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Cleopatra Lived Closer to the Computer Age than to the Pyramids, and Other Atypical History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 30, 2019 33 min

35. Brexit Is Not the First Time Britain Quit Europe

Brexit, the seemingly never-ending saga of a divorce from the European Union, is neither the first nor most chaotic time that Britain has quit Europe. An even messier separation occurred a few thousand years ago, when Britain was physically torn away from Europe.

Britain was not always an island. Until quite recently in geologic terms, what is now the British Isles were just the northwestern corner of the European mainland. Jutting out a bit, kind of like how Alaska juts out of North America, that European protrusion is known today as Doggerland. Then, about 8,000 years ago, that all changed in a most dramatic way.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.