The history of the British Empire—all in a single take

The British Empire, explained

This three-minute 1440 explainer traces the rise of the British Empire, which at its height ruled nearly one in four people—about 500 million—and spanned so many regions that admirers called it “the empire on which the sun never sets.”

British royal history from a literal bird's-eye view

Learn the history of British monarchs going back centuries with this unusual, 50-minute documentary filmed entirely from the air, revealing key landmarks in beautiful footage alongside engaging commentary.

Watch the British Empire expand and recede over 5 centuries

This interactive map traces the British Empire from 1450 to today—showing its explosive 19th-century expansion to one-quarter of the world's land and its steady contraction after World War II.

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.

How the British Empire transformed into today’s voluntary Commonwealth of Nations

This video explains how former British colonies—now independent states—evolved into the modern Commonwealth, a loose association representing nearly one-third of the world’s population. It traces the shift from imperial rule to a cooperative forum with no legal obligations to Britain or its monarch.

Hear about the legacy of the British Empire

This popular history podcast hosts a discussion about the legacy of the British Empire with guest Sathnam Sanghera, a journalist and author of the books "Empireland" and "Empireworld." The conversation contemplates the impact and lasting legacy of the Empire.

An alternate-history BBC homepage imagines a world where the British Empire endured

An image on Reddit envisions a 2021 BBC homepage from an uncollapsed Empire, featuring hypothetical crises in Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, and Barbados, alongside upbeat coverage of tourism in “British Palestine”—a snapshot of how imperial news might look today.

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.

Hear the untold colonial backstories of the British Museum’s most famous artifacts

This podcast from VICE’s Unfiltered History Tour visits the British Museum’s prized objects through accounts from experts and communities from which they were taken.

A 1908 toy visualizes how the sun never set on the British Empire

Researchers uncovered an early-1900s children’s toy that romanticized the British Empire: a rotating world map showing where the sun shone on Britain’s far-flung territories. The interactive device also served as an advertisement for "The Children’s Encyclopedia."

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.

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.

Visualize 1,000 years of English monarchs with this timeline

Who sat on the throne and for how long? This visualization highlights the reigns of England’s kings and queens from 1066 to present day.

Some colonies were centuries-old before they broke from Britain

The revolution did not happen overnight, but was a culmination of centuries of settlement, policies, and war in North America. This timeline provides key, fascinating events from the 1600s through the Revolution in a smooth, easy-to-read interface.

A fun, illustrated history of the Jurassic Coast

The 95-mile stretch of coastline along England's southern shores known as the Jurassic Coast is unique in the world due to its clear demonstration of 185 million years of geological history. Now, you can see the story of that formation told in a whimsical, absorbing video created by artist Tim Britton and his pen.

Visualizing the trans-Atlantic slave trade in two minutes

This animation shows all recorded slave shipments from the 16th to 19th centuries, conceptualizing not only the slave trade with America but South America as well.

Watch Ken Burns' documentary series on the American Revolution, which tells its story through the lives of soldiers, civilians, enslaved people, Native nations, and international allies.

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.

A 3-minute look at Gandhi’s life, activism, and global influence

This video traces how a single incident launched Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent campaign against British rule, helping end the Raj. Archival images and footage show how his methods later shaped leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.

British colonialism left economic institutions that still shape growth today

This analysis argues that while the British Empire inflicted exploitation and long-term harm, it also exported institutions—like standardized property rights and land surveying—that boosted economic development in some colonies.

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.

Francis Drake: favored English pirate who sailed around the world

Before becoming the global explorer that many know him as today, Sir Francis Drake was a pirate, merchant, and slave trader. This in-depth article dives into the life of Drake, who's commonly credited as the first person to circumnavigate the globe by ship successfully.

One hundred rare, vintage photos of the British royal family

Their power may be in symbol only, but the Royal family commands our attention anyway. Take a look through the last few decades at some of the more choice, unknown shots of the Royal family, from Queen Elizabeth II to King Charles III.

A timelapse mapping more than 30,000 Transatlantic slave ship voyages

Roughly 12 million people from Africa were forcibly moved to North and South America over two centuries. This map meticulously showcases every ship's origin, destination, timeline, and more, revealing the scale of the Transatlantic slave trade.

A British Airways pilot mapped every flight of his career into a data art series

James Harding logged every flight he had flown in a software program and rendered the results into 3D globe animations, charts, graphs, and more. You can view the visualizations here, along with career stat breakdowns and a description of his project.

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

The rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire

A short but informative TED-Ed video summarizing the most important aspects of Byzantine civilization: how it all started, why Constantinople was so special, a few remarkable Byzantine authors (including Princess Anna Comnena, historian of her father’s reign), the Ottoman conquest, and why don’t just call the Byzantines “Romans.”

A trading company became Britain's most powerful imperial force

The East India Company began as a private merchant venture and grew into Britain’s dominant power in India—amassing wealth, fielding armies, and governing tens of millions until the Crown took direct control in 1858.

