Why is English such a great language?

It's not so much that English is a great language, but more of the fact that the English was the last great empire of the world before the world was divided more into countries than empires. Had the English not beat Napolean, we could very well all be speaking French at this very moment because they would have been the last empire to rule. This is why English is used so widely today. As you can guess, a lot of people in foreign countries do not even want to be required to learn English. It just comes from history.