Five Fun Facts about Welsh History

1) A dragon is on the Welsh flag! *sigh* Their flag is so much cooler than ours. . .

It is called Baner Cymru or Y Ddraig Goch (Wikipedia, Flag of ), which means red dragon.

2) The Neanderthals were living in Wales around 230,000 years ago. Our particular species, homo Sapiens, discovered Wales around 31,000 BC. My point? People have been living in Wales for a loooong time.

This is a picture of a 9-year-old Neanderthal's teeth that were found in Wales, proving that Neanderthals had been in Wales much longer than anyone thought.

3) The 'Prince of Wales' is not actually the prince of Wales. He's just the crown prince of . Like, right now, the Prince of Wales is Prince Charles. By the way, this really stinks for Wales, 'cause when did English crown princes start accepting this title? Right after they took over Wales. I mean, way to squeeze lemon juice in a wound guys! Sheesh.

But my question was “So what if a female is going to inherit the throne?” Hmmm? Is she the Princess of Wales, like, the Little Mermaid or something? Nope. The wife of the Prince of Wales is called the Princess of Wales. So, after some extensive research, I found out that the Prince of Wales is someone who cannot be displaced by any future birth. Daughters can never have this title, because they could be displaced by the birth of a son. If there is no crown prince eligible, then it goes to their eldest son and so on and so forth.

4) During the early Medieval Wales, it was custom there to be more than one ruler of the country. This is because a king would split what he had into equal parts for his sons, so land and possessions kept getting divided. This may have been one of the reasons England took over – all the were focused on the small wars inside of Wales. The invasion was a surprise. The separate kings of Wales could not join together fast enough to defeat the huge, powerful armies of England. Divide and conquer.

5) The first Prime Minister to ever speak English as a second language was David Lloyd George, who grew up speaking Welsh and was the first Prime Minister to be born in Wales.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wales • http://www.wales.com/history_timeline • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Wales • https://museum.wales/articles/2013-07-09/The-oldest-people-in-Wales--- Neanderthal-teeth-from-Pontnewydd-Cave/ • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II