Britain in the 1970s–what happened?

Once upon a time, there was a country. It had started out as loose association of battling nation-states, but by the middle ages it had become a kingdom. Some of its monarchs’ names are still familiar to every well-educated person, their stories still told in classrooms around the world. After a few hundred years, a civil war and a beheading, it was decided that the king’s council should be rearranged, and there should be elections.