Well, for over a thousand years, everybody invaded us, then we started fighting back. We got real good at it.

Just a couple of things: Although at one time we were involved in the slave trade, Britain is the main reason slavery was abolished around the world we were instrumental in that, and Britain is still considered a major world power only America has more over seas bases than Great Britain, Also the fact that we used to have the most powerful navy in the world is where the poem then song "Rule Britannia" comes from.

yes the british did run slave trade, but after 37 years, the outcry against it in the UK lead to the abolishment of the british slave trade and indeed set up the africa squadron that hunted down slaver ships, in fact one of the reasons for the american war of "independence" was the "founding fathers" wanted the slave trade to continue, it was never about taxes...

The world underestimated the power of tea and crumpets

One of the reasons the English succeeded so well where other colonists had failed was because they decided to teach other nations their language. This allows you to instruct local people to manage other local people so you need less English feet on the ground. Always makes me laugh when ignorant Americans say "if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German". If it wasn't for us, you either wouldn't exist or you'd be speaking arapaho.

At the time Britain first got into the African slave trade, the Barbary pirates from North Africa were raiding towns in Cornwall and along the South coast of England for slaves. It is easy to forget how ubiquitous slavery was.

Worth noting, America is an ex colony that went independent. Most Americans are British descendants, essentially Americans are British. They evolved into a different variant of Brit, with their own culture and style. Now America as a relatively new country is making its own mark on the World, a chip off the old block!

Andora, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Vatican City, & Sweden are still on our "to do" list! 🤣

i live near a sleepy village called bucklers hard, which was the center for ship building in the middle ages when it comes to slavery, it has always been illegal in the uk, they got round this by keeping them within the docks, where they were technicly cargo. however the british were the last to get in on the existing slavery trade, and the first to actually ban it, also starting a campain to stamp it out, providing ships with the sole purpose of catching slavers and releasing the slaves. for years i suffered a kind of guilt for this, but uk stamped it out and forced the rest of europe to follow, somthing the uk should be really proud of

Yes the slave trade was one of the worst things in Britain's history but only this year, at 80+, I discovered that all my working life my taxes helped pay of the British debt incurred when they, acting alone, forced the end of the open slave trade. This was one of the best things ever done by GB and I never heard a word about in my school history lessons!

There were a number of colonial powers, it's just the british were very well organised, we just did it better than anyone else. Its no coincidence that most of the preferred places to live in the world have a strong british influence. As far as slavery was concerned, it was practised long before the british were involved, arab slavers in africa, and various african kingdoms themselves.

Some good analysis mixed with some pretty dodgy history here, it's absolutely true that the Empire was mainly created through private ventures backed by a strong navy, but not that this funded a strong military capable of crushing any opponants, England and then the UK never had a very large army. It actually used a lot of negotiations and deals. Usually promising to support a local ruler in exchange for trading rights. Very few colonies, mainly the Americas and Australia involved displacement, and there there were very few people, it was trade mainly that was the focus. The West Indies in the time of sugar cane dominance, and India were profitable in themselves, but most colonies were not, their worth was in the captive market for British produced goods. That's the missing piece in the video, Britain's wealth was more to do with the industrial revolution than the Empire, it helped to have it because of selling goods to it, but being the only industrial nation for a while is more important.

It wasnt a case of us venturing out to invade other countries, we were exploring which is how we stumbled across America and other countries. We were introduced to citrus fruits, nutmeg (there is a good book called Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton that tells that story). For a small country we have given the world a lot.

Yep, as Edward Gatter said, King George 3rd signed into law the abolition of slavery in 1807. We spent ships, men and lots of money policing the oceans and stoping slave ships at the same as time as fighting the Napoleonic wars against France. Any slave that was brought back to England would be a free man.

