The Seven Years' War, fought from 1756A 1763, incorporating the Pomeranian War and the French and Indian War (1754A 1763), enveloped both European and colonial theatres. It is estimated that between 900,000 and 1,400,000 people died. This conflict involved all of the major European powers of the period: Prussia, Hanover, and United Kingdom of Great Britain (including British colonies in North America, the British East India Company, and Ireland) were pitted against Austria, France (including the North American colony of New France and the French East India Company), the Russian Empire, Sweden, and Saxony. Portugal (on the side of Great Britain) and Spain (On the side of France) were later drawn into the conflict, and a force from the neutral Netherlands was attacked in India.

The war ended France's position as a major colonial power in the Americas (where it lost all of its possessions except French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Domingue and Saint Pierre and Miquelon) and its position as the leading power in Europe, until the time of the French Revolution. Great Britain, meanwhile, emerged as the dominant colonial power in the world. The French Navy was crippled, which meant that only an ambitious rebuilding program in combination with the Spanish fleet would see it again threaten the Royal Navy's command of the sea. On the other side of the world, the British East India Company acquired the strongest position within India, which was to become the jewel in the imperial crown. The war was described by Winston Churchill as the first world war, as it was the first conflict in human history to be fought around the globe, although most of the combatants were either European nations or their overseas colonies. As a partially Anglo-French conflict involving developing empires, the war was one of the most significant phases of the eighteenth century Second Hundred Years' War.