“The empire on which the sun never sets.” That’s how the British Empire self-identified. In the 1910s, Britain ruled a quarter of the world’s people, living on a quarter of the world’s land. Do you know how Britain colonized places from India to Australia to most-of-Africa? Did you know the Empire ended within a few decades of its territorial peak? And did you know Alex Schmidt went to the U.K. recently, creating a perfect opportunity to dig into its fascinating history???

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt went through customs to tape in-studio in London. He’s joined by Cracked writer/editor Adam Wears, historian Dr. Charlotte Lydia Riley, and historian Dr. Kim Wagner for a journey through the British Empire’s bizarre, brutal, accidentally-on-purpose rise and fall. They’ll also dig into the United States’ outlier status in that history, explore ways the British Empire never stopped colonizing the world, and consider how Being The Most Important Empire Of All Time (According To Britain) might’ve driven Britain insane.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/how-britain-accidentally-on-purpose-colonized-world/