Europe went ahead of the world when they mastered Coal, Iron and DivideRule realpolitic.
Invention of guns changed everything in their favour.
Iron and steel is their real hero.
Guns gave them a huge advantage over spear-throwing tribal people in Africa, Australia
in North America, diseases eliminated the amerindians and amerindians, although more advanced than Africans didn't have the advantage of guns to fight Europeans,so guns gave them an upper hand there too.
But it's not like Europeans were unique in having guns,guns actually spread from china and then from mongol empire to europe.
Guns were also present for Mughals,Ottomans,safavids,north africans but these people already had enough wealth so they didn't really feel the need to scavenge Africa and America's.
Even though anglos had more experience,tech and knowledge,they still lost to Marathas many time, especially in the first Anglo-maratha war,and only won in the last due to mass defection of many generals from the maratha side.
Also,a less widely known fact is that they funded the industrialization(the major reason for euro advancement) from American gold and silver reserves and later from Africa.
The funniest thing here is Spain,even though Spain got so rich from american conquest in 1500,in 1580 they became bankrupt
due to their wars in Europe and with the Ottomans.
They had to sell many of their kingdom property and had to lease south American gold/silver reserves to Britain, this is where the rise of Britian happened and they capatilized on this opportunity.
Even though Spain was rich and excelled in navak warfare,they still managed to lose 4 times from the ottomans(Spain only won in lepanto because the ottoman admiral was a junior officer and Spain had combined with Venice to Get much more ships than the Ottomans had).
Depsite,the Spanish naval experience,they still managed to lose the next battle where ottoman navy decimated them
,so much for Spanish military superiority as claimed by their Nationalists
As for Portugal,they could just conquer spear throwing tribes in Africa,america and philipines.
They attacked morocco in hopes of conquering it but actually lost their kingdom for 100 years because their King died in battle along with the rest of the nobles in war with morocco.
They were then defeated in India by Shah Jahan,and later by the marathas in the maratha-porteguese war ,where Portugal lost all of its Indian estates and was utterly rekt.
These people are only powerful with their guns in front of isolated tribes of Africa,Americas,philipines who used bow and arrow.
Today without the absence of any colonial resources,Portugal is basically a second-third would country, depsite having the advantage of small population and adequate resources in their country and the support of EU wealth and help.
Their wealth is built on a house of cards and when u take it away,they return to their true entropical position.
Nowdays, porteguese nationalists remain depressed because of the loss of their Colonial empire where they used slavery and exploitation to get rich and wealthy temporarily.