. As a brit 🇬🇧 that was really informative, but back in the day when I was in school we learnt all that, can't be said for the schools these days, also Britain was the first country to abolish slavery and again used our navy to enforce this law. Thanks again my American friend 🇬🇧🇺🇸

So, today I learned that what made the British Empire unique was a desire for wealth and power! Yeah, because no one else wanted those things. Remember most of our expansion was trade based and we didn't just march in and overpower the country. They benefitted too. We provided infrastructure, roads, railways, schools, hospitals and a system of fair governance that gave citizens rights previously ignored. India was run by about 400 odd civil servants on bicycles - hardly the evil colonisers that is the common narrative right now. Try to imagine a world without the British Empire...impossible. On balance I believe that the British Empire has had a mostly beneficial effect on civilisation and the advance of humanity. Think how we went above and beyond our duty the ensure slavery ended. We could have just abolished it ourselves without the enormous expenditure of resources and manpower to police the slavers leaving NW Africa but we didn't. I'm sick of the anti English sentiment being peddled now, even this refers to us INVADING 90% of the world. See who people would prefer as the big dog on the block? America is our favoured son and carries on the tradition or would everyone rather Russia or China or the Middle East take over? Don't think so!🇬🇧♥️🇺🇸

Now that you're seen that side of the British Empire, you should react to Sargon of Akkad's video, "The British Crusade Against Slavery"

Britain civilised most of the countries they visited & took over, the minute they were asked to leave, most of them fell apart!

These sorts of videos always bring up Britain's involvement in the slave trade and yet, somehow, always manage to leave out that post-abolition they also spent vast quantities of wealth (arguably more than was ever accrued from the slave trade in the first place) forcing the rest of the world (particularly the French, Spanish and Portuguese) to abolish the slave trade also. So much money, in fact, that the debt accrued from doing so was only fully paid off in the last decade. The slave trade was an abomination, no doubt, and Britain's involvement in it was shameful in retrospect - but these historical videos could at least point out that there was something of a redemption arc to the story instead of making it seem like America was the driving force behind abolition.

I'm so proud to be English and it always surprises me how powerful this tiny country was! Yes history can be tainted but we are tiny! Just look up how many people have British ancestry round the world even now is staggering...

Wow, that was "one of the best infographic videos" JT has watched wow, there are errors and parts left out. 1. England and Britain are not interchangeable concepts (JT I thought you knew this better than most Americans! 2. In 1801 the Union Jack gained the red diagonals from Ireland. 3. A HUGE part that was conveniently left out was the slave trade was abolished in 1807 in Britain and in 1838 in the empire as a whole, 30 years before the United States.

Hi JT. Although you may not like the idea of only having sails as a power source, the Clipper Cutty Sark, under full sail would have produced 3,000 horse power. She was faster than the steam ships of that time and unlike the steam ships would not run low on fuel, that also made more space in the holds for goods than comparative sized steam ships.

Nice overview, the Royal Navy was dramatically improved by Samuel Pepys, he drew up articles of service. That is contracts, also education. Any literate person could rise through the ranks to high level. Lord Horatio Nelson a good example. The amount of ships was also due to a bounty called prize money, where the value of a captured vessel was distributed amongst the crew, using a laid out formula. The "prize money " was stopped just after WW1. So a well trained motivated "Navy" was a win all round. Must not forget the Merchant Navy, also well trained. Slavery was not a thing in England due to legislation brought in by William the conquer.

Great reaction beardy boy…..this video portrays a very biased argument as regards to slavery, you need to do a reaction on Britains crusade against slavery which this video conveniently misses out, it also evades the issue that many civilisations in Africa also made huge amounts of money as a part of the Atlantic slave trade but also the slave trade into the Ottoman Empire and countries of the Middle East. Thomas Sowell has some very good videos on this subject , keep safe and well , love from UK ❤️🇬🇧👍

The British done three things when empire building. One .Conquered the land .Two stabilized the land .Three exploited the land. Sir the vid at 5:53 . The British government did not throw money at the Royal Navy .The warships at that were well designed, lighter faster and had much better weaponry .The cannon on board were mounted on wheels so could load much quicker and made of cast iron . The British empire was build for trade not wealth unlike the Spanish and Portuguese.

"England" and "Britain" are not the same thing and should not be used interchangeably.

This might to do with that most of those “invasions” were “invasions” that most people wouldn’t normally consider as a “invasion”. You can say we Brits are pretty good in getting into other countries and pieces of land without other people knowing, that might to do with because we are a small country and even with pretty obvious big history people still underestimate the little guys 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

The Royal Navy was built because trade was being blockaded by other countries, mainly France, we didn't have the money so created the bank of England to raise money from public subscriptions.. the ships were used to protect the merchant ships. We blockaded the French navy in port and supplied those ships with food and water etc by supply ships so that they could stay at the blockade. Britain didn't invade 90% of the world, a lot of land wash a country, we colonised them, we only colonised a small part of America, it was America gained it's independance that they (invaded) the rest of America and displaced the indigenous people. India was invaded by East India Company who had their own private army and navy, some Indians enlisted into company army. It was when they ran into trouble that Britain took over the management of India. They are confusing invasion with wars. Wats with France was because we had a claim to the French throne, we even had a English king on the French throne once. We were on Spain and Portugal giving military assistance, not invading, same can be said in a lot of other countries.

