Top of the historical pops

What are the most important events in Scotland's history? And where can you find out more about them? Ian Sclater makes his selection

We Scots like to think that we know our history. Stop any local on Edinburgh's Royal Mile and ask them about our nation's most important events, and they are likely to bend your ear about inventions by Scots which changed the world (television, penicillin, Irn Bru), intellectuals and artists who influenced global culture (Adam Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, the Bay City Rollers) or bashing the English on the field of battle (Bannockburn and – well, Bannockburn).

But what were the most significant milestones in our long and often turbulent evolution? We asked the people who should really know; professors of Scottish history, representatives of our national cultural institutions, politicians, genealogists, tourism professionals and compiled the Scotland Magazine Guide to the Top 10 Events in Scottish History.

563 SAINT COLUMBA'S ARRIVAL IN SCOTLAND
When an enthusiastic disciple of St Patrick crossed the Irish Sea to Scotland, he built a monastery on the island of Iona from which to spread the word of Christ among the Pictish tribes. Although the Rome-educated St Ninian had established a church on the Scottish mainland at Whithorn as early as 397, St Columba (the ‘dove'), as he became known, was effectively the founder of the Scottish Christian Church.

843 UNIFICATION OF THE SCOTTISH KINGDOM UNDER KENNETH MACALPIN
When Kenneth MacAlpin, ruler of the Scots (an Argyll-based hierarchy descended from Irish immigrants), invaded the indigenous Picts in the north and east of Sco...

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• By : Dominic Roskrow
• In : Events
• Issue : 19
• Page : 32
• Words : 1,606