Backround:
* 'The Age of Discovery': 1450-1815 Spain and Portugal, followed by Holland, France and Britain, acquired overseas empires in Africa, the Americas, India and South East Asia
* 'Anti-imperialism'? 1815-1870
* By about 1850 the 'old colonial system' ceased to seem worthwhile and was replaced by free trade
* Still, British rule especially in India was extended ('the jewel of the crown') > after the Indian Mutiny (1857) British government had took over administration from the East India Company (from in formal to formal empire)
* France conquested Algeria in 1830 and controlled parts of Indo-China from 1860's onwards
* The emphasis of the Russian land-based imperialism was in the middle-Asia (Afghanistan, Turkestan) and the East-Asia
* The Suez Canal was opened in 1869