A trading company became Britain's most powerful imperial force

A British trade corporation toppled the Mughal Empire

This History Extra feature explains how the East India Company—armed with royal backing, taxation rights, and military force—expanded from a trading venture into a corporate power that overtook the Mughal Empire and laid the foundations of British colonial rule in India.

British rule in India wasn’t deliberate—it developed from trade

This academic explainer shows how Britain’s rule in India evolved from unplanned trading footholds to complete imperial control. It examines the decline of the Mughal Empire, economic expansion, racism, rebellion, and the mixed legacy of institutions and exploitation that still shape India today.

See a data visualization of the East India Company's trade

This tool visualizes the East India Company’s trade from 1760 to 1834, letting you track shipments of tea, textiles, metals, and more. Users can sort by commodity, origin, destination, and date to see London’s vast imperial supply network that shaped the British Empire.

A small island nation built the largest empire in history

See how Britain grew from a small kingdom into a global empire ruling nearly a third of the world, then unraveled through war, nationalist movements, and declining power—leaving just 14 overseas territories as remnants of its once-vast domain.

The world’s first publicly traded company was the United East India Co.

In an effort to best Spain and gain access to valuable trade in Asia, the Dutch Republic launched the VOC, or the United East India Co. The company held an initial public offering in 1602, allowing “subscribers” to choose how much they wanted to invest in the new venture. It was open to all residents of the republic, making this the first opportunity for retail investors in the world.

Britain extracted nearly $45T from India during colonial rule

Between 1765 and 1938, Britain drained an estimated $45T in today’s dollars from India through taxes, resource extraction, and coerced trade—wealth that helped Britain’s economic rise while contributing to widespread poverty in the colony.

See how Britain promoted imperial trade through 1920s propaganda posters

This photo gallery showcases posters from the Empire Marketing Board, created after Canada gained dominion status in 1926. The campaign encouraged Canadians to buy goods from across the British Empire, producing more than 800 posters displayed nationwide.

A podcast deep dive into the British Empire and India

Season 1 of this acclaimed UK podcast, hosted by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, delves into the East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, and the forces that shaped—and ultimately unraveled—British rule in India.

Commodity traders are the most powerful people you've never heard of

Just beneath the surface of the global economy is a hidden layer of dealmakers for whom war, chaos, and sanctions can be a great business opportunity—they're called commodity traders. Their power partly stems from the fact that commodities are essentially the building blocks of the economy at large.

In 1965, Warren Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile company

After buying bulks of its stock, Buffett then flipped Berkshire Hathaway into the most successful and largest holding company in the world, which owns companies like Geico, Duracell, and Fruit of the Loom.

What (and when) was Imperial China?

China's first dynasty arose in 1600 BCE, according to current archaeological evidence, and its last dynasty fell in 1911. Learn more about Imperial China in this Smithsonian collection of articles and artifacts on each dynasty. According to...

All the products Mukesh Ambani owns in India

The richest person in Asia, Mukesh Ambani, owns dozens of companies in India as part of the conglomerate he inherited from his father and expanded via acquisitions and partnerships. From smartphones and news portals to logistics and video streaming,...

Money—not land—became Europe’s key economic driver in the Middle Age

During the medieval commercial revolution, money gradually replaced land as the primary economic commodity. Expanding trade, markets, and finance transformed Europe’s economy—laying foundations, historians argue, that were essential for the later Industrial Revolution.

The British Royal Navy—not the US military—enforced the Monroe Doctrine for most of the 19th century

In the early to mid-1800s, the US lacked the ships and military power to prevent European nations from colonizing the Americas. Britain enforced this to protect its commercial interests by keeping rival European powers out of Latin America.

A rush to invest in British rail in the 1840s led to investor ruin

During “Railway Mania,” speculative excitement pushed British rail shares to extreme valuations as investors chased rapid expansion. When costs ballooned and profits failed to materialize, the bubble collapsed in 1847—wiping out fortunes across the country.

Japan’s imperial expansion in Asia set the stage for war with the US

Between 1931 and 1941, Japan seized Manchuria, launched a full-scale war in China and occupied French Indochina, moves that intensified its demand for strategic resources and triggered escalating US-led embargoes—particularly the 1941 oil cutoff—which sharply raised the risk of war between the two countries.

Standard Oil used vertical integration to create an empire

“Vertical integration” is a modern business phrase that refers to a company taking on multiple stages of production—but John D. Rockefeller pioneered it with his Standard Oil company, employing its own plumbers and handling its own oil transportation.

King Philip’s War devastated Native resistance in colonial New England

Decades of rising tension over land and sovereignty erupted in 1675, when Wampanoag leader Metacom led a Native alliance against English colonies. The 14-month war ended in catastrophic defeat, killing thousands and shattering organized Native power in the Northeast.

The Aztec Empire began as a three-city military alliance

The Aztec Empire emerged in 1428 when Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan formed the Triple Alliance, combining military power and tribute networks. This pact transformed the three city-states into a dominant regional empire that rapidly expanded across central Mexico.

The original 'four horsemen' of tech were Intel, Dell, Microsoft, and Cisco

These companies became known as the "four horsemen of tech" for the influence the companies had both on other businesses and investors in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The expansion of internet infrastructure throughout the 1990s and the dot-com bubble lifted these companies to incredible heights.

Private equity firms can be 'powerful partners' or 'formidable competitors'

Under the best circumstances, PE firms can increase a company's value using strategies that might not be suitable for public companies facing pressure for immediate shareholder returns. But PE firms are often portrayed negatively due to the aggressive strategies they sometimes use to cut inefficiencies. As PE has grown, many firms have changed their strategies, shifting away from aggressive scaling to more integrated acquisitions.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

One of the most important pieces of Amazon’s corporate empire? Its Prime subscription business

Prime drives customer loyalty and boosts Amazon’s revenue through its monthly and yearly fees. The key components included with a Prime subscription include free two-day shipping on eligible items, as well as access to services like Amazon Music and Prime Video.

Thomas Cook invented modern tourism

In the mid-1800s, Cook took wealthy Britons on tours of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the US, often packaging together transportation, lodging, and food, effectively creating the modern travel agent. He also pioneered travel writing, with “Travellers Handbooks” offering tourists tips for visiting various countries.

Morphine, heroin, codeine, and more were derived from opium

Opium reached the US at about the time early colonists were itching for ways to soothe aches and pains. The active ingredient in the substance was isolated in the early 19th century, eventually leading to the manufacture and commercial sale of morphine, heroin, and other opium-based drugs.

A Tiger economy typically describes a booming Southeast Asian country

The term “tiger economy” has been used over the last several decades to describe a developing country experiencing rapid economic growth, often due to developing export-oriented industries and/or financial markets. The term was originally applied to Southeast Asian economies, including South Korea’s, and has since been used to describe Ireland, the Baltics, and Dubai.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.