The British Empire - "We are the World" Webquest

Introduction

The British Empire is the most extensive empire in world history and for a time was the foremost global power. It was a product of the European age of discovery, which began with the global maritime explorations of Portugal and Spain in the late fifteenth century.

By 1921, the British Empire ruled a population of between 470 and 570 million people, approximately one-quarter of the world's population. It covered about 14.3 million square miles (more than 37 million square kilometers), about a quarter of Earth's total land area. Though it has now mostly evolved into the Commonwealth of Nations, British influence remains strong throughout the world: in economic practice, legal and governmental systems, sports (such as cricket and football), and the English language itself.

The British Empire was, at one time, referred to as "the empire on which the sun never sets" (a phrase previously used to describe the Spanish Empire and later to American influence in the world) because the empire's span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous colonies. On the one hand, the British developed a sense of their own destiny and moral responsibility in the world, believing that many of her colonial subjects required guidance, that it was British rule that prevented anarchy and chaos. Positively, the education system sponsored by the British promulgated an awareness of such values as freedom, human dignity, equality—even though those taught often observed that their colonial masters did not practice what they preached. Negatively, peoples and resources were exploited at Britain's advantage and more often than not at the cost of her overseas possessions.

Many British thought their ascendancy providential, part of the divine plan. Anyone who believes that history is not merely a series of accidents might well see God's hand behind the creation of an empire that, despite all the ills of an imperial system imposed on unwilling subjects, also left a cultural, literary, legal and political legacy that binds people of different religions and races together.

Source: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/British_Empire