Portal:British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.
During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America. Britain became a major power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing all 13 of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America by 1781. It retained control of British North America (now Canada) and territories in and near the Caribbean in the British West Indies. After this disaster British colonial expansion turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded its imperial holdings. It pursued trade concessions in China and Japan, and territory in Southeast Asia. The "Great Game" and "Scramble for Africa" also ensued. The period of relative peace (1815–1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemon was later described as Pax Britannica (Latin for "British Peace"). Alongside the formal control that Britain exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of world trade, and of its oceans, meant that it effectively controlled the economies of, and readily enforced its interests in, many regions, such as Asia and Latin America. It also came to dominate the Middle East. Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies, some of which were formally reclassified as Dominions by the 1920s. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. Military, economic and colonial tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily on its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Although the empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after the First World War, Britain was no longer the world's preeminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britain's colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by the Empire of Japan. Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige and the British economy helped accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britain's most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence in 1947 as part of a larger decolonisation movement, in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 confirmed Britain's decline as a global power, and the handover of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997 symbolised for many the end of the British Empire, though fourteen overseas territories that are remnants of the empire remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies, along with most of the dominions, joined the Commonwealth of Nations, which has been a free association of independent states since the 1949 London Declaration. Fifteen of these, including the United Kingdom, retain the same person as monarch, currently King Charles III. (Full article...)
Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) oversaw the founding of the new crown colony of Hong Kong under the British Empire. After the First Opium War, the territory was ceded by the Qing Empire to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland through Treaty of Nanjing (1842) and Convention of Peking (1860) in perpetuity. Together with additional land that was leased to the British under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory (1898), Hong Kong became one of the first parts of East Asia to undergo industrialisation. (Full article...)
King Charles III is the head of the Commonwealth of Nations, an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states. All but two of these countries were formerly part of the British Empire.
Commonwealth Realm Other former British territories Richard Clement Moody FICE FRGS RIBA (13 February 1813 – 31 March 1887) was a British Governor and Commander of the Royal Engineers. He was the founder and the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia; and the Commanding Executive Officer of Malta during the Crimean War; and the first British Governor of the Falkland Islands, of which he founded their capital Port Stanley, Moody Brook, and Moody Point in Antarctica. Moody founded the Colony of British Columbia whilst selected to 'found a second England on the shores of the Pacific' by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton: who desired to send 'representatives of the best of British culture' who had 'courtesy, high breeding, and urbane knowledge of the world'. The British Government deemed Moody to be the definitive 'English gentleman and British Officer'. Moody's original title was 'Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia' before he was redesignated the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia: as which he founded the capital of British Columbia, New Westminster, and he has been described as 'the real father of New Westminster'. (Full article...)Legend
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