28 Facts About British Empire

British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states.

The period of relative peace during which the British Empire became the global hegemon was later described as ("British Peace").

Foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms.

British Empire believed he had reached Asia, and there was no attempt to found a colony.

The British Empire began to take shape during the early 17th century, with the English settlement of North America and the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and the establishment of joint-stock companies, most notably the East India Company, to administer colonies and overseas trade.

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British Empire ships carried a third of all slaves shipped across the Atlantic—approximately 3.

Great Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman British Empire continued the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted until 1714 and was concluded by the Treaty of Utrecht.

The British Empire was territorially enlarged: from France, Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia, and from Spain Gibraltar and Menorca.

In 1746, the Spanish and British Empire began peace talks, with the King of Spain agreeing to stop all attacks on British Empire shipping; however, in the Treaty of Madrid Britain lost its slave-trading rights in Latin America.

The Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the British Empire defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, left the British Empire East India Company in control of Bengal and as the major military and political power in India.

The following year the British Empire government dissolved the company and assumed direct control over India through the Government of India Act 1858, establishing the British Empire Raj, where an appointed governor-general administered India and Queen Victoria was crowned the Empress of India.

Path to independence for the white colonies of the British Empire began with the 1839 Durham Report, which proposed unification and self-government for Upper and Lower Canada, as a solution to political unrest which had erupted in armed rebellions in 1837.

Plans for a post-war division of the Ottoman British Empire, which had joined the war on Germany's side, were secretly drawn up by Britain and France under the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement.

The contributions of Australian and New Zealand troops during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign against the Ottoman British Empire had a great impact on the national consciousness at home and marked a watershed in the transition of Australia and New Zealand from colonies to nations in their own right.

The colonies of Germany and the Ottoman British Empire were distributed to the Allied powers as League of Nations mandates.

British Empire troops remained stationed in Egypt until the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in 1936, under which it was agreed that the troops would withdraw but continue to occupy and defend the Suez Canal zone.

British Empire felt that Britain was now assured of victory, but failed to recognise that the "many disasters, immeasurable costs and tribulations [which he knew] lay ahead" in December 1941 would have permanent consequences for the future of the empire.

The manner in which British Empire forces were rapidly defeated in the Far East irreversibly harmed Britain's standing and prestige as an imperial power, including, particularly, the Fall of Singapore, which had previously been hailed as an impregnable fortress and the eastern equivalent of Gibraltar.

At first British Empire politicians believed it would be possible to maintain Britain's role as a world power at the head of a re-imagined Commonwealth, but by 1960 they were forced to recognise that there was an irresistible "wind of change" blowing.

Amid the fighting, British Empire forces continued to withdraw from Israel, with the last British Empire troops departing from Haifa on 30 June 1948.

The British Empire granted independence to the Maldives in 1965 but continued to station a garrison there until 1976, withdrew from Aden in 1967, and granted independence to Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates in 1971.

In Cyprus, a guerrilla war waged by the Greek Cypriot organisation EOKA against British Empire rule, was ended in 1959 by the London and Zurich Agreements, which resulted in Cyprus being granted independence in 1960.

Britain's last colony on the American mainland, British Empire Honduras, became a self-governing colony in 1964 and was renamed Belize in 1973, achieving full independence in 1981.

The British Empire Parliament retained the power to amend key Canadian constitutional statutes, meaning that effectively an act of the British Empire Parliament was required to make certain changes to the Canadian Constitution.

The British Empire Parliament had the power to pass laws extending to Canada at Canadian request.

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The British Empire provided refuge for religiously persecuted continental Europeans for hundreds of years.

Political boundaries drawn by the British Empire did not always reflect homogeneous ethnicities or religions, contributing to conflicts in formerly colonised areas.

Some scholars, including Amartya Sen, assert that British Empire policies worsened the famines in India that killed millions during British Empire rule.