The British Empire, once the largest on earth, was the world’s first modern superpower. At one point, nearly one in four human beings was subject to British rule—around 500 million people.
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For a deep dive into the history of the British Empire in India, check out the first season of this critically acclaimed UK podcast, hosted by historian William Dalrymple and journalist Anita Anand. Episodes focus on East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, and more, shedding light on how empires rise and fall, and how they shape the world today.
This video from History Bombs promises to tell the story of 400 years of British Imperial history in just nine minutes—with no cuts. Recorded on a British sailing ship in a single take, the lesson features costumed actors playing the roles of figures like Sir Francis Drake, Pocahontas, and Cecil Rhodes, and a script written almost entirely as a series of rhyming couples.
Between 1700 and 1900, Britain established control of India after enterprising businessmen established trading centers along the subcontinent's coast. As it held power, the Empire wielded military strength and economic exploitation to subdue the country's natives. Examine the historical impact of British colonialism in India with this academic explainer.
As Britain reckons with the uglier parts of its imperial legacy, a question has emerged: should the British Museum return some of the artifacts in its eight-million-item collection that were forcibly taken from Britain’s former colonies? In 2021, Vice launched an “unfiltered history tour” of the British Museum, an alternative to the official guide which spotlights 10 looted artifacts, including Nigeria’s Benin Bronzes, Egypt’s Rosetta Stone, Greece’s Parthenon Marbles, and more.
Do you know the East India Company minted its own coins and even had its own flag? Find these and other historical facts about the East India Company at the nonprofit World History Encyclopedia. Its in-depth entry on the EIC includes links to video explainers and an interactive timeline tracing the company from its founding in 1600 to its formal end in 1874.
This interactive map visualizes the spread of the British Empire from 1450 to the present day. It’s remarkable to watch how a small island in the North Sea came to dominate one-quarter of all the land on earth at its height in the 19th century, then see its influence recede again in the decades after World War II.
Written in 1729, the critique shed light on the land policies implemented by the British and supported by the Irish elite that were aggravating Irish poverty. Specifically, public lands used for grazing were being made private via "enclosure." Swift's famous proposal for the poor to eat their own young is one of the most famous examples of satire.
For those who like to geek out on data, this website offers a visualization of the East India Company's trade between 1760 and 1834. You can see everything that was coming into or going out of London, from Chinese tea to Welsh copper to a type of woolen fabric called “long ells,” and information about the ports they came from—all sortable by date, commodity, and market.
The “world’s most popular history podcast” hosts a nuanced discussion of the legacy of the British Empire with guest Sathnam Sanghera, a journalist and author of the books Empireland and Empireworld. The conversation goes beyond declaring empire wholly good or bad, instead contemplating issues including how empire is taught in British schools.
This interactive timeline tells the story of the founding of the United States using archival maps, images and text. It starts with an engraving from 1590 showing the very first (and ill-fated) British colony at Roanoke Island, continues through the smallpox epidemic as depicted by Aztec illustrators, and ends at the dawn of the Revolutionary War.
Weave together the many narratives of world history with our highly curated and expanding selection of diverse, fascinating resources designed to showcase the breadth and richness of Earth's story, from the earliest traces of human civilization to the dramatic developments of contemporary cultures.