Top 10 European Empires

On August 15, 1947, India became an independent country, thereby making George VI of the United Kingdom the last British emperor of India and signalling the end of one of history’s largest empires.

Entertaining and educational top 10 lists from TopTenzNet!

Other TopTenz Videos:

Top 10 Reasons the Byzantine Empire Was Among the Most Successful in History

Top 10 Infamous Roman Emperors and Empresses

Coming up:

10. The Celtic Empire
9. The Viking Empire
8. The Spanish Empire
7. The Portuguese Empire
6. The French Colonial Empire
5. The Byzantine Empire
4. The Russian Empire
3. The Third Reich
2. The Holy Roman Empire
1. The British Empire

Source/Further reading:

[aurenkleige]

Why is everyone claiming that the Holy Roman Empire is not an Empire? By the dictionary definition, it is:
dictionary.com - "Empire - a group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government: usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom, as the former British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire, Byzantine Empire, or Roman Empire."

[fcalvaresi]

Alexander's Empire ? Napoleon's Empire ? Ottoman Empire ? ROMAN EMPIRE ?

[luismarques]

The nazis bigger than the Spanish or Portuguese empires, no way. The Portuguese Empire was the 1st true global empire, stretching from Europe to Asia, including the south America, Africa, parts of India, Indonesia and China

[camilogonzalez]

I think you missed the fact that the Spanish Empire virtually absorbed the Portuguese Empire for 60 years! It was not only the Kingdom of Portugal, but her overseas territories too, which made the Spanish Empire an even larger entity than what is implied in the video.

[tuamammasidrogae]

an empire is a political entity, I don't see how the celts and vikings got in this video, they were approximately similar culture, but still different from one another (both celts and vikings)

[marvelfannumber]

The first two weren't even Empires lol. The Celts were a culture/people group. The "Vikings" also weren't one people, "Viking" was a term foreigners used to describe Scandinavian raiders during the Early Middle Ages. There was no such thing as a "Viking Empire". Also the Holy Roman Empire at #2?! The Empire that literally couldn't control it's OWN territories?! Whoever wrote this really didn't do very good research...

[swagggggggggggggggg]

All of the spanish empire images had the portuguese in it altough it was never part of spain, just unified. the portuguese colonies mantained their loyalty to lisbon and were ruled by the metropole

[dlcalbaugh]

Thanks for another really good video, Simon. I could listen to you talk all day.

[jorge]

Regarding Portugal, no empire is ever "almost all merchants". There is always muscle behind it.

[jandro]

Hahaha spanish empire in 8th? Nice history class, but everything is wrong. Btw, the empire where the sun never set was Spain, not England, due to the conquering of the Filipines. Please, dont let your patriotism fool you.

[truemoyyed]

Hello
I love your subject today, Everyday I see your videos many time, I love it

[kyoshikozan]

Nice work but...attending to the usual concept of "empire", I would not include the Celts or the Vikings here. They belong to another video.

Also, "the empire were the sun never sets" was first applied to the Spanish one. May have not been as rich, as big or as powerful as the British one, but still that was said before by Philip the II of Spain.

[malphone]

The Roman, Napoleonic, Ottoman, second German, Dutch, Alexandrian and the Soviet Union just to name a few.

[ziggystardust]

No mention to the actual roman empire?

[pedroalexandrecristo]

Hi there I have been seeing lots of your videos and I have to tell they are just brilliant!! Thanks and congratulations!!
I would do like to suggest to you an subject for another video. Van you make a video about the longests glabal empires in history?!

Cheres and keep doing those videos :)

[themrfretking]

Is missing the 5th empire, the future portuguese empire, based on culture and hope, immortal he will be as the work of Fernando Pessoa one of the greatest portuguese ever lived. :D

[stuarmanha]

Did I miss something, or was there no Mongol empire or (the actual) Roman Empire, before Byzantine empire?

[kaiserwilhelm]

You missed the Roman Empire! It has some much influence on the world, even today. Latin is used by scientists all over the world, everyone knows it and the one who conwuered most of the territory, it's the reason we now have French, Soanish, Portugese, Italian and Romanian, it caused the rise of the Byzantine Empire....

[EmanuelsWorkbench]

Correction @2:33 - "Newfoundland & Labrador" is a single province. Newfoundland is the island and Labrador is the part on the mainland.

[motticus]

Top 10 European Empires - Not in the top 10....the Roman Empire.

<facepalm>