British & European

The British Empire was the largest empire in history and for over a century the foremost global power. It was a product of the European age of discovery, which began with the maritime explorations of the 15th century, that sparked the era of the European colonial empires. more...

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By 1921, the British Empire held sway over a population of about 458 million people, approximately one-quarter of the world's population. It covered about 36.6 million km² (14.2 million square miles), about a quarter of Earth's total land area. As a result, its legacy is widespread, in legal and governmental systems, economic practice, militarily, educational systems, sports, and in the global spread of the English language. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous colonies or subject nations.

During the five decades following World War II, most of the territories of the Empire became independent. Many went on to join the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of independent states.

Origins (1497–1583)

The foundations of the British Empire were laid at a time before Britain existed as a single political entity, when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496 King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Portugal and Spain in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead a voyage to discover a route to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 1497, and though he successfully made landfall on the coast of Canada (mistakenly believing, like Christopher Columbus five years earlier, that he had reached Asia), no attempt at establishing a colony was made, and the voyage was unprofitable. Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was heard from his ships again. In 1551, the Company of Merchant Adventurers, later renamed the Muscovy Company, was founded by Richard Chancellor and others, to open trade with Russia and probe the Northeast Passage to China.

Enmity and rivalry between Catholic Spain and Protestant England during the Anglo-Spanish Wars led to the Crown sanctioning English privateers such as John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake to engage in piratical attacks on Spanish ports in the Americas and shipping that was returning across the Atlantic, laden with treasure from the New World. At the same time, influential writers such as Richard Hakluyt and John Dee (who was the first to use the term "British Empire") were beginning to press for the establishment of England's own empire, to rival those of Spain and Portugal. By this time, Spain was firmly entrenched in the Americas, Portugal had established a string of trading posts and forts from the coasts of Africa and Brazil to China, and France had begun to settle the Saint Lawrence River, later to become New France.

Read more at Wikipedia.org