Between 1865-1909 King Leopold II ruled Congo Free State as a megalomaniacal foreign ruler. During his control of this territory, he approved for the use of brutal tactics to force the local populations to extract rubber, ivory, and minerals from the land. There are estimates that between 2 and 10 million people died in Congo Free State during King Leopold II’s rule.

The Berlin West Africa Conference was held in Berlin to outline the rules for colonization of the African continent. The conference produced rules on how to claim land and trade regulations for the region. The conference highlighted justifications for colonization that included bringing religion and European civilization to the region, points related to the "white man’s burden." No Africans represented African interests at the conference.

French Indochina, officially known as the Indo-Chinese Federation was a grouping of French colonial possessions in Southeast Asia. The three countries that made up this territory, as they are known today, are Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The countries of this territory eventually gained independence in 1954 after a tumultuous century of French rule marked by foreign aggressions and internal rebellions.

The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1895 was a huge failure. The Italian army expected they would easily defeat the army of Ethiopian ruler Menelik II. Full scale war erupted in 1895 and the Italians were defeated in 1896. Ethiopia was one of the only regions in Africa to remain independent of colonial rule during this period. In 1935 Italy launched another invasion of Ethiopia and successfully occupied the territory on this attempt.

Direct imperial rule employed citizens of the colonial power to oversee all government and market functions. Direct rule employed strict management of law and order and divided naturally aligned kin groups to disrupt potentially powerful rebellions. Direct rule was characteristic of French and Belgian colonies.

Indirect imperial rule was a hybrid system that used a blend of strong foreign influence and well educated indigenous elites to rule a population. The purpose of this type of rule was to provide some agency to locals while attempting to indoctrinate them with the ruling power’s political philosophy. This type of rule was seen in many British colonies, though it led to future conflicts in some colonies and was abandoned in others in favor of direct imperial rule.

James Cook landed on the Australian coast in 1770. Within two decades, the British came back to settle the land, using it as a penal colony. The land masses of Australia and New Zealand eventually became a colony for ordinary citizens as well as prisoners. The settlers wiped out mass numbers of indigenous people on these lands through warfare and disease.

The Dutch exploration of Indonesia started with the Dutch East India Trading company, who extracted spices from the islands. In the 1800s, the lands controlled by the Dutch East India Trading company came under the control of the Dutch government. The period of colonization of Indonesia by the Dutch is marked by accusations of democide in genocide, most notably in the late 1800s where the Dutch army is accused of massacring the Aceh people on the island of Sumatra.

President James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, effectively giving the United States of America unilateral control of the Americas by designating itself as the protectorate of the region. The declaration was designed to deter imperial intervention from Europe while also allowing the United States to gain political and economic influence over the region. Any imperialist intention by foreign powers would be viewed as an act of aggression by the United States and would be met with a military response. This doctrine is seen as one of the most important foreign policy decisions in the modern history of the Americas.

The Meiji era is known as the era of restoration in Japan. Headed by Emperor Meiji (a title Mutsuhito gave to himself to mean Enlightened Rule), this period marked the change of Japan from a feudal state to a modern global power. Japan wanted to compete with Western powers and showed imperial ambitions. During this period of rapid modernization, they also fought with others powers including the Russians in 1905 over imperial ambitions in Korea and Northern China.