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From the 15th c. to the beginning of the 19th c. around 12 million slaves were taken from Africa to America and other European colonies.

They worked in plantations and were not considered human beings, just tools. Their forced labour greatly  contributed to the wealth of Europe and United States and their rise as global powers.

Slavery was abolished in most European and American countries during the 19th century.

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Chinese ships destroyed by the more advanced Bristh fleet.

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The British forced the Chinese to buy the opium they produced in their Indian plantations.

The Chinese emperor refused, so the British (supported by the French) defeated the Chinese in several battles.

By the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin, British and French obtained  access to trading ports and territorial acquisitions in China.

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British troops attack the rebellious sepoys

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Also called the First War of Independence of India, it was an unsuccessful rebellion against British rule in India.

The  Indian troops (sepoys) in the service of the British East India Company revolted and conquered Delhi.

British troops defeated them and severely punished the rebels.

As a consequence, the East India Company was abolished in favour of the direct rule of India by the British government.

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Built by the French in Egyptian territory, it communicated the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, making the maritime route between Europe and Asia much shorter.

When the British took control of Egypt, the canal was administrated by both France and Great Britain.

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They greatly contributed to the movement of products, settlers and troops across the colonial territories in Africa and India.

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At the Berlin Conference, the European countries that participated in the Scramble for Africa, discussed their areas of influence in that continent.

Fourteen nations took part and got pieces of the "African cake": France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal were the major players.

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The Europeans' military superiority was evident in Africa: In the Battle of Omdurman (1898) the British used the recently invented machine gun against the Sudanese.

The outcome of the battle: 26,000 Sudanese wounded or killed and only 47 British casualties.

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A French expedition aimed to explore and gain control over  Sudanese territories. They met a British force that outnumbered the French by 10 to 1.

The two empires stood on the verge of war but the French withdrew, ensuring Bristish control over that area.

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Boxers (also known as The Righteous Fists )

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By the end of the 19th century, Western nations and Japan had forced Qing Dynasty to accept foreign control over China's economy.

The Boxers, an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian movement of peasants, started attacking foreigners.

An international force of approximately 20,000 troops from eight nations (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) arrived to take Beijing and rescue the foreigners and Chinese Christians.

The Boxer leaders were executed and China had to pay $330 million in reparations to the foreign nations involved.

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Through the 19th century USA took over territories from Mexico (Texas, California) and Spain (Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico). Apart from that, Native Americans had their land taken and were confined to reservations.

The Russian Empire expanded through Central Asia and Siberia in competition with Great Britain, China and Japan.

In the 1930s and 1940s Japan created its own colonial empire conquering areas of China, Korea and South East Asia in conflict with France and Great Britain.

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DECOLONIZATION AND APARTHEID (20th century)

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DECOLONIZATION AND APARTHEID (20th century)

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After WWII most territories gained their independence from their European metropolises. This process is called decolonization and was long, difficult and sometimes violent.

Once independent, some countries, such as South Africa, continued to discriminate their native population: the so called apartheid was a government-supported segregation against non-white citizens.