Excuse my poor history knowledge, but the Europeans sailed here to find new lands, settled, and then after generations, they were overthrown by their descendants. The British empire still ruled around the world for centuries yet, the U.S. arguably is in a better state of economics, military, and such.
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TLDR: WW1 + WW2 changed the balance of power in the world
Prior to WW1 most European powers were still monarchies and had trading Empires across the world. By the end of WW1 the major European monarchies had almost all collapsed. The King of England was the only major monarch to have stayed in power after the war and arguably only because his powers were already very limited. Kaiser Wilhelm of Austria-Hungary (Germany) was deposed, the King of Spain was soon ousted in a Civil War, and the Czar of Russia was murdered by the Soviets along with his entire family. The French meanwhile had gotten rid of their monarchy in the Napoleonic era. The balance of Power in Europe was changing.
By far most of the devastation in the World Wars occurred in continental Europe.
By the end of WW2 Germany and Japan were defeated countries with their industrial base flattened
England had been bombed extensively, and was now functionally bankrupt
France had been invaded and was still in financial ruin from WW1, and Eastern Europe went from being under German occupation to being forced into the USSR.
Spain and China meanwhile were still embroiled in harsh civil wars.
The United States and Russia meanwhile fared the best having extensively built up their industry base during the war. The US in particular was never invaded and the continental United States never got significantly attacked. So they ended the war with all of those brand new factories unscathed, positioning them to become the worlds major export power.
The old European Empires of England, France, and Spain were collapsing and they were actively losing foreign territory. They simply couldn’t maintain their empires anymore. Many nations like India, Iraq, Iran, China, and all of Indochina were former colonies that were reformed into nations as a result of colonial collapse
Meanwhile the US and Soviet Union became the new Super Powers.
The US is the only remaining military super power after the Soviet Union’s collapse in the 90s
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