Question About Empires (ancient, Rome, 50s, facts)

[eatfastnoodle]

Seriously, I still could not believe nobody mentioned Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire in history and an empire built on sheer brutal military force, an Empire with much bigger potentials than historically realized, which was already of mind-boggling historical proportion.

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by Fred314X

An empire is ruled by an emperor, rather than a mere king. Napoleon III of France installed Maximilian as "emperor" of Mexico in 1864--although