Thomas Lee
Ms. Carmona
English ¾ - Period 1
24 August 2014
Research Paper People have been living in Scotland for over 9500 years, with villages dating back to 600 years ago. Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. The country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Glasgow, Scotland's largest city was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the center of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Edinburgh, the country's capital and second-largest city, was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual, and industrial powerhouses of Europe.
A serious depression hit the economy by 1922 and it did not fully recover until 1939. The interwar years were marked by economic stagnation in rural and urban areas, and high unemployment. The first World War brought deep social, cultural, economic, and political dislocations. Thoughtful Scots pondered their declension, as the main social indicators such as poor health, bad housing, and long-term mass unemployment, pointed to terminal social and economic stagnation at best. Young people left Scotland permanently, the empire losing their allure. The heavy dependence on obsolescent heavy industry and mining was a central problem, and no one offered workable solutions.
The Second World War brought renewed prosperity, despite extensive bombing of cities by the Luftwaffe. It saw the invention of radar by Robert