"I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map..I'M THE MAP!"

Questions:
How does Great Britain have so many colonies?
When did they lose most of their stuff?
How did they rule? Force? Good laws?
Were there really that many independent nations?
How come the US doesn't have many colonies?
How come Japan only expanded to Korea and Taiwan?
How does Denmark have so much land?
Did the small countries really feel so small and unresourceful that they had to go bother other people?
Were there other European countries that tried to colonize and expand?
Who was nicer? Who was meaner?  How did these countries rule?  Did they keep the people they conquered happy?
Why does Britain decide to go everywhere?
What did all these places have that the European countries didn't have?

Visualization!!

I think the ideal shape of history's progress really wouldn't be much of a shape that can be described.  I think a time line would be useful for the broad picture.  It helps me mentally think of the progression of how history happened and it keeps me from being confused.  But then there would have to be little charts or boxes hovering around in those time periods.  The time line would have overlaps but it would distinctively show where each region started and ended a new era.  I said there would be little boxes in each time period for each region.  The little boxes would be color-coded for each region and they would contain the major events, significant information, and thematic topics(for this class specifically.)  The shape would probably be some weird line with lots of rectangles stuck to it.
Since this probably makes no sense, there will possibly be a picture below this, that is, if I can get technology to stop hating me.