This video shows a fair bit of bias and many inaccuracies. We were the first country to ban slavery and we have only just paid off the families that were compensated for giving up slaves back in the early 19th century. It says something when the children of slaves are still being treated poorly by the richest, most modern country in the world. But, you’re right, money takes prime position there. Firstly, England is only the biggest country in Great Britain or the UK. The UK is GB plus N Ireland. Scots, Irish and Welsh were sent all over the world as soldiers. At one point, Scots were responsible for 40% of the world’s inventions. The British navy was responsible for many ideas and inventions, including standardisation of parts. Previously, each ship was built as a standalone. History lessons here didn’t teach us that the British government threw money at the navy and the army. Rather the opposite. That’s why private enterprise funded exploration and expeditions, not the government. The UK did explore and found ‘new’ countries - what was Captain Cook doing? The Dutchman, Abel Tasman, found Tasmania but somehow managed to miss Australia altogether. In losing America, America had a fair amount of help from France and the Continent. The UK army was spread over many lands and amounted to 45k men altogether all over the world at the start.

The Portuguese and Spanish was selling slaves before British business got into the game. They also took far many more slaves. This isn't supporting the UKs involvement, just pointing out, they wasn't the first.

65 countries around the world celebrate their independence from Britain still today, including yours! The two greatest empires ever were the Mongol Empire and the British Empire. In the case of the latter you have to realise that we controlled every ocean and sea too.

Thank you for another fascinating video, JT. Just a shame about the narrator constantly referring to Great Britain/ the British as England/ the English!! Your "Wales people", the Scottish, and the Northern Irish also play a VERY significant part, as you, JT, now also know!

One thing that video neglected to mention was that many of those government funded privateers had another name, PIRATES! Many pirates would also attack slave ships and release the slaves and use them to increase their numbers as free men and pirate crews.

Actually we treated the native Americans much better than the french and other countries did

This video is extremely selective in the facts it presents and biased in how they are shown the vast majority of these private expeditions were done on shoestring budgets with only enough troops to protect themselves they usually found local tribes and kings to partner with then assisted their allies in expanding their influence either by mediation diplomacy military advice or direct military support. Everyone thinks of the British Empire like the ones which came before but it was a very different animal it was a trading empire as long as trade prospered the Empire allowed all its citizens to live as they pleased which is why it became so vast and successful most of the foreign possessions were governed by a handful of Europeans assisted by thousands of locals and defended by millions of local troops trained and equipped to European standards the truth is if these local administrative staff and troops had not supported the Empire any British army sent to impose sovereignty would have been lost without a trace.

some very good comments right there , educational and informative . i love history and you guys seem to too . nice to be in good company

It was called the BRITISH Empire, not the ENGLISH empire (1707 onwards).

I dressed up as a British Redcoat once and I was so happy because I was just in my history nerd element lmao

remember me? ive been subscribed before you hit 2k subs lol. I commented on the among us vent video. Glad to see you are doing well and your channel is doing amazing now. I hope to see you hit 100k subs.

India wasn't really invaded. Apparently the British east India company was formed in 1599 and landed in India in 1608, just over 100 years after the first European traders. It expanded by various methods over the following 250 years (which in my book is a bloody long time) becoming the dominant whatever until the revolt of 1857 led to the closure of the British east India company in 1857.The Crown then took control of India in 1858.

One of my favorite quotes is The sun will never set on the British Empire because even God does not trust the British in the dark.

Let's get one thing perfectly clear, Europe didn't create or exploit slavery, not to mention why does nobody ever talk about Europeans who were slaves, as an Englishman I'm fed up with this bull sh*t, yes we used slavery but that was the norm at the time, end of conversation there's nothing else to add !!!

Hi JT, l really enjoyed this video it wasn't heavy going but it still informed you , it made me a have a better understanding of how the Empire was formed.

Morning JT, thanks for all your reaction vids, informative as always.

