Start your membership today at historybombs.com for full access to our video lessons and teaching materials. Captain, what do you see, sailor? It's History Bombs, sir. The British Empire in one take.
They'll never take the British Empire. I think he's misunderstood the concept. As the sails are being unfurled on this complex journey all around the world, one note... This video's just eight minutes.
Yeah, that's not long. The form has limits. Centuries of change, resistance and violence. All involving this rainy little island. Starting in England for the first verse, it's 1581 Q Elizabeth I. I knight these...
Francis Drake, your ship sailed round the world for my sake, proclaiming the glory of England's name and embarrassing our rivals, Portugal and Spain. My honour, your majesty, let the legend be told, I stole more Spanish gold than our ship could hold. On the golden hind, I went to find gaps to fill in our ever-growing global map.
Exploring the so-called New World by ship was big business at the time. Great riches could be traded or stolen from indigenous people and European rivals. But that's not the whole story about Drake.
Alongside Sir John Hawke. Mr Hawkins, he was there at the very start of one of the British Empire's worst atrocities, the enslavement of millions of African people. In the powerful kingdoms of Africa, we have seen Portuguese slave traffickers.
So there's money to be made if we could go on a raid. We could start our own Atlantic Slave Trade. England must get in on it too. Drake and Hawkins, you know what to do.
get slave people over the seas and sell them to Spanish colonies. British slave trading develops rapidly with active support from monarchs, merchants, the military and the public. More on this to come.
At the same time, British colonists build permanent settlements in a place they... called America. Some wanted land and wealth, others sought refuge from religious persecution, but wherever they went they of course met people who were already living there.
Indigenous princess, dressed to impress, proud daughter of the Powhatan, East Coast power clan, the British built Jamestown close to me. I was kidnapped but saw an opportunity, married a colonist to stop the war between our peoples, went to London, met the King, sold St Paul's steeple, leader and a diplomat. What they never told you that I broke a peace among us, my name, Pocahontas.
In 1660, Pocahontas was an honoured guest in England, but sadly the peace she achieved didn't hold. Colonists killed millions of indigenous people in wars, land grabs and pandemics like smallpox. Meanwhile, British triangular trade routes took enslaved people from Africa over the horrific Middle Passage to work on Caribbean plantations.
But there was always resistance. Resistance that led to victory Sweeter than sugar in a British cup of tea Nanny of the maroons I led a liberation, a community thrive When we escaped the plantation, a fighter And over your magic, Mirka, I led my runes to the hills of Jamaica And I touched his feet, the British don, to sign a peace treaty with Nani To. The 16th and 1700s saw resistance to Britain's growing empire.
During the Seven Years'War, the Bengali leader Siraj Udalla fought to keep independence against the expanding British East India Company but was defeated by Robert Clive at the Battle of Plassey. And by now there were 13 British colonies in America who didn't get on with their rulers in London. Stop!
That's our property! In 1973, the Americans are throwing British tea into the sea. It's the lager property. This is a lot of fun.
Here comes the general! George Washington, Earl Cornwallis, let me give you the recap. Your response to Boston is a storm in a teacup.
It's simple. Taxes at the British levy on American colonies are getting too heavy. And we have no say in your parliament.
And this is how you want to make your argument? Washington, you once fought for the Brits in the Seven Years'War. But I see that it's too late to change you anymore.
Get ready! Ready for a revolutionary war Which we will win against the British crown You surrender to the revolutionaries at Yorktown We've lost America, the empire is diminished Surely my colonial career is finished? No wait, I'm fine Off to fight another war In southern India, at Mysore Cornwallis, this invasion is deeply insulting You've met your match in Tipu Sultan Our strong and diverse society Will resist the onslaught of the EIC My innovative rocketry will guarantee us victory We'll see They end up a colony.
Well, that's that. Now I'm fed up of roaming. Time to head back to my home in...
