History of the British Empire (in One Take)

Surprised Hong Kong wasn’t mentioned. Some say that’s when the British empire truly ended.

at the start of the video they said that England's rivals were Portugal and Spain.But at that time Portugal and England had great alliance and I understand that Portugal had started up all the trade business and colonialism but England wasn't unfriendly,and France and Spain were more of a rivals.

Only critiques are towards the start. 1) Portugal and England weren’t rivals, they actively aided each other as they both had the common enemies of France and Spain. 2) British slaves weren’t sold to Spain. We sold them to other African kings and mainly Portugal (when they weren’t taken to the 13 Colonies).

Noticed several inaccuracies in this one, I'm not an expert so I may be wrong but: 1) In 1581 England and Portugal weren't rivals but actually their oldest allies. 2) There's very little evidence of raids carried out by the British into Africa to capture slaves like suggested in the song. In fact the majority of the slaves transported across the Atlantic were purchased from pre-existing African kingdoms 3) Nanny the Maroon most likely didn't exist and was a folk tale 4) The Kingdom of Mysore is described as a 'strong and diverse society' which is ironic because by the time of British invasion it was experiencing waves of civil strife and was in fact ruled by a Muslim elite class over a large Hindu population. 5) Ireland wasn't the first place the English colonised, it was Wales 6) The industrial revolution was attributed to wealth coming into Britain through the Atlantic slave trade which is inaccurate as industrialisation was mostly caused by population growth and urbanisation. And only began to 'revolutionise' society after the slave trade was abolished in 1829

I appreciate you all for mentioning the 1798 Rebellion, it never gets any attention outside Ireland itself yet its such an important event in our history.

I think a separate video for rebellions and other lesser known stuff would’ve been better than having it be 75% of the video

i wish they could have brought up the war of 1812 and the Zulu war, especially the last stand at roakes drift

Fun fact: This channel has now talked about the atriocities of the British Empire more than the atriocities of the Germans or the Soviets in WW2.

So glad to see a new History Bombs In One Take, but damn was this one less fun than usual…

This is less the history of the British empire and more a highlight on British atrocities and the victims of it. This video is anachronistic. Although i wont argue that these these things didn't happen, they are expressed in a dominating way to the point where British empire building gets completely overshadowed. This feels more like a political message conveyed trough atrocities that were inspected trough a modern-western lens, than it is history. Yesterday the history channel OverSimplified also released a new video on the punic wars, which also highlights barbaric elements of the Roman empire which still often gets glorified by our modern times, without making their history just singularly about it. People are cruel, but we now live in a time where cruelty is no longer something we are okay with. And i think its important to educate people on the facts without making history solely about them, which in my opinion, this History Bombs video fails to do.

Seems more like a history of 'British Colonial Exploitation' than the British empire itself, but even then the format doesn't work for it.

The video was entertaining, but had a blatant agenda. Also interesting that you mentioned Olaudah Equiano, but nothing about Josiah Wedgewood, Thomas Clarkson, John Newton, Granville Sharp, not even William Wilberforce, who was perhaps the most important person in the abolitionist movement.

This was a great video on the atrocities and reforms of the British Empire, but a terrible one in relation to the overall history of said Empire. History is more than just what’s politically relevant right now.

I heard that Hamilton “ Here comes the general” for George Washington 👀

It is nice to see another in one take, however this one could have been done better. Atriocities seemed to be the videos main focus. There is more to the British Empire than just commiting atriocities.

I have often enjoyed History Bombs' productions and have directed my students in history class to the concise, informative and entertaining videos. However, this one seems an overdo of self-flagellation. Lately, many historians have sought to expose the ills of empire-building (in any case, the history of 'civilizations' has been much the history of empire) so as to present a more objective narrative overall. In my Singapore, once a British colony, we are quite aware of the empire's inadequacies, failings, faults and ills, but we acknowledge that much of what we have now has been constructed on the platform laid out by the British in colonial times - parliamentary system, judiciary, education, housing, sports, even military and policing practices/traditions. Eight min is of course too brief a fit for everything, but it's just too bad that History Bombs have dwelt almost solely on its ills. Is that really the only 'true story'? If the 'Singapore story' was less traumatic than has been made out to be in this rap, then surely it represents aspects of empire history that could have possibly been squeezed into this presentation.

The 1 take videos for WW1/WW2/CW really got me into history, I love it so much now. I can't imagine how much effort these 1 take videos take, but pls, continue

Quality video as usual but this one seemed to only focus on the harsh, sometimes obscure negatives and skip over many important events.

i like how george washington has an american accent even though he was british

This isn't about the British empire