Elizabeth I grants a Royal Charter to British merchants, allowing them to form the East India Company.

Almost a third of the Indian population dies during the famine. The British, preoccupied with their own profits, do nothing to alleviate the situation.

Sepoys, refusing to load their rifles because they were greased with cow fat, rose up in revolt against their British officers.

English parliament establishes colonial rule in India and places a viceroy there to govern in the name of Queen Victoria.

After the Sepoy Rebellion, Queen Victoria took control of India out of the East India Company's hand and placed the territory directly under the Crown. (primary source)

Indian nationalist leaders establish the INC to promote the spread of modernization and eventually, independent rule.

Angered at the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress, Muslims band together and establish a political party of their own to pursue their own goals.

The Cape Colony is passed by Dutch control into the hands of the British. British officials pass legistlature that angered Boer families. As a result, thousands of Beors migrate north, where there would battle for control of territory with the Zulus for decades to come.

Under a brilliant and ruthless leader, Shaka, Zulus wage relentless war and conquer neighboring lands in southern Africa, resulting in a growing Zulu kingdom.

The Chinese government outlawed opium, a popular drug in China and exported by British India, though British refused to stop its trade with the Chinese. British merchants and Chinese warships clashed on the seas, though Britain, with superior weaponry, easily defeated the outdated Chinese.

Britain forces China to sign the Treaty of Nanjing, which paid Britain a huge sum to repay their war losses and also put Hong Kong under British control. China was also forced to open five more ports for British trade and grant British citizens living in China extraterritoriality.

47 years after the slave trade was officially outlawed, Libera, a state populated by former slaves and free blacks from the British colony of Sierra Leone, becomes an independent republic.

Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French entreprenuer, organized a construction project to build the Suez Canal to connect the Red and Mediterranean Seas to shorten shipping times.

Western imperialism expands, leading European soldiers, merchants, missionaries, and explorers to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to claim lands and establish colonies.

Unable to repay loans contracted for the Suez Canal's construction, the ruler of Egypt sells his share of the canal to England.

European powers met in an international conference to discuss various claims in lands and partition African lands. However, they did agree that in order to annex any part of Africa, a country must establish a government office there.

The discovery of gold and diamonds in Boer territory led to bitter guerilla fighting between the British and the Boers. In the end, the British won, but not without substantial human loss.

Russia, wanting to expand into Central Asia to protect its southern states, and Britain, wanting to protect its Indian territory, vie for control of oil-rich Persian lands. The Qajar shas (Persian ruler) granted concessions to Britain and Russia and allow them to send troops into its territory.

The British unite their territories in the Cape Colony and Boer republics under a single, racially segregated government and constitution.