts as they are clearly incorrect.
Hi Folks, I would always be aware of the facts of any video like this made by an American. My experience of watching them is that they are regularly inaccurate.
Laws to ban slavery began in the 1000s.
In 1102 it was reinforced by the church at Westminster.
In 1762, before the USA war of independance, these laws were used at a trial to confirm that a slave is free the moment he sets foot on English soil, and the air of England is too rich for any slave to breathe.
In 1807, we began to tell the world that slavery is wrong and began stopping slave ships taking slaves from Africa.
The Royal Navy enforced this.
The USA was the first country to assist the UK in these patrols, agreeing to do so at the treaty of Ghent on Xmas eve of 1814, so thanks for your support.
(Sorry about burning down the white house but we were upset)
The UK is always looked on as the bad guy when it comes to slavery as few people in the world are taught this history.
Royalty can't die in the House of Commons because thy aren't allowed inside. However they are allowed in the House of Lords for the state opening of parliament
Cards are sent to those celebrating their 100th and 105th birthday and every year thereafter. Their Majesties' congratulatory messages consist of a card containing a personalised message and are sent via Royal Mail.
Ordinary people spoke English or Cornish. And Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were separate countries.
The monarch congratulates you on your 100th and 105th birthday and every year after...
The 'modern slavery act' (2015) was new legislation to cover new problems like sex trafficking. Slavery was outlawed in the colonies and territories by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, though a court ruling deemed that slavery within England was prohibited since 1569.
British postage stamps are the only ones that don’t show the name of the country. That’s because when British postage stamps were first used, no other country had them. The concept was British.
05:51 No no no, the aristocracy spoke French... since they were French (Well Norman French) but the peasantry still spoke English... If this had not been the case, we would ALL still be speaking French now!"
The Anglo-Norman royals and aristocracy spoke their dialect of French until around 1400. The English peasantry assimilated a lot of French words into their vocabulary during this time - such as words for various meat products(pork, beef, venison...) that the gentry ate, but not the animals (pig, cow, deer..) that the peasants tended. About 29% of modern English words derive from French as a result. Another 29% come from church Latin and about 26% descend from Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Danish and other Germanic languages. Roughly 6% are Greek in origin and the remaining 10% stem from various other world languages. Only a handful of English words derive from Welsh, which might suggest that the cultural assimilation in what became England after the migration of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians to these shores was mostly one way.
Interesting video - I feel like I knew all of those facts appart from the last one about slavery not been officially outlawed until 2010 as we were the first country to ban slavery so maybe we all just assumed that meant illegal haha We love a Royal wedding bank holiday :-)
Slavery was outlawed. However, until April 2010, there were no laws that said it was illegal to own a slave in the UK until anti-human trafficking legislation was introduced.
Any person who sets foot on Britian is automatically a freeman.
What about Somerset v Stewart 1772 at the Court of the King's Bench or the edict of William the Conquerer?
Just watched the Greggs documentary on Netflix, didnt expect to see you in it 😂
Yes, I think it's true that the majority of us aren't aware of the connection between the year 2010 and slavery, however, slavery was abolished and declared to be illegall some two hundred years before 2010. Anti-Slavery Day was established by Parliamentary law in 2010 as a reminder that although slavery is illegal, modern-day slavery still exists around the world.
It is now The Elizabeth Tower.
The British Library in London near St Pancras and Kings Cross stations is the library with over 170 million books.
The complete book collection is now too large to be held at the site in London, so most of it has for some years been held at their site at Boston Spa in Yorkshire.
One thing I already knew was that US narrators cannot pronounce Salisbury. It isn’t ’Sallsbury’ it’s ‘Saulsbury’. And Stonehenge is IN Salisbury? I really didn’t know that!
Here's another fact: Greater London is not a city. The tiny City of Lindon is a city, but our capital city is Westminster.
The Monarch sends a birthday card on your 100th birthday and every birthday after that for the rest of your life. So, yes a card will be sent if you reach 105.
The upside down stamp being treason claim is nonsense. However, Royal Mail can refuse to deliver a letter if the way a stamp is used is considered abusive or deliberately disrespectful.
It is not a crime to die in the British Parliament.
Wrong about the monarch sending a commoner a bday card on 105th bday, it's actually 100th bday as 100=century.
The slavery not been an official crime got me 😮
Video was actually longer due to the incomprehensible Mumble Rap!
As far as the laws about slavery, in the early 1700s court cases were freeing slaves on the basis that slavery was an unknown state of being in England. Slaves brought here going to court would be freed.
