Scotland is a country, part of the United Kingdom. It covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain, with a border with England to the southeast, is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast, the Irish Sea to the south, more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides; the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the European Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI of Scotland became king of England and Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain; the union created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, Great Britain entered into a political union with Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland.

The legal system within Scotland has remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The continued existence of legal, educational and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England. In 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy; the head of the Scottish Government is the first minister of Scotland, supported by the deputy first minister of Scotland. Scotland is represented in the United Kingdom Parliament by 59 MPs. Scotland is a member of the British–Irish Council, sends five members of the Scottish Parliament to the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area.

Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scottish Government to each subdivision. "Scotland" comes from the Latin name for the Gaels. Philip Freeman has speculated on the likelihood of a group of raiders adopting a name from an Indo-European root, *skot, citing the parallel in Greek skotos, meaning "darkness, gloom"; the Late Latin word Scotia was used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, both derived from the Gaelic Alba; the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period, it is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.

At the time, Scotland was covered in forests, had more bog-land, the main form of transport was by water. These settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, the first villages around 6,000 years ago; the well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation and ritual sites are common and well preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Evidence of sophisticated pre-Christian belief systems is demonstrated by sites such as the Callanish Stones on Lewis and the Maes Howe on Orkney, which were built in the third millennium BCE; the first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Greek sailor Pytheas, who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands. During the first millennium BCE, the society changed to a chiefdom model, as consolidation of settlement led to the concentration of wealth and underground stores of surplus food.

The first Roman incursion into Scotland occurred in 79 AD. After the Roman victory, Roman forts were set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line, but by three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands; the Romans erected Hadrian's Wall in northern England and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, they introduced Christianity to Scotland. Beginning in the sixth century, the area, now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland; these societies were based on the family unit and had sharp divisions in wealth, although the vast majority were poor and worked full-time in subsistence agriculture. The Picts kept sla

Lagunette was a French Thoroughbred racehorse and broodmare. After winning one of her two races as a juvenile she improved to become a top-class performer in 1976, a year in which French-trained three-year-olds dominated the European classic races. After finishing third in the Prix de Diane she recorded Group One victories in the Irish Oaks and the Prix Vermeille, defeating top-quality opponents including Pawneese, Sarah Siddons and Theia. Lagunette was sold at the end of 1976 but failed to win in four subsequent races and had little success as a broodmare. Lagunette was a "big, strong" bay mare with a broad white blaze and four white feet bred in France by Henry Berlin. Se was one of the best horses sired by Val de Loir who won the Prix du Jockey Club in 1962 and whose other progeny included Val de l'Orne and Comtesse de Loir. Lagunette was a full-sister of The Oaks winner La Lagune, being the last of four foals produced by the unraced broodmare Landerinette. Lagunette was acquired by Marius Berghgracht and sent into training with Francois Boutin at Chantilly.

She was ridden in most of her races by Philippe Paquet. After winning over 1600 metres on her racecourse debut, Lagunette was moved up in class and matched against colts in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud over 2000 metres on 8 November. Ridden by Philippe Paquet she started at odds of 10/1 and finished eighth of the nine runners behind Kano. Lagunette finished fourth over 2000 metres on her first appearance as a three-year-old and was moved up in distance to win the Prix de Tuileries over 2400 metres at Longchamp Racecourse; the filly was dropped back in distance and moved up in class for the Group One Prix de Diane over 2100 metres at Chantilly Racecourse on 13 June. Starting a 28/1 outsider, she finished third behind Pawneese and Riverqueen but ahead of Sarah Siddons and Theia. Lagunette was sent to Ireland for the Irish Oaks over one and a half miles at the Curragh on 17 July and started 3/1 second favourite behind Acoma who had won a minor race at Saint-Cloud Racecourse by six lengths on her only previous start.

Sarah Siddons was third choice in the betting in an eighteen runner field which alo included the Vincent O'Brien-trained I've A Bee, the Cheshire Oaks winner African Dancer, the Oaks d'Italia winner Claire Valentine and the Lupe Stakes winner Laughing Girl. Paquet had problems obtaining a clear run when switching the filly to the outside inside the final quarter mile but Lagunette accelerated in the closing stages and won by two lengths from Sarah Siddons with I've A Bee half a length away in third place. Lagunette returned from her victory in Ireland to contest the Prix Vermeille on soft ground at Longchamp on 19 September. Pawneese, who had won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in July, started the odds-on favourite ahead of Riverqueen, with Lagunette, ridden as usual by Paquet, next in the betting on 14/1 in a ten-runner field which included Sarah Siddons and Theia. Lagunette took the lead in the straight before being headed by Sarah Siddons inside the last 200 metres but rallied to defeat the Irish-trained filly by a nose after what Timeform described as a "tremendous battle".

Theia finished fifth, whilst Pawneese and Riverqueen ran poorly in seventh and ninth places. On her final appearance of the season, Lagunette ran in France's most prestigious race, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on 3 October. Ridden by Alain Lequeux she started at odds of 21/1 and finished fourteenth of the twenty runners behind Ivanjica. In October 1976, just before her run in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Lagunette was put up for auction at the Polo club sale with a reserve price of ₣3 million, but when the bidding ended at ₣2.8 million she was led out of the ring unsold. She was sold to Walter Haefner's Moyglare Stud. Lagunette remained in training with Boutin in 1977 but failed to reproduce her three-year-old form and was unplaced in her four races, she finished eighth in the Prix Ganay, seventh in the Prix Jean de Chaudenay, ninth in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and eighth in the Prix du Prince d'Orange. There was no International Classification of European horses in 1976: the official handicappers of Britain and France compiled separate rankings for horses which competed in those countries.

