The British Empire

breve sintesi sull'impero britannico nel 16° secolo e la fine di questo nel 20° secolo (2 pagine formato doc)

Appunto di chisarialessia

The British Empire - The foundations of the British Empire can be traced back to the 16th century when Elizabeth I encouraged British sailors to explore trading routes and Britain created colonies in India, Canada, Malta and in other territories in Africa and America.


In this period the economy was growing because Britain took raw materials from colonies and sold them in the world. In the 20th century the Empire gradually came to the end for three reasons.

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First of all, in 1947 India became the first country to gain independence. In the next years other colonies got the independence so Britain didn’t have raw materials for production.

Secondly, the British products had a big competition from USA and Asian products, and became rivals in trade.
Finally, the economic crisis started because of the First World War that destroyed the agriculture economy and killed millions of people.  

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As result, export declined and unemployment rose. The situation got even worst with the economic depression of 1929. The crisis of the USA’s economy caused  the economic depression in the world, so the government placed duties on imports and encouraged the British population to “buy British”.
In this period Britain began the nationalization of the utilities, women were given the right to vote and gained more freedom and work opportunities.