Sorry that’s not strictly true , we did actually invade one island belonging to Sweden after the Swedes had had to make an agreement with Napoleon in 1812 not to trade with UK . Howeverthe Swedes really didn’t mind and it allowed the British to use this island as a base to trade with all the other Baltic countries and secretly with Sweden as well

With the emphasis on the Royal navy in the video I find it interesting that it didn't mention that it was the job of the Royal navy to enforce the decision of the British government to abolish the Slave Trade around the worlds oceans. Britain gets highly criticised for the Slave Trade, right so, but where is the realisation that the British people saw the barbarity of this Trade and decided to put an end to it.

The East India company and the husdon Bay Co company are two good examples. Hudson Bay company is still one of the biggest companies in the world today.

The Royal Navy flys the Ensign red cross on a white background with the Union Jack in the top left corner, The Merchant Navy flys a red flag with the Union Jack in the top left it is also flown on civilian vessels and The Blue Ensign with The Union Jack in the top left corner is flown on British Government vessels.

All of Britain played a part In this JT,not just England. Wales, Scotland & northern Ireland did too, we all had a part to play, that's why the guy In the video you're reacting to said British & NOT JUST England. The Scots - the Welsh did most of the heavy lifting when it came to the overseas service JT.

Our involvement in slavery is our worst shame, but we did do something to fix it, ending the international slave trade because it was wrong, even though ending it was expensive.

We were crusaders against slavery. Just ask a black veteran from world war II how Britain open their arms up to them.

Great video as always....keep up the great work!!

Not only that but we invested HEAVILY in naval academy’s as well as navigation and seamanship skills which ensured that British sailors were one of if not the best sailors in the world and would put perform Most European countries and again unlike everyone else who spent their money on their armies the British cut the cost of its military by as you hear renting or hiring mercenaries and the locals which allowed for a much smaller but more professional army at the fraction of the cost where it would be akin to allowing Amazon to hire and equips their own soldiers and the US government says, go to A and if you win you get to keep the place under the name of the US government but in return for said protection we get a cut of the profits ie 40%

This is very questionable. Notice the number of countries ‘invaded’ on the map is far more than the countries that were ever part of the empire. Some of these ‘invasions’ was just arriving. I would also think they’ve included times when Britain acted with allies such as Crimea or where the object of invasion was not to conquer. Details are boring though aren’t they, Infographics!

East India Trading Company was in Pirates of the Caribbean as an antagonistic force. Interesting fact about the EITC is that their flag was very similar to that the US and Malaysia use today, many argue that the US flag was even based on this but there isn’t much evidence that it was. It is likely that both flags emerged by adding white stripes to their British Red Ensign flags, the US would then replace the Union Jack with stars.

We were merciless in the search for more tea!

Only 10% to go lads

Funny hearing an American talk about how there are few points to in history as Britain using slavery, because America is guilt free there also I hear they treated the native Americans really well 🙄

As a English man myself Enjoyed this

Woah, haven’t watched one of these videos in a while. That beard has really gotten big, wild and grand.

"If you saw someone in a skirt you shot him and nicked his country." Capt. E. Blackadder.

British by birth,English by the grace of God.👍

This is a fairly simplistic description of British expansion. To start with Britain rarely had a very big army, usually several European powers had much bigger armies. Another is that internally Britain began advancing as a society in science, technology and industry until in the late 1700s they were leading the industrial revolution which they dominated for about 100 years. Many like to claim the British divided their enemies but for the most part that is untrue. The poeples of many if not most of the modern countries were already divided and sought alliances with the British. Many considered themselves separate countries and were united by the British, a prime example being India. Also some of the countries invaded were invaded to stop the slave trade. Many others were already controled by another European power and were invaded as part of a European war.

nice description but a number of facts that are not correct. Slavery was banned in Britain from the reign of William 1st 1066 etc. Slavery to the colonies etc was ended in the 1800's by the Royal Navy

It’s crazy how powerful we are even now. As such a small country we shouldn’t have half as much power as we do. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

"Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves"

Another thing was surplus where Britain was just building warships for war but if they ever needed to they could simply sell them off as either well armed merchant ships or to other countries

The list of nations NOT invaded by Britain seems to have overlooked Siam. The rulers there cleverly played the various "Imperial Powers" off against each other.