In the French Handicap she was rated the third-best three-year-old filly of the year behind Pawneese and Riverqueen. The independent Timeform organisation awarded Lagunette a rating of 122 in 1976, making her nine pounds inferior to their top-rated three-year-old filly Pawneese. After her retirement from racing, Lagunette became a broodmare at the Moyglare Stud, she produced five colts and one filly between 1979 and 1986. All three of her colts that raced were winners. Data Traffic, a chestnut colt sired by Irish River, had a successful turf career winning seven races out of 41 starts. Safety Feature, an unraced bay filly foaled in 1985, sired by Be My Guest produced several minor winners including Trade Dispute, who won fourteen race between 1995 and 2003

Operation McGill français was a large street demonstration in Montréal during the Quiet Revolution. Though comprising a range of trade unionists, Quebec nationalists and other leftists raising many different demands, the key objective for which the protest was called was for McGill University to become a French-speaking educational institution; the demonstration took place in Montreal on March 28, 1969 in the midst of Quebec's Quiet Revolution. On this day 10,000–15,000 protesters and walked down Sherbrooke street towards the Roddick Gates calling for McGill University to become francophone, along with pro-worker and nationalist demands; these protesters held signs that read slogans such as "McGill aux Québécois!" and "McGill aux travailleurs", which loosely translates to "McGill to Quebeckers" and "McGill to workers" respectively. Afraid this demonstration might turn violent, 100 police officers were deployed as well as 1,300 police officers on call. Awaiting the demonstrators at the Roddick Gates were 3,000 spectators.

The demonstration was peaceful, with some altercations taking place between demonstration supporters and some English students who responded to the demonstration by chanting "God save the Queen". The political agenda of this demonstration coincided with the current of Quebec nationalist ideology that emphasised decolonisation and the construction of a socialist Francophone-dominated Quebec that espoused in the political review Parti Pris; those taking part in Opération McGill saw McGill University as a key symbol of Anglo-Saxon power in Quebec and the idea to "francise" the university coincided with the larger aim of decolonizing Quebec. Though the call to turn McGill into a French-speaking university was popular symbolically within the far-left of the Quebec nationalist movement, there was a much broader political consensus around the need to create a network of public francophone higher educational establishments to redress both the linguistic imbalance in higher education and the lack of access for Francophone students, something which came to fruition less than a month after "Operation McGill" with the establishment of the Université du Québec à Montréal as the flagship metropolitan university within the public francophone University of Quebec network.

Leading the charge of this demonstration were former McGill professor Stanley Gray and nationalist Raymond Lemieux who spoke to the crowd of people demanding equal rights for francophones and demanded that McGill become a francophone educational institution. Prior to the demonstration, key demonstrator, Stanley Gray was fired from his position as a political science professor at McGill University in 1969. However, prior to his firing, he had established a group named the Students for a Democratic University on November 23, 1967, it consisted of 150 students and professors who were in favour of the idea of decolonisation and instituting more power to French people not only at McGill but throughout Quebec as well. The SDU had begun many demonstrations, with each getting larger than the previous one. During the early months of 1969, before the operation and the other members of the SDU had interrupted a Senate meeting on January 24, 1969 echoing similar chants such as "Revolution", "Long live the Socialist Quebec" and "Long live Quebec".

The group would again take similar actions on January 27, 1969 when they impeded a meeting of the Assembly of the Board of Governors. The SDU would be renamed as the Radical Student Association. Gray was a founding member of the Movement for the Integration of School, who organised the demonstration on that day; the SDU and the MIS would work together for the same goals. Another key member of the MIS was an American with French-Canadian heritage. He, along with fellow founding member Stanley Gray would gather 3,000 members leading up to the demonstration; the MIS would strengthen the Saint-Léonard crisis when elected on June 28, 1968. The Saint-Léonard crisis developed from leftist thinkings which disallowed bilingual classes and adopted only unilingual French classes; the newspaper, the McGill Daily supported the cause and distributed a special edition announcing the preparation of Operation McGill through 100,000 copies instead of its usual 14,000 copies. In it was a document titled "Welcome to McGill" written in French and sent across the province of Quebec with the aid of students and the members of the major trade union in Québec, the CSN.

In short, the document criticized the ruling elites of Quebec and argued that the people of Quebec were exploited both culturally and economically. Concluding the article with the need to democratise McGill for these reasons and why the workers and anyone who felt discriminated against should demonstrate. On March 26, 1969 activists Raymond Lemieux, Stanley Gray, Léandre Bergeron and CSN president, Michael Chartrand stated that they would be talking about the Operation via posters throughout campus with would be held in the ballroom of the University Centre; the Quiet Revolution known as La révolution tranquille, spanned from 1960-1970 in Quebec, Canada. The Revolution when Jean Lesage, leader of the Liberal party, was elected on June 22, 1960 winning 51% of the popular vote; the Liberal Party of Quebec's manifesto called for a number of important changes to modernise Quebec society after Maurice Duplessis's, prior reigns, including the creation of a modern welfare state, t