word | | Independence |
| became | Yemen | ... and the Marxist-dominated People's Democratic Republic of Yemen [Yemen (Aden) or South Yemen]); note - previously North Yemen became independent in November 1918 (from the Ottoman Empire) and became a republic ... |
| began | Spain | ... the Iberian peninsula was characterized by a variety of independent kingdoms prior to the Muslim occupation that began in the early 8th century A.D. and lasted nearly seven centuries; the small Christian ... |
| beginning | Monaco | 1419 (beginning of rule by the House of Grimaldi) |
| begun | United Kingdom | ... England has existed as a unified entity since the 10th century; the union between England and Wales, begun in 1284 with the Statute of Rhuddlan, was not formalized until 1536 with an ... |
| Belgian | Burundi | 1 July 1962 (from UN trusteeship under Belgian administration) |
| Belgium | Congo, Democratic Republic of the | 30 June 1960 (from Belgium) |
| Belgium-administered | Rwanda | 1 July 1962 (from Belgium-administered UN trusteeship) |
| Berlin | Romania | 9 May 1877 (independence proclaimed from the Ottoman Empire; independence recognized 13 July 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin); 26 March 1881 (kingdom proclaimed); 30 December 1947 (republic proclaimed) |
| bishop | Andorra | 1278 (formed under the joint suzerainty of the French count of Foix and the Spanish bishop of Urgel) |
Brazil
map | Uruguay | 25 August 1825 (from Brazil) |
| breaking | Netherlands | 23 January 1579 (the northern provinces of the Low Countries conclude the Union of Utrecht breaking with Spain; on 26 July 1581 they formally declared their independence with an Act of Abjuration ... |
| Britain | United Kingdom | ... an Act of Union; in another Act of Union in 1707, England and Scotland agreed to permanently join as Great Britain; the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was implemented in ... |