All articles starting with B
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British Americans
British Americans: US residents of English, Scottish, Welsh, or Scotch-Irish descent, from colonial settlers and later UK immigrants; 1938 census counted 40 million English, 14.2 million Scottish, 2.5 million Welsh ancestry; self-reporting understates the total.
British and American keyboards
British and American keyboards, or US and UK keyboards, are the two main English-language layouts: the UK layout follows the ISO standard with 105 keys and £ on Shift+3, the US follows ANSI with 104.
British Antarctic Territory
British Antarctic Territory: UK Overseas Territory in Antarctica south of 60°S between 20°W and 80°W, claimed since 1908, established 1962, claims frozen under Antarctic Treaty Article IV, administered from London.
British Armed Forces
British Armed Forces: UK military comprising Royal Navy/Royal Marines, British Army, and Royal Air Force under the Ministry of Defence; 182,980 personnel (2026), deployed by royal prerogative, funded at £77.3 billion.
British Army
The British Army is the UK's land warfare service, led by the Chief of the General Staff and organized on a regimental system. Key distinctions: 32 Regular infantry battalions, 4,033 combat vehicles, 3,000+ soldiers deployed worldwide, and a 73,000 Regular / 100,000 total target set by the 2025 Strategic Defence Review.
British Army during the Second World War
The British Army in the Second World War (1939–45): conscripted land force of the UK and Empire, defeated in France 1940, rebuilt to win El Alamein 1942, North Africa, Italy, and Normandy, with 8,586,000 Empire troops.
British Army Training Unit Suffield
British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS): British Army live-fire and maneuver training establishment at CFB Suffield, Alberta, Canada, since 1972; about 2,700 km2 range, drawn down after 2020 to around 30 stationed personnel.
British Astronomical Association
The British Astronomical Association (BAA) is a British charitable organization founded in 1890 that supports amateur astronomers making scientifically valuable observations, acting as an amateur counterpart to the Royal Astronomical Society.
British Bahamas
The British Bahamas, formally the Crown Colony of the Bahamas, were the Bahama Islands under British rule from the 1670s until independence on 10 July 1973.
British baseball
British baseball, also Welsh baseball (Pêl Fas), is a rounders-derived bat-and-ball game with 11-a-side teams, one run per base, underhand bowling, and two innings, played in Cardiff, Newport, and Liverpool, distinct from American-code baseball in Britain.
British Basketball League
British Basketball League (BBL), founded 1987, was Britain's top-tier men's professional basketball competition; it collapsed in 2024 after the BBF terminated Basketball League Ltd's licence, succeeded by Super League Basketball.
British Beekeepers Association
The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), founded in 1874, is the national charity for beekeeping in England and Wales, supporting about 30,000 beekeepers through 73 associations.
British Bencoolen
British Bencoolen was an East India Company settlement at Bencoolen (now Bengkulu) on Sumatra's southwest coast, established in 1685 to secure pepper and ceded to the Netherlands in 1824.
British bhangra
British bhangra, also known as UK bhangra, is a British music genre fusing Punjabi lyrics and dhol beats with Western pop, R&B, and hip hop, centered on Birmingham and London.
British big cats
British big cats, also called alien big cats or phantom cats, are reported large non-native felids such as black panthers, pumas, and lynxes in the UK countryside; a few escaped exotics were captured, but no wild population has been proven.
British Birth Cohort Studies
The British birth cohort studies are national longitudinal studies following people born in single weeks, starting with the 1946 NSHD and continuing through the 2000–2001 Millennium Cohort Study.
British blues
British blues was an early-to-mid-1960s musical movement based in London clubs, founded by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, that became an important influence on the rock explosion.
British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), formerly British Board of Film Censors: UK's independent, not-for-profit film and video regulator since 1912. Issues U, PG, 12A/12, 15, 18, R18 ratings; designated authority under the Video Recordings Act 1984; guidelines refreshed every 4-5 years via public consultation (12,000 people in 2023).
British brass band
The British brass band, or British-style brass band, is an all-brass ensemble. It developed in 19th-century Britain and is defined by its fixed instrumentation and contesting tradition.
British Brooks
British Brooks (born 1999) is an NFL running back and fullback for the Houston Texans, an undrafted 2024 free agent from North Carolina known for special teams and blocking.
British campaign medals
British campaign medals are UK awards for taking part in a campaign or wartime service, from the 1815 Waterloo Medal through WWI stars, WWII stars, the General Service and Operational Service Medals, and the 2024 Wider Service Medal.
British Cattle Movement Service
British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS), Workington-based Rural Payments Agency body since 1998 running the Cattle Tracing System (CTS) and issuing cattle passports for Great Britain; keepers report births, deaths and movements within 3 days.
British Cave Research Association
British Cave Research Association (BCRA), UK charity 267828 founded 23 June 1973 by merger of the British Speleological Association and Cave Research Group; publishes Cave & Karst Science, runs the British Caving Library, research grants, and the British Cave Science Centre.
British Ceylon
British Ceylon, the British Crown colony on Sri Lanka from 1796 (Crown colony 1802) to independence on 4 February 1948, unified by the 1815 Kandyan Convention and reformed by the 1833 Colebrooke-Cameron Commission.
British Chess Championship
The British Chess Championship is the annual national chess championship of the United Kingdom, organized by the English Chess Federation. First held at Hastings in 1904, it has run almost uninterrupted since.
British Chinese
British Chinese are UK residents of Chinese ethnicity, 445,646 people (0.7%) in England and Wales at the 2021 Census, descended from seamen, Hong Kong, Malaysian, and mainland Chinese migration waves, with the highest educational attainment of any census ethnic group.
British Chinese cuisine
British Chinese cuisine is the adapted Chinese cooking of the United Kingdom, served chiefly in takeaways and rooted in Cantonese dishes like chicken balls and chips with curry sauce.
British colonial gazettes
British colonial gazettes were the official newspapers published by colonial governments of the British Empire, carrying legislation, notices, appointments, and land sales; The National Archives holds 112 series, dated 1794 to 1990.
British colonial judges in the Americas
British colonial judges in the Americas were British-trained lawyers, appointed through patronage, who presided over the Crown's courts in North American and Caribbean colonies until decolonisation.
British colonization of the Americas
British colonization of the Americas, also called English colonization of the Americas, was settlement by England and later Great Britain, beginning with the lost Roanoke colony and Jamestown in 1607.