The Cape to Cairo Railway was the brainchild of British imperialist, Cecil Rhodes. The railway was worked on in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but was never completed. The British faced numerous challenges in completing the railway including climate, landscape, and indigenous resistance. While many segments of the railway were completed, the dream of a single railway that could extend from Egypt to South Africa was never achieved.

The Ottoman Empire fell at the end of WWI and became what is known today as Turkey. Using the powerful and historic port city of Istanbul as its capital, the Ottoman Empire extended over a vast area in the Middle East. This imperial power ruled lands as far off as in the horn of Africa and up into the Caucasus region. While the Ottoman Empire existed for several centuries, its power began to wain in the 19th century when it couldn’t compete with Western imperial powers and fell when it aligned itself with Germany in WWI.

The United States declared war against Spain in 1898 and the war ended in 1899. The United States easily defeated the Spanish fleets in Havana and Manila. The United States took control of these colonies from the Spanish despite the wish many local populations had to be independent. The Filipinos led a revolt against the U.S. starting in 1902. The justification for bringing these colonies under U.S. protection was to deter other powers such as the Japanese from extending their reach. This war marked the beginning of the United States’ imperial ambitions.

French trading interest in Vietnam had long been established when France formally took control of the country in 1885, following their victory over China in the Sino-French War. The region was named French Indochina and was administered by France until 1954.

Ever since the rule of Peter the Great it had been a stated goal of Russian foreign policy to gain a warm water port in the Black or Caspian Seas. Catherine the Great’s victory in the Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774) gave Russia access to the Black Sea and allowed for the construction of the first warm-water port in the Russian empire. Russia’s desire for a warm-water port and control over the Black Sea has impacted Russian relations with her neighbors for centuries and is, most likely, a factor in the current occupation of Ukraine.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire was caused by all of these factors except the emergence of Japan and the United States as imperial powers. In the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire lost out on a great deal of wealth, as more and more trade between Europe and the Far East was being conducted via the ocean rather than over land through Ottoman territory. The empire also suffered as a result of territorial losses to Russia and Austria. Finally, the rise of nationalism led to growing independence movements throughout the Ottoman Empire.

The only two major African nations not to be divided between the European imperial powers in the latter years of the nineteenth century were Liberia and Ethiopia. Liberia is a unique nation in the history of Africa. It was founded by the American Colonization Society in the mid-nineteenth century and promptly declared its independence (which was recognized by the United States during the Civil War). It became an independent republic where former slaves from the Americas and the Caribbean could re-settle in African society. It retained its independence throughout the European imperial era.

All of these territories were ceded to the United States from Spain at the end of the Spanish-American War, except Hawaii. Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1893 (an action the American government has since declared “unlawful”). Hawaii remained an American territory until 1959 when it became the fiftieth state admitted into the union.

European international relations in the nineteenth century were primarily geared around the balance of power - the idea that to preserve peace on the continent, no one power could be allowed to achieve hegemony over the other powers. This led the British and French governments to take a significant interest in the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The British and French feared that a declining Ottoman Empire would cede much of its territory to the growing Russian Empire, which would in turn threaten the balance of power on the European continent. This fear led directly to the Crimean War.

The nineteenth century in the United States was a century of isolationism. America largely ignored the rest of the world, and the rest of the world largely ignored America. This all changed with American victory in the Spanish-American War in 1898. This led to the emergence of the United States as an imperial power as America took control of countries like the Philippines and Cuba.