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English came to power due to many reasons, mostly because of WWII as previously stated, but even before that it was essentially the language of science and business
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I'm not sure about business. Traditionally, countries would mostly use their own language when it came to internal matters such as business, and would do the same in their colonies if they had any. Since the British Empire covered quite a bit of real estate, I suppose english was spoken more than other languages, but it was not
the language for business.
As for science, this is definitely not the case. Until the 1850's or so, it was either the language spoken in the country where the results were published, or latin, which was used in science. After the unification of Germany and its rise as the largest industrial power in Europe, as well as becoming one, if not the leading country in science in general, german became the language of science from the late 19th century until after WWII. For example, if you ever read old chemistry books from the late 19th or early 20th century, you'll often find that they are translations from books written in german, and the author might even say that the book was translated for those who do not have a sufficient knowledge of the german language, and but warn that it is necessary to go further as most of the litterature is in german.
Jam it back in, in the dark.
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