Great Britain/England/United Kingdom (in Off-topic)

Because CB is my source of knowledge for random stuff. Can someone please explain in layman's terms, the technical differences between the names and the practical/actual differences if they either do exist. I'm just curious is all, I'd rather a bit more of a human answer than google links/wikipedia.

Thanks for your knowledge!

Lot of history there, F. This is akin to asking why Russia was all Russia/USSR/Russia, though not quite as deadly (in body count).

It's a good question. The brits should be up in about 7 or 8 hours, you know, after they've woken up after a jolly good rest and have hammered down some bangers n' mash. And some tea. Salute the Queen. There ya go.

Got a good chuckle out of that :). I'm pretty bad with history, but wasn't the USSR when Russia was communist or something? Or just one political party in power for a while with radical ideas?

Well obviously England is only one country whereas the other names include more even if they are our slaves :P
Great Britain is only England, Scotland and Wales
UK is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland
British Isles is the whole lot

I can address that, to some extent.

Russia. Good lord, Russia. What an empire! Huge, hard to get. But also good to get. "Don't get involved in a land war in Asia" is mainly on them. You invade Russia? Better be prepared to march your boys and girls into the cold, hard, water-poisoned ground (they're also pretty decent at scorched-earth policy, you might want to Google that. Dire and fascinating).

Early 1900s, around 1917, methinks, Communism. Lenin. United Soviet Socialist Republic is born. Everyone's scared (including Hitler, circa 1939.) Hitler makes a mistake, and fights a land war in Asia during WW2. Leningrad is a pool of frozen, bloody slush. Hitler's two-front war falls apart.

Lucky.

Nazi fascism was on a roll. In so many deadly ways I can't stomach to state them all (think Holocaust). But from the east, Mother USSR came in, and from the west, Great Britain held on, a tiny, damp island shouting "no!" into the fiery night long enough for Japan to bomb the USA in 1941 (Pearl Harbor) and bring it all together. Africa fell, Normandy fell, the soft underbelly of Europe fell and Mussolini was hung by his own people. The Axis came away from its wheels.

The Pacific Theater was won by less conventional, far more dire methods. Hiroshima and Nagasaki fell to the power of the atom, and Oppenheimer said, "...I am destroyer of worlds."

Meanwhile, the USSR did its thing from the east, the rest of the Allies from the west, and voila. Eventual Cold War. Long story. Berlin air lift, etc. A good tale for that would be for you to watch "Hedwig And The Angry Inch." I might do so myself.

Then that Wall fell. The united socialist republics disbanded, and Russia was just Russia once more. Only something like 170 million people, now (the USA is around 300 million, for comparison). Not that that matters.

I wish you had my World History teacher. Everything I just wrote I learned in the 11th grade, more than half my extant life ago, and by living through the remainder.

Good stuff.

Come on, Zog, give us some attitude with that. *smile*

England is a political and historical region, and England along with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland comprises the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The term "Great Britain" is something of a holdover from the 18th century, when the kingdoms of England and Scotland were joined, and the term is also used to denote the main British island itself.

Britain is the name of the Island with England, scotland and wales in it. Its great:) England is the a country within, and the United Kingdom refers to Britain and northern ireland. I guess back in the good ole days when england had a kick ass empire all within was in the United Kingdom to.

Pft. Says the man responsible for writing the funniest (and most deadly!) joke EVER!