The British Empire

The British Empire

There was once a significant point in time in world history when Britain almost ruled a quarter of the surface of the Earth. This was the time of the mighty British Empire, an empire so vast that it stretched from the North to the South Pole, from the western to the eastern hemisphere.

At the height of its power, the empire covered North America (although failing to hold what is now the United States), to the islands of the Caribbean, to almost half of the African continent, to the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and ending in the Asia Pacific rim. The last cornerstone of what was the British Empire fell when Hong Kong was ceded back to China in 1997.