The British Empire

Photo of Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria: how and why did she become Empress of India?

Alphonse de Neuville's 1880 painting 'The Defence of Rorke's Drift'. The battle was to become a

The battle of Rorke’s Drift: a stand still clad in the “myths of empire”

An engraving depicting London's Piccadilly Circus heaving with crowds on their way to The Great Exhibition of 1851. A banner reading 'God save the Queen and Prince Albert' has been strung across the street. Within the Crystal Palace some 100,000 objects were displayed – taking up ten miles of space – the work of 15,000 contributors. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

From the Great Exhibition to the Festival of Britain: the decline and fall of the British empire

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Priya Satia explores how historians helped advance the British empire, only to later become critics of imperialism. (Image by Getty Images)

How historians helped build the British empire . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Victoria

The Victorians and the British Empire: a brief guide and timeline

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Sujit Sivasundaram offers a new perspective on the expansion of the British empire across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. (Image by Getty Images)

Imperialism on the oceans . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Empire builder Maharajah Ranjit Singh sits astride a horse as an attendant holds a parasol over him. Singh is historically credited with growing his ancestral warrior-clan, the Sukerchakia misl, into a grand imperial dynasty. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

A Sikh tragedy: the Indian kingdom that fell foul of the British empire

Woodcut illustration of slave labour on a sugar plantation

Success, sugar and slaves: the uncomfortable story of slaveholder Simon Taylor

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Attack on the Court-House, St. Thomas-in-the-East, Jamaica, during the Morant Bay rebellion, October 1865. (Photo by Getty Images)

Resistance in the British empire . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A replica of the Koh-i-Noor in Bangalore in 2002

Desired, stolen, cursed: the history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond

A British officer stands alongside two of his Japanese counterparts in 1914 in Tsingtao (now Qingdao). Japanese troops played a key role in the capture of that strategic German concession in north-east China. (Photo by Getty Images)

First World War: beyond the western front

Illustration by Davide Bonazzi

The big question Should museums return their treasures?

A c1860 depiction of Wentworth Works steel manufacturer in Sheffield

Why Britain punched above its weight

A young visitor looks at a painting depicting the Amritsar Massacre

Amritsar: day of shame

The Tibetan plateau lies at an altitude averaging over 4,500 metres above sea level

In the footsteps of Sir Francis Younghusband’s 1903 invasion of Tibet