What you forget every country was involved in the slave trade and the Americans even worse

You should react to every country England has ever invaded visualised

Our standardisation of ship design was a big part too. If a french ship was damaged the crew had to make the custom parts to fix it. If a british ship was damaged the shipwrights would have the right shaped parts ready and waiting in a dockside warehouse when it tied up. Anywhere in the world.

Yes it was on Pirates of the Caribbean. If you look at the part on the island with the cannibals. Captain Jack is using a can of pepper which has the East India Trading Company on it.

The Brits didnt invade anyone, they had lots of {special operations}

It was enjoyable. The working British people were more abused than the citizens of countries they took control of. It was entertaining. Keep up the good posts.

Another aspect of the trade slave is that it basically worked like this: Ships with European finished goods went out to Africa, their they were exchanged for slaves that then were shipped and sold to america, then in america they were exchanged for raw resources from america, sugar, cotton, tobacco e.t.c. which were shipped to England and then it was poor english people that made the finished goods from the resources. Especially clothes from imported cotton. So the emerging working-class in England itself was exploited more brutally as well, indirectly because of the slave trade overseas. The increased "streamlining" of agriculture and mechanization of industry also made more and more of the already poor people unemployed and encouraged to emigrate overseas (selling yourself into indentured servitude was amongst the most common way europeans emigrated to America in the 17th and 18th century). So the irony is that the slave trade far away overseas sort of created a demand for more tedious and exhausting work back home for Englands poor, in order to produce finished goods for an ever-growing market.

That’s why when you look at a standard map of the world, you’ll find the U.K in the middle, at the top.

His beard has invaded 90% of his face

Most countries tried and succeeded at invading and colonising, just the British did it better

Those ships have powerful motors on the masts. And they rarely ran out of fuel, which was free.

This clip skips over the major point of contention for hundreds of years for fear of not wanting to step on anyone's shoes - religion. The Spanish, French, Irish, many Scottish etc. were constantly conspiring against England and they were allied predominantly through Catholicism. The pope was even against England. The English fought some battles like the Battle of the Boyne alongside other protestants including Danes, the Dutch, the Huguenots etc. Protestantism led England and other Northern European nations into the age of enlightenment and discovery. People had more freedom and free enterprise and market economics were encouraged. People aspired to be greater and to rise above impediments. Catholicism was severely corrupt and sucked vast sums of money out of people to fund wars, bribe people and get involved in politics. The official position of the Catholic Church up until some time during the last century was to conduct mass in Latin. It meant that only few wealthy people could understand what was going on and could even read the Bible. It was a deliberate position to ensure that ignorance prevailed and vested the maximum amount of power in the church. Basically very few could challenge their authority. They were not happy when Martin Luther decided that the Bible should be printed in German, the language spoken by the man in the street in the German principalities. Consequently Northern Europe pushed forward to discovery, industrial revolution, literacy, modern medicine, science etc. and the South of Europe stayed in the dark ages. There are still parts of Europe that don't have proper sewage systems to this day. For all of the trillions of dollars worth of gold extracted out of South America by the Spanish hundreds of years ago, it was all squandered and Spain continued to be relatively poor due to religion and politics. This film makes it sound like England had a choice and it was the aggressor. There have been times when the English fleet was under attack from the French, Spanish and Portuguese, and outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1 when failure would have meant total destruction and enslavement. The Scottish and Irish were constantly trying to provide a back door into England over land to the French and the Spanish. England was surrounded. This is why England had to crush any rebellion across Britain and Ireland, and at times banish Catholics because it was thought that they couldn't be trusted. England had to come out swinging and kill or be killed. Yes, there were financial interests, but it was all in the name of building the British empire and it enabled the country to survive against strong foes including Napoleon and Germany more recently. The clip makes it feel like the empire was all about greed. Every country in Europe wanted to colonise parts of Africa. Sweden even briefly contemplated colonising Australia.This had a huge impact upon influence and geopolitics. The British were actually far less abusive of local people than other nations and tried to build up institutions and infrastructure, whereas some of the others were just in it to exploit the resources and the people. Slave trading was already occurring in Africa for hundreds or thousands of years before Europeans arrived and it was the local people who were wealthy from doing all of the rounding up. The British were actually instrumental in ending the slave trade well before most other countries involved, so while everyone looks at the situation with a lot of modern ideas and sensibilities, Britain has actually been a force for good in the world on many occasions. Moral justice, respect and good behaviour are values that are commonly upheld in English literature. Money, greed and prosperity was only part of the picture and I feel as though it has been over played a bit. It is poles apart from the horrific plundering and atrocities committed by the Spanish during their conquest of South America.