You don't need laws to stop something that wasn't happening... That why slavery laws were so late in the UK. In 1088 William the Conqueror effectively ended English slavery by decree.
Always like your posts. But when you showed clip of a library the was the library used for Harry Potter BUT it is in Trinity College in Dublin which is not UK or England or Oxford. That pic you showed is in the Republic of Ireland Éire.
To clarify, the _stamp_ doesn't have the country name on it. All the other stamps in the world do. Though the franking marks do. Also slavery has never been legal certainly in England, Scots law might be complex on the matter - the crime thing is a technicality. You can't be a slave so how can the crime of slavery exist, it'd come under some other law like false imprisonment and other crimes.
Two bells were cast one for the Elizabeth tower the other is in the clock tower of my home town of Darlington in the north east of England
I doubt if there are any Brits that didn't know these things. Let me guess, this was put together by an American. The channel tunnel does not start in Dover (Folkestone with Coquelles).
There should be a special place in hell for those who add AI narration to videos.
It’s odd how perception of history works. In Dorchester near me there is a small earthen Roman Amphitheatre that you just drive past on the way in to town, but it is now known to have been adapted from a Neolithic henge the same sort of age as Stone Henge, so there before the pyramids, and it’s just there. No fuss, no nothing.
The British National library has the largest collection of Pornography in the world. 🙈
8:13 True, but what about the personalised letter (was a telegram until the Post Office stopped using telegrams) on one's 100th birthday, 101st, 102nd... etc.
British subjects ( including citizens in overseas territories) receive a birthday card from the reining sovereign on their 100th birthday.
And if they reach 105 years old and beyond they receive one each birthday until they pass.
There is no such thing as a "British subject", this term was retired in 1981 with the passage of the British Nationality Act and we are now considered "British Citizens".
England does have a national day. It is St George's Day, 23rd April.
Technically, the English court spoke a dialect of Old French. The Normans had adopted Old French as their court language but smatterings of Old Norse still subsisted, especially amongst the commoners and lower-ranked nobility. Old French is as unintelligible to Modern French speakers as Old English is to Modern English speakers.
I was going to comment on this video, but it seems as everyone has pointed out the things I were going to say, and beat me to it. Lol. But I'll say this. don't be too hard on the 'Commentator' as he's just an AI voiceover, and not a real person at all. His mistakes are really the mistakes of whoever typed the script. 😃
The Queen sent you a letter on your 100th BIRTHDAY. The English people never spoke or was forced French as their first language, but some French words crept in over hundreds of years. William was famous when he took the crown in 1066 that he did'nt interfere with the English people's daily lives 👍✌
This is almost as factual as WatchMojo videos and that’s saying something, lol
So not all English people spoke French between whatever dates he gave, an official language and a language that is actually spoken are two different things. French was the official language but most people would not have spoken French, it would only have been the elites, the Lords etc that would have spoken French.
Also the tower in which Big Ben is situated, the clock tower, is not St Stephen’s Tower, it’s the Elizabeth Tower, previously just The Clock Tower, St Stephen’s Tower is another, smaller tower that is situated over the public entrance to parliament.
England does have a national day, it’s St George’s Day
According to the 2021 Census about 40% of Londoners were born outside of the UK
The Queen (now King) first sends you a personalised birthday card on your 100th Birthday then on your 105th Birthday and subsequent birthdays after that
The origin of Champagne is the Champagne region in France, hence the name and Champagne can only be called Champagne if it comes from the Champagne region in the same way that a pasty can only be called a Cornish Pasty if it is made in Cornwall as well as other examples of products that have protected status and can only be named that name if they are made in that region from which they are named.
Royal weddings are not declared a public holiday, it’s at the discretion of those in charge, they can call a special one off public holiday for numerous reasons and has been done numerous times for a Royal Wedding. Many Royal Weddings have not been public holidays though, it’s not a given.
There might be more errors those are just the ones I know are false
The Champagne double fermentation process was perfected in England. Our glass was stronger. Latin was the legal language until quite recently (100 years or so). Still used for legal terms.
Let me tell you now, the only reason we love a royal wedding is because it's a day of work! We will all be too pissed to watch it.
The Library this video is referring to is in London.
*a day OFF work.
If you die in the houses of parliament you are entitled to a state funeral so they made it a crime punishable by a fine equal to the funeral costs so that your family can pay for it.
We don't have a holiday for every royal wedding and the stamp upside down thing is not true.
Fun though
It's not treason to put a stamp upside down.