The historicist interpretation of the Book of Revelation does not fully follow Revelation 1: 1, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:"
Taking "things which must shortly come to pass" as literally meaning events which took place soon after John wrote leads to interpretations which are history but have little relevance to our time, such as saying that Constantine is one of the Four Horses of Revelation 6: 1-8. Interpreting the white horse as the British Empire might also be seen as history. Yet England still exists, and if you see the pale horse as the U.S., under the national security state, it was influenced by England, and so this is still prophecy.
A major problem with the historicist interpretation of Revelation is that it leads to endless speculation and subjectivity in its interpretations. There are many nations and important individuals in history and picking some of them for the Four Horses is arbitrary and subjective.
A system of interpretation of the Four Horses of Revelation 6: 1-8 has to make use of other scripture rather than subjective interpretations from speculation or from some tradition of men like dispensationalism.
Revelation 13: 2 mentions three of the four world empires of Daniel 7: 4-7. The implication is that the fourth empire of Daniel 7: 7 which is the beast government that rises up out of the sea, or one of its heads, the United States as the national security state, not as it was originally as a constitutional republic, has the traits of the lion, the leopard, the bear and the lion of Revelation 13: 2. This is still prophecy for our time, which explains not only what has already happened but the prophecy's total fulfillment is still future.
Rising up out of the sea can have metaphoric meanings other than the fact of history that England rose to power as an empire due to its navy. The Russians were also a sea power though never as powerful as the British, and the same for Germany.
The white, red, and black houses are color coded. They arise in succession as is shown in Daniel 7: 4-7. In fact, Daniel 7 6 says "After this I beheld, and lo, another like a leopard...." implying a succession of beast empires.
And contrary to a lot of church teaching the four beast empires of Daniel 7 are not the same as those of Daniel 2, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Roma, which are pre-Cross empires. The four beast empires in Daniel 7 are after the Cross and continue into our time. Though the British empire is not what it was during World War II, yet England still exists. So the Red Horse Marxist Soviet no longer exists, but Russia does. The same for Germany after its empire was defeated in 1945.