Ireland is not your home. Leader of the Irish rebels, Wolfe Tone. That's right, Cornwallis.
Don't look so surprised. Ireland's the first place the English colonised. Suppressed our culture and brought endless slaughter. Time to send the invaders back over the water.
The British responded with deadly force to uprisings like the Irish Rebellion in 1798. Britain could manufacture weapons at huge scale and speed during the Industrial Revolution. partly due to the wealth that was pouring into the country via the triangular slave trade. But in the United Kingdom itself, attitudes to the slave trade were beginning to change. Elado Equiano is the name I rose to fame, with the book of my enslavement.
And how I came to make a payment for my freedom, I'm a self-made man I made England home and then had bigger plans, abolition of the brutal slave trade With the writings and the speeches I made, hearts were swayed, not bad For a boy kidnapped from Nigeria, with eloquence and acumen, highly superior While the British public argued over the morality of slavery, the government looked for new territory to make up for the loss of the American colonies. A British naval officer called James Cook had mapped a vast continent on the other side of the world. But like America 200 years before, there was no such thing as a continent.
were already people there. I'm Ben along, I met British sailors who said my land was called Australia which is not our name, no we've been here caring for country for tens of thousands of years. They kidnapped me so I could do translations, I went to England and mediated for our nation but when I came home I left the colonists behind, their diseases and their violence troubled my mind. Hundreds of thousands of British convicts and civilians went to Australia, devastating indigenous people through persecution and kidnapping, justified as a mission to save civilize and spread Christianity.
The government was finally persuaded to abolish slavery in 1833, but compensate the former slave owners with huge sums of money. This historic injection of capital paved the way for even more expansion. Feel the euphoria for the reign of Victoria.
Check out my great exhibition of Britannia Gloria. Hulled a quarter of the globe, no empire finer. Got rich from the opium wars against China.
Forced most of Asia to buy our drugs. And then we crushed the mutinous thugs in India. No more East India Company.
I'm empress now, it's our national destiny Let's scramble for Africa, a continent of loads of land and diamonds For me, Cecil Rhodes, the empire needs metals, ivory, rubber With our European rivals, we've agreed among each other over who gets where Which resources and jewels, cos we believe whites have a right to rule But your plan to colonise had a surprise in store You were soon embroiled in the Boer War A white man's conflict on African soil With British concentration camps, murder for the spoils I was in South Africa with Indian workers We organised a volunteer ambulance service which the warring British found pretty hundy. Recognise me, I'm M.K. Gundy. Gandhi's time in South Africa was crucial in forming his methods for non-violent resistance.
He later returned to India to lead the struggle for independence. The pseudo-scientific racism of Cecil Rhodes was common among white elites at the time. The Boer War had a terrible death toll, but an even bloodier conflict arose between European rivals in World War I. We answer the call from all over the empire to stand together under enemy fire for a promise of freedom, safety, respect or believing the empire was ours to protect. From India, Australia, Canada, West Indies, millions signed up hoping that in these sacrifices our common humanity could remake the world after wars and sanity.
Millions of people across the empire made vital contributions to both world wars but Britain was now weakened in huge debt and needed help. So many people took up Britain's invitation to live and work here with the the Windrush Generation. Still many other citizens resisted being part of British-led conflicts. Movements for independence grew across the world, from the Easter Rising in Ireland to the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya.
The Empire's retreat involved massacres and torture by British soldiers and provoked civil wars that continue to shape our world. No one saw this more directly than Gandhi. British wars and trade were built on maps, but when the Empire began to collapse, the colonial lines they drew still remained, dividing people and causing deep pain. The India-Bakistan partition caused a million deaths and stoked nationalism, which inspired my assassin.
It's hard to find humanity after centuries of imperial brutality. The scars are deep, but many are covered. Let us witness how people survived and suffered. Instead of a myth of pomp and glory, let us look for and listen to the real story.
Oh, is it over then?