The History of the British Empire

How a small island built the largest empire in history, and how it fell

Watch the whole video first. The video stays here while you answer: watch it again as many times as you need.

1The beginnings

2Losing and growing

3Height and fall

4The legacy

5Your turn!

Give a one-minute talk: three traces of the British Empire in today's world.

  1. Choose three traces of the Empire from the video.
  2. Give a fact or an example for each one.
  3. Say which one is the most important for you, and why.

Useful sentences

Today, about 400 million people speak English as their mother tongue.

Many former colonies still use the British parliamentary system.

Football and golf spread around the world with the Empire.

For me, the most important trace is the English language, because...