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real life lore for a good chunk of the
past few centuries
this music was the final boss music
played for people across the entire
world the english and later the british
have been responsible for invading and
conquering more countries and people
than any other nation in human history
and honestly
it's startling just how many places
they've been to
in this video i'm going to do my best at
attempting to visualize all of britain's
invasions and conquests for you
continent by continent in as brief a
time as possible so let's begin with the
closest continent to britain
europe ireland was the first target of
british conquest and was invaded as
early as 1169.
within 400 years of gradual conquests
the entire island was ruled by the
british
and remained that way until most of it
was granted independence in 1921.
historically france has probably been
invaded by the english more times than
any other country in the world
just take a look at this huge list of
invasions there's not even enough time
to talk about a third of these
and for a time all of this territory
inside of modern france was directly
controlled by the english
with kalei being the final piece that
fell in 1557
well except for that time when the
british took over corsica for a couple
years
the british continue to invade spain by
the millions every winter but in the
past they've come with a lot less
friendly intentions
english and later british soldiers
invaded under the black prince in 1367
and continued on through the first
second third and fourth raids on cadiz
and that time when the british took over
gibraltar and menorca they gave menorca
back
but decided on keeping gibraltar forever
in recent history the british have
invaded belgium in order to support the
belgians
but that wasn't always the case they
conducted two pretty large scale
invasions of modern day belgium in 1654
and again
in 1701 and flanders itself was ruled by
the english for a few years in the 14th
century the netherlands was one of
england's historical archrivals
and so there's been plenty of invasions
going in this direction across the 17th
and 18th centuries
in 1940 the british technically invaded
and took over iceland peacefully for a
year
in order to prevent it from falling into
the hands of the germans but this was
heavily protested by the icelandic
government at the time so in my books it
still counts as an invasion
italy of course was invaded by the
british army during the second world war
as well
in 1943 but there were plenty of
invasions before then dating back to
richard the lionheart's invasion in
1190.
germany too was obviously invaded by the
british army in 1945 and northwestern
germany was occupied by the british for
three
years until 1948 but a lot of german
territory was ruled by britain
long before then the islands of
heligland were british for most of the
19th century and the kingdom of hanover
was effectively ruled under a personal
union for over a
century between 1714 and 1837.
austria was also invaded in 1945 and the
southwest of the country was occupied
for a decade
norway was invaded in 1810 and 1812
during the napoleonic wars when it was a
part of denmark norway because
denmark was alliant to france so
obviously denmark was invaded during
that time as well
finland estonia and latvia were all
briefly invaded by small units during
the crimean war against russia because
they were all part of the russian empire
at the time
and of course russia itself was invaded
then too
as well as in 1918 when the british took
over a large chunk of northern russia
for a time
in their fight against the bolsheviks
the territory of modern ukraine was
invaded by british army units during the
crimean war
the british took over the croatian
island of this between 1807 and 1814
during their fight against napoleon the
british army had boots and guns on the
ground in bosnia recently between 1992
and 95
fighting against the bosnian serbs and
around the same time the raf
also carried out bombing strikes against
serbian serb targets in serbia in 1999.
montenegro was briefly blockaded and
invaded in 1913 during the first balkan
war
the british owned the westernmost ionian
islands of greece between 1815 and 1863
before they gave them back while
bulgaria was invaded and almost entirely
occupied by the british army between
1918
and 1919 at the end of world war one
cyprus was a british protectorate
between 1878 and 1914 when they decided
to just outright annex it to piss off
the turks and it remained annexed until
1960
except for two small chunks that are
still british today
turkey itself was massively invaded by
the british during world war 1 and part
of it was occupied between 1919
and 1923 that wraps up europe so let's
move on to asia next
modern day israel and palestine as well
as jordan were british controlled from
the end of world war 1 to 1948 and 1946
respectively
lebanon and syria were both occupied
from the fishy french government briefly
during world war
ii iraq was ruled between 1919 and 1932
and invaded again during the second
world war and again
in 1991 and again in 2003
kuwait was a colony for over 60 years
until 1966
georgia and azerbaijan were both invaded
and occupied right at the end of world
war one for a year
iran has been invaded at least three
times with the most notable example
being the joint anglo-soviet invasion of
1941
turkmenistan was invaded in 1918 to
prevent bolshevik influence from
spreading any further
afghanistan is a favorite british
invasion spot since it's been invaded in
1839
1878 1919 and again in 2001.
