British Empire
▶ Explore on the mapThe British Empire was the largest empire in history, covering about a quarter of the world's land and people at its height around 1920. It began with trading stations and charters, among them the Virginia charter of 1583 and the East India Company founded in 1600, followed by the planting of Barbados and Jamaica in the seventeenth century. After the union of 1707 Scotland shared in overseas expansion, the Seven Years' War gave Britain Canada and effective control of India, and although the thirteen colonies were lost in 1783, settlement of Australia from 1788 and the annexation of New Zealand in 1840 more than compensated. Steamships, the telegraph and the Suez Canal, opened in 1869, knit the possessions together, and the scramble for Africa added Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan and Rhodesia. Government took three forms: self-governing dominions such as Canada and Australia, colonies ruled directly from London, and protectorates administered through local rulers. Trade moved on imperial preference and the pound sterling served as the world's reserve currency. Two world wars exhausted the metropole: India became independent in 1947, Palestine and Malaya followed, and the Suez crisis of 1956 showed Britain could no longer act alone. The empire was formally wound up as the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of independent states.