Ancient Brexit Happened 450,000 Years Ago

The news of the U.K. leaving the European Union make the headlines today, especially when Prime Minister Theresa May gave the official notice last week that Britain will leave the EU two years from now. But scientists said Brexit already happened earlier than what most people thought—about 450,000 years ago—with a deluge destroying the link between Britain and Europe's land mass.

It's true that scientists are talking about Britain's exit from Europe physically, because millenniums ago, the U.K. is connected to the continent through a land bridge smashed by icy waterfalls which turned into a heavy flood. It wrecked Britain's link to the continent but paved way to the opening of the Dover Strait.

"This was really one of the defining events for North West Europe - and certainly the defining event in Britain's history," Professor Sanjeev Gupta from Imperial College London told BBC News. "This chance geological event, if it hadn't happened, would have meant Britain was always connected to the continent."

This land bridge connected the Dover up to Calais in France, but because of the flooding, it ripped the lands apart. There is a heavy evidence of the remaining lands and the icy region at the English Channel when engineers charted its seabed. There were huge waterholes found at the bottom of the Channel, and they are not considered as linear features, but rather, isolated depressions.

Historians and researchers believed that the flooding may have just weakened the bridge 450,000 years ago. But the real catastrophic incident happened 150,000 to 160,000 years back then that causes enough seismic activity and shattered the remaining connections between the two landmasses, according to Science Alert.

More research will be conducted to further plot the timelines of the land bridge of Britain. Though for what it's worth, geologically speaking, Britain exited the EU millions of years ago, but the political withdrawal is something everyone is yet to see in 2019.