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World map of colonization at the end of the Second World War in 1945 Although the U.S. had first opposed itself to colonial empires, the Cold War concerns about Soviet influence in the Third World caused it to downplay its advocacy of popular sovereignty and decolonization.
Before the expansion of early modern European powers, other empires had conquered and colonized territories, such as the Roman Empire in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. Modern colonial empires first emerged with a race of exploration between the then most advanced European maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, during the 15th century. [2]
Germany lost control of most of its colonial empire at the beginning of the First World War in 1914, but some German forces held out in German East Africa until the end of the war. After the German defeat in World War I, Germany's colonial empire was officially confiscated as part of the Treaty of Versailles between the Allies and German Weimar ...
The Harmsworth atlas and Gazetter 1908 European colonization map. The world's colonial population at the outbreak of the First World War (1914) – a high point for colonialism – totalled about 560 million people, of whom 70% lived in British possessions, 10% in French possessions, 9% in Dutch possessions, 4% in Japanese possessions, 2% in ...
The French colonial empire of extended over 11,500,000 km 2 (4,400,000 sq mi) at its height in the 1920s and had a population of 110 million people on the eve of World War II. [90] [91] In World War II, Charles de Gaulle and the Free French used the overseas colonies as bases from which they fought to liberate France. However, after 1945 anti ...
In terms of population, on the eve of World War II, Britain and her colonial possessions totaled 500 million inhabitants. The British Empire had an enormous impact on world history. The United Kingdom had about 120 colonies throughout its history, the most colonies in the world, the French colonial empire came second, which had about 80 ...
The Scramble for Africa [a] was the conquest and colonisation of most of Africa by seven Western European powers driven by the Second Industrial Revolution during the late 19th century and early 20th century in the era of "New Imperialism": Belgium, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Several European countries attempted to found colonies in the Americas after 1500. Most of those attempts ended in failure. The colonists themselves faced high rates of death from disease, starvation, inefficient resupply, conflict with Native Americans, attacks by rival European powers, and other causes.