This amazing visualization is best viewed directly on Vimeo with its slightly larger screen, and viewed in it's entirety. Essentially, it's a soft bodies visualization of the evolution of four European empires from 1800 to today -- Britain, Portugal, Spain and France.
One of the things that blew me away watching the visualization was how relatively powerful Portugal appeared through the early 1800s (which is when Brazil broke away) and how Spain simply got chiseled away over the better part of a century until it was almost nothing.
There are no powerful life lessons here about the rise and fall of empires -- you might want to read a book or two for that. No, what the video shows -- in extremely clear and simple terms -- is exactly how four of the most powerful colonial empires in Europe lost their oomph.