qatar bahrain the united arab emirates
and oman were all controlled by the
british until the early 1970s while a
chunk of yemen was controlled for over a
century between 1839
and 1967. india pakistan bangladesh and
sri lanka were
all of course invaded many times and
outright ruled by the british empire in
parts for nearly two
centuries between 1757 and 1947.
nepal was invaded in 1814 but never
successfully conquered
bhutan was invaded in 1772 and again in
1864 and was sort of
conquered as a protectorate between 1910
and 1948.
burma slash myanmar was invaded in 1826
and was definitely successfully
conquered and ruled through 1947.
thailand was briefly invaded in 1945
since they were allied to japan in world
war
ii and so was vietnam in the same year
but that was to support the french
government against the growing
independence movement
malaysia and singapore were each
conquered and ruled up until the 1950s
and 1960s brunei was conquered and ruled
up until the 1980s
whereas the philippines were briefly
invaded during the seven years war
china got invaded a lot and hong kong
was a colony until as recently as 1997
and while not outright invaded part of
japan was
occupied following world war ii between
1946 and 1952
and finally indonesia was invaded a
bunch during the napoleonic war since it
was a dutch colony alliance to france at
the time
next up oceania australia and new
zealand of course were invaded by the
british and established as colonies that
each gained independence in 1931.
papua new guinea was also a british
colony for a time as were the island
countries of fiji kiribati the solomon
islands tuvalu and vanuatu
let's move back over to africa next
which the british have violently visited
a lot
in terms of just places the british
outright colonized after invasions
there's the gambia sierra leone ghana
nigeria egypt
sudan south sudan uganda kenya tanzania
zambia malawi zimbabwe botswana namibia
and south africa along with parts of
modern day somalia and guinea
senegal was briefly invaded and had some
of their coastline taken over in the
1700s while during the second world war
the british invaded the french colonies
of djibouti madagascar and komaros after
they aligned themselves with the nazi
vichy regime
and the italian colonies of libya
eritrea and ethiopia although they had
also invaded ethiopia much earlier in
1868
and as german colonies right before
world war 1 the british
also invaded togo and cameroon without
annexing them afterwards for the final
area of the world left to discuss
let's move over to the americas all of
canada was a british colony until 1931
while newfoundland remained until 1949.
the united states
of course was a colony until 1776 and
was invaded again
in 1812 and the modern states of oregon
and washington were claimed right up
until 1846.
as far as other outright british
colonies here go there was the bahamas
jamaica belize grenada saint vincent and
the grenadines barbados st
lucia dominica antigua and barbuda saint
kitts and nevis trinidad and tobago
and guyana besides colonies cuba was
invaded and occupied during the seven
years war in 1762.
haiti was invaded in 1793 during the
french revolutionary wars
the dominican republic was invaded way
back in 1655 in an attempt at conquest
under oliver cromwell
parts of the east coast of honduras and
nicaragua were conquered and ruled for
nearly two
centuries until 1819. they sent the navy
to invade mexico in 1861 to force them
to repay some debts and during the
splendidly named war of jenkins year
aka the more lame sounding war of the
austrian succession
the british invaded a lot of spain's
colonies including panama
a huge one into colombia and ultimately
peru
in 1796 the british took over suriname
because it was a dutch colony and they
were allied with a revolutionary french
and later napoleon they also invaded
martinique and guadeloupe because
they actually were french during the
napoleonic wars venezuela was invaded in
1902 as part of the so-called venezuela
crisis to force the country to repay
some debts they had defaulted on kind of
like mexico
while argentina and uruguay were both
invaded during the napoleonic wars as
well
in 1806 when spain and her colonies were
still
allied with napoleon and that pretty
much sums up all of the territory the
british have ever ruled and all of the
countries the small island has ever
invaded there are a total of
65 countries today who celebrate their
independence days
from the british empire the empire used
to rule over a quarter of all the
world's land at the same time and was
the biggest empire
in human history and in total today
there have been 117
modern countries that have been
aggressively invaded by the british
armed forces
during some point in their histories
representing a total
of 60 percent of all the world's nations
which is almost the same number of
countries that you can watch this video
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real life lore and as always thank you
for watching