The Age of Empires and Renewed Nationalism

By the late 1800s, a handful of industrial nations set out to control most of the world. This unit asks one question from start to finish: how does the desire for power influence nations?

Header landmark: Royal Albert Dock warehouses — Liverpool (imperial trade port)

In 1884, European diplomats met in Berlin to divide a continent none of them lived on. No African leader was invited.

Header landmark: Bismarck's Reich Chancellery conference room — Berlin (reconstruction)

Africans did not simply accept European rule. From the Zulu kingdom to Ethiopia, leaders and armies fought to protect their sovereignty.

Header landmark: Adwa Victory Memorial — Addis Ababa

India began as a trading partner of a British company and ended up as the most valuable colony in the British Empire. A rebellion in 1857 marked the turning point.

Header landmark: Victoria Memorial — Kolkata

China had been one of the world's richest civilizations for centuries. In the 1800s, a drug, two wars, and a string of unequal treaties weakened it from the inside and outside.

Header landmark: Humen (Bocca Tigris) forts on the Pearl River — Guangdong

Japan watched China lose control of its own ports and chose a different path. In one generation it transformed itself into an industrial power, and then into an empire of its own.

Header landmark: Tomioka Silk Mill — Japan (Meiji-era factory)

The people who built empires and the people who lived under them told very different stories. Today you weigh those stories as a historian.

Header landmark: Royal Museum for Central Africa — Tervuren, Belgium (now reckoning with its colonial past)

By 1914, Europe was a room full of gunpowder. One assassination in the Balkans lit the match, and within weeks the great powers were at war.

Header landmark: Latin Bridge — Sarajevo

The war everyone expected to end by Christmas lasted four years. New weapons, whole economies, and millions of women were pulled into a total war.

Header landmark: Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme — France

The war ended in 1918, but the peace treaty that followed angered the losers, disappointed many winners, and redrew the map of Europe. Today you trace nationalism from the 1800s to Versailles.

Header landmark: Hall of Mirrors, Versailles (signing of the 1919 treaty)

World War I broke Russia. Out of the collapse came the world's first communist state, and a dictator who would rule it through fear.

Header landmark: Winter Palace — St. Petersburg

In October 1929, the American stock market crashed. Because the world's economies were now connected, the crash spread across oceans.

Header landmark: New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street

Hunger, unemployment, and wounded national pride opened the door for leaders who promised to make their nations great again, at any cost.

Header landmark: Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana — Rome (fascist-era architecture)

Twenty years after the war that was supposed to end all wars, aggressive nationalism plunged the world into an even larger conflict.

Header landmark: USS Arizona Memorial — Pearl Harbor

Before the Holocaust, Jewish communities had lived in Europe for over a thousand years. Today you learn about those lives and how the Nazis stripped away their rights step by step.

Header landmark: New Synagogue — Berlin (Oranienburger Strasse)

Six million Jewish people and millions of others were murdered in the Holocaust. Today you examine how the world responded, before, during, and after.

Header landmark: Yad Vashem Hall of Names — Jerusalem

The United States and the Soviet Union won the war as allies, then faced each other as rivals. For forty years, they competed everywhere except on a direct battlefield.

Header landmark: Brandenburg Gate with the Berlin Wall (1961 to 1989)

The superpowers never fought each other directly, but millions died in wars where their rivalry turned hot.

Header landmark: Joint Security Area at Panmunjom — Korean DMZ

In 1989, crowds tore down the Berlin Wall with hammers. Two years later, the Soviet Union itself disappeared. How did a superpower collapse without a world war?

Header landmark: East Side Gallery (Berlin Wall remnant)

From the Berlin Conference to the Berlin Wall, this unit followed nations reaching for power. Today you answer the question you started with, using evidence from every section.

Header landmark: Split header: Berlin Conference (1884) | Berlin Wall (1989)