Twelve centuries of Roman history in 20 minutes

The Roman Empire may have been the world's first example of globalization, covering thousands of miles and crossing language barriers armed with Latin and short swords. Its legacy is nearly unparalleled in contemporary Europe, with nearly 50 Romance languages deriving from Latin.

Hong Kong: British colony turned Chinese police state

This 15-minute video explores how Hong Kong has changed since China reclaimed the territory from Britain in 1997. Hong Kong became a British colony after the First Opium War, a conflict arising from Britain's attempt to equalize trade with China through smuggled opium. Democratic rights assumed by Hong Kong residents, such as the right to protest, have been in peril since the 1997 shift, according to this video.

Go behind the scenes of the making of the ‘Harry Potter’ films

See a rare look at how the beloved series was brought to life—from set design and visual effects to interviews with cast and crew who shaped the wizarding world on screen.

Soar above the Jurassic Coast’s 185 million years of geology

This sweeping drone video reveals the stark beauty of the UK’s Jurassic Coast, a 95-mile stretch where Triassic red rock, Jurassic layers, and Cretaceous limestone are exposed—one of the clearest visible records of the Mesozoic era on Earth.

Explore the British Museum's collection across time and continents in this interactive Google Arts and Culture experience.

Take a virtual tour of the Royal Research Ship named after David Attenborough

Operated by the British Antarctic Survey, the RRS Sir David Attenborough and its onboard tools and laboratories have investigated the biogeochemical cycles of the Southern Ocean, the stability of Greenland's ice shelves, and the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. One of the ship's autonomous underwater vehicles was named Boaty McBoatface based on the results of a naming poll from the Natural Environment Research Council.

A full documentary on the origins of Islam narrated by Ben Kingsley

A rare feature-length treatment of Islam's founding that traces Muhammad's life from Mecca to the emergence of the religion. Narrated by the famed Gandhi-portraying actor Ben Kingsley, it brings production values to material that's often handled dryly in text—a good visual narrative option to the religion's origins.

Experience the Apollo 11 mission in VR

Take one small step today and experience the historic moon-landing through VR. This video showcases how VR is allowing the public to travel through space through the eyes of those who lived through it.

History of Hong Kong: an illustrated timeline

This visual timeline explores the history of Hong Kong, a Chinese community that was under British rule for 156 years until it was returned in 1997. Hong Kong was ceded to the British via the Treaty of Nanjing, an agreement that ended the First Opium War. This timeline details 25 crucial events that have happened to and in Hong Kong, a Democratic territory that stands apart from mainland China's Communist government.

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 Harvard’s early history through Indigenous voices

Founded in 1636, Harvard University grew alongside English colonization in Wampanoag lands. In this online exhibit, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology highlights Indigenous voices, interpreting objects such as eel traps and grass baskets.

The story of the first British royal visit to the US in 1939

Amid pre-World War II diplomatic efforts in June 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I (not her better-known daughter, Elizabeth II) became the first reigning British monarchs to visit the US—163 years after the colonies declared independence from Great Britain. The five-day meeting began with two formal days in Washington, DC, before concluding at FDR's estate in Hyde Park, where the monarchs reportedly enjoyed hot dogs for the first time.

A virtual tour of Jane Austen's England

This immersive slide show, assembled by the Morgan Library and Museum, takes you through scenes that inspired "Emma," "Northanger Abbey," and "Persuasion," as well as the estates where the 1995 BBC adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" was shot, along with a few other important locations from Austen's world.

Trace the rise of oil: from early drilling to today’s global power

This animated map video vividly illustrates how petroleum shaped global politics and industry—from 18th-century uses and 19th-century drilling booms in North America to today’s OPEC strategies, shale revolution, and geopolitical oil influence.

Explore the British Museum's Pompeii and Herculaneum collection

This video tour utilizes the British Museum’s collection—featuring frescoes, tools, cookware, jewelry, and even carbonized food—to reconstruct daily life in Pompeii and Herculaneum, offering an expert view of how people lived before the eruption transformed both cities.

Fascinating 3D animation shows how Romans built roads

Highly efficient engineering and materials production allowed Roman administrators to lay down nearly 50,000 miles of roads across the ancient empire. These roads were built so effectively that many are still around today. Watch this quick 3-minute video to see how they did it.

Experience 14 billion years of important moments in world history with this scrollable interactive timeline.

Take a 3D underwater trip near the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, comprising more than 900 islands and almost 3,000 individual reefs. This video lets you tag along with divers as they explore the reef off the southern coast of Lady Elliot Island in full 3D (use the direction buttons in the upper left of the video, or your keypad).

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement.

See the major Egyptian monuments in high definition.

A timeline of colonial settlement

An overview of early American settlement, beginning with the London Company's expedition to Virginia. Source includes a number of citations for further reading.

A global interactive guide to the first world war

Using rarely seen films, new reports of the day, and interactive maps, 10 historians provide a summarized history of the Great War, World War I. During the course of this half hour film, get a variety of insights and perspectives on the so-called "war to end war" and its long-reaching effects.