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Empires

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Visual histories of empires, each with an era ribbon, timeline, related entries, surprising facts and sources.

EmpireBritish Empire1583 to 1997 (414 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayThe largest empire in history: at its 1920 peak it covered about a quarter of the world's land and ruled a quarter of its people.Open visual historyEmpireMongol Empire1206 to 1368 (162 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayThe largest contiguous land empire ever, built in a single lifetime by nomads who had no cities of their own.Open visual historyEmpireRussian Empire1721 to 1917 (196 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayTwo centuries of expansion across a sixth of the earth's land, from Peter the Great's new capital on the Baltic to Nicholas II's abdication in a railway carriage.Open visual historyEmpireRoman Empire27 BC to 476 (503 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayFive centuries of emperors, from Augustus quietly burying the Republic to a teenage boy deposed by a Germanic general in 476.Open visual historyEmpireOttoman Empire1299 to 1922 (623 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodaySix centuries from a frontier principality in Anatolia to a superpower straddling three continents, and then a long, much-mocked decline that took another 200 years to finish.Open visual historyEmpireEmpire of Japan1868 to 1947 (79 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayIn eighty years Japan went from a closed feudal society to a modern industrial great power, to catastrophic defeat, and to a constitution written by its occupier.Open visual historyEmpireNazi Germany1933 to 1945 (12 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayTwelve years, one dictator, a war that killed tens of millions and a genocide that murdered six million Jews. The 'Thousand Year Reich' lasted from January 1933 to May 1945.Open visual historyEmpireSoviet Union (USSR)1922 to 1991 (69 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayThe first communist state: born in revolution and civil war, victor over Hitler, superpower of the Cold War, and dissolved with a signature in December 1991.Open visual historyEmpireNapoleonic (First French) Empire1804 to 1815 (11 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayA Corsican artillery officer crowned himself emperor, redrew the map of Europe, marched to Moscow, and lost it all twice.Open visual historyEmpireSpanish Empire1492 to 1976 (484 years)3000 BCAD 11500TodayThe first empire on which the sun never set: silver from Potosi, galleons across the Pacific, and a slow decline into a shadow of itself.Open visual history

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