As Flanders and Swann (sometimes) ad-libbed in A Song Of Patriotic Prejudice, "If it wasn't for the Engllish, You'd all be Spanish or French". It wasn't right, but it was different times.

Your fascination with us brits is so fun to watch! I’d love to show you around the uk and give you a look at the hidden gems and our culture. love the videos mate!

You're correct about the POTC reference by the way. And actually pretty accurate for what they did at the time

I think England was much more of trading nation than anything else, we occasionally use the navy to consolidate the trading agreements.

It's interesting that he talked about Britain's involvement in the slave trade, but said nothing about their massive involvement in ending it. Britain was about 80% responsible for ending slavery and the slave trade, but gets no recognition for it. The US didn't end slavery until over 100 years after Britain had already made it illegal and spent decades fighting it around the world.

This vid has a lot of crap in it. The list is long and I don't have the time to dispute this propaganda. I didn't hear much about the abolition of slavery and the role GB played in it and the cost, while stil fighting European wars.

A great follow up is every country Britain ever invaded. World tour of invaded and conquered. Its great for the context of what Britain actually held.

Whats not coming across here is that Britain did not use force ! They gradually gained power in these other countries through TRADE! The East I ndia Company played a large part. Google it.

💪🏻🇬🇧

I like how you referred to Britain as England, I feel in this context you're right. My belief is the first colonys of "Britain" were Wales,Ireland and my home of Scotland hot take I know but we lost out language and culture and submitted to rule in England

yes the east india trading company , broke so many Magna carter laws but as they were so far away , most of the time they went unpunished by the crown.

The British were the ones, that when they held the reins of world power, INSISTED on the abolition of the slave trade. In those days if you saw a ship bearing down on you flying the Union Jack, you knew it stood for liverty!

England was actually was very slow to start to colonise. They got involved because they were under threat by the Spainish, Netherlands and other catholic countries but damn they mastered it

Us English have always been self reliant, back when Jesus' grandparents were still alive we were fighting and defeating the Roman Army led by Julius Caeser himself but they came back in force a century later and we spent a full thousand years as a conquered slave nation. After the Romans it was the Vikings then the French and eventually we got free only to be invaded by the Germans and the French, the Spanish and again the French trying to re-conquer us and we kind of lost it, like the bullied kid who goes to the gym and gets 'Roid rage' we just wanted to be safe from the bullies, so we got big, WAY BIG! The Royal Charter stated that 'The Royal Navy shall always be as large as the TWO largest navies know to other nations'. Or other words the Royal Navy will be more than just be the largest, it will be at least as big as the second and third biggest navies combined, this meant that it would take 'at least' three countries in an alliance to become a threat to us. Even our national anthem reflects this "Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves, so Britain Never Again Shall Be Enslaved!" As an Island, if we control the seas, we can Never be invaded and it worked, not even the German war machine managed to reach us during WW2, thank to the newly born Royal Air Force we kept our coasts free from invasion, despite the RAF Pilots having a lower survival rate that the Japanese Kamikaze pilots. Yes, during the war the RAF pilots were more likely to die than suicide pilots, which is like asking US Marine's to fight so often against such unfair odds that they are more likely to die than a suicide bomber.

From David Starkey's latest video on The British Empire ( put up yesterday ) ' I think it;s very important that we bear in mind this complexity, that we don't just simply see the past through the prism of race, which would be a very profound distorting glass. Whereas if we look at history through the prism of empire, then...Newtonian!! We can actually see what light is composed of '.

Stuart Laycock also got one wrong. Monaco WAS invaded and occupied after the peninsular war. Britain was clever. It never had a large standing army, so it would use its financial power to subsidise a european ally to fight for/be a continental stalwart for them in order to preserve "the balance of power" (that they could keep an eye on). Usually Austria or Prussia but would also subsidise countries like Russia.

