There is a tradition, preserved in the Ma'aseh Book and cited in Gaster's Exempla of the Rabbis (no. 1, 1924), that ten kings will have ruled over the whole world before history finishes its work.
The first, before any crown was forged, was God Himself, ruling the earth before human empires claimed to rule anything. The second was Nimrod, the mighty hunter of Genesis 10:9, the first monarch to bind the nations by force. The third was Joseph, who ruled Egypt and, through Egypt's grain, effectively ruled the world in the famine years (Genesis 41:57). The fourth was Solomon, whose dominion reached "from sea to sea" (1 Kings 4:24). The fifth was Ahab, about whom the Talmud says his authority stretched over the whole inhabited world.
The sixth was Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian who boasted in Daniel 4:30 that he had built Babel "by the might of my power." The seventh was Cyrus — Koresh — the Persian; with him Ahasuerus is counted, though the tradition says Ahasuerus ruled only half the world. The eighth was Alexander of Macedonia, who, the midrash says, not only ruled the whole world but went also to the edge of the desert and planned to ascend to heaven itself. For that overreach, God divided his kingdom into four parts at the four corners of the earth.
The ninth king will be Mashiach. And when his reign ends, the kingdom will return to the one who began the list — to God Himself, the tenth and final King.
History, in this reckoning, is a circle drawn by God and closed by God. Every empire in between is a borrowed crown.