Take it all with a bit of salt because a lot of countries just didn't exist. Nations were created through organisation, formalisation, border creation and the ability to sustain it. How do you think all these countries were actually created? Even the USA (previously just part of the Americas a single continent) was just a vast expanse until colonised by the Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese - it's not as if the native Indians understood the concept of land ownership or territorial boundaries. It was only after colonisation they started to form recognisable structures of governmental areas, that's where countries are created... We fight wars differently and always have. We've often faced stronger larger forces, but created alliance's and know how and when to fight. We've lost battles but won wars mainly because you don't fight for territory you fight to win... Somebody attacks you, you don't just defend - you attack them back striking at every point you can. It's how we grew so big, France attacks you take everything that French has, Spain attacks you take everything Spain has, sooner or later they stop attacking... As far as armies the private company - the East India Company had twice the soldiers the British army had. The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch etc all had empires before the British. We didn't take most of these countries from their original owners, we took them from another empire that took it from the original owners or colonised a new territory, Britain and France were actually very late to exploration and colonisation. But revisionist history is quite prevalent. Africa and the middle east were formidable between 711-1492, which is when Spain kicked them out of the Iberian peninsula and began their growth into a world power. To keep it simple, Britain grew rapidly because in the resolution of a war we took the territory of the loosing side, which we also attacked during hostilities denying them their resources from far off lands... We strangled their resources and then took them upon winning the war... If you're wondering why we didn't do that in Europe, there was a strange array of alliances between royal houses and it prevented this very thing happening directly to them, but not their territories. It wasn't the government who established the Royal Navy it was Henry VIII and later Elizabeth I commanded a significant increase in naval power... It was monarch not government that built up British naval power back then the government ran national affair deemed beneath the monarch... It was also the monarch who granted license to private companies to trade in foreign lands independently - effectively outside of British government and legislative control. It was in name only British at first. This is actually why British law didn't prevent slavery in oversea territories, they were effectively independent and a blind eye was cast that way because it benefited British global business. It wasn't until later British law was enforced in British colonies forcing the criminalisation of the slave trade and it's eventual demise. If you look at where the British were you'd see they never extended too far inland, and that's because our power was sea based, the Americas for example French, Dutch etc, and in South America Spanish and Portuguese took whatever they wanted. British resources weren't complete, but we're substantial. It why when you went inland you'd find Dutch and French trappers but very few English, other than free indenture servants who chose to start a new life there... and there were 50,000 forgotten indenture servants sent to the Americas pen@l colony.

One thing not mentioned was that when Britain fully colonised a country, incluiding setting up government offices & having civil servants move in, they also buiilt schools & hospitals for the locals. Look at India, it was not uncommon for people in Indian society who worked for us in governing the country to send their children to England to be educated in our public schools & universities. In the 19th century, we introduced a modern education to India, teaching a curriculum identical to what was taught back home, taught to boys & girls. We opened state schools in every district & also provided finances for affiliated private schools. This didn't happen as soon as we arrived in India but as the territory we controlled grew, we needed more Indians to join our government to help, & we needed them to be educated to the same level as us. Prior to this biysionly used to study in gurukul, where they lived with a guru & received an education based on what the guru thought was important. Girls were not formally educated usually, but stayed at home & relied on their parents passing on what they knew. A small number were lucky to be placed with a female guru. However, these gurus did not teach subjects we would recognise, such as maths. We needed people who could work in offices or do modern jobs, so we had to introduce a British-style education system to make sure they got the education we needed them to have. Just ask places in Africa whether they prefered living under British rule or the Belgians or Germans. We were pussy cats compared to rulers like Leopald II of Beligum (just Google what the atrocoties he carried out in the Congo, for example). In fact, we tended to be a lot more benign than others, so much so that some of the former countries have said that life was better under our rule than in their independent state. I'm not saying we were perfect, simply not as bad as others. Even when it came to slavery, we tended not to go somewhere & kidnap people. Instead we'd go somewhere & trade with local tribes who would sell us their enemies as slaves. A number of African tribes provided a steady stream of slaves when they sold us the neighbouring tribes they'd conquered. Even now, many of the former colonies have close ties with the UK as part of the Commonwealth. You don't stay in touch with someone if they've treated you badly, & you certainly don't have a warm, close relationship with them.

@16:00 There was no slavery in Britain after 1089 AD. Slavery in British run colonies already existed when Britain captured them from the Spanish, French or Portuguese and the economies just continued as already established. After a hundred years of being involved in the slave trade Britain banned the slave trade and forced other countries to stop the business, liberating hundreds of thousands of Africans.

Don't forget Africans sold fellow Africans to the Europeans. The dutch also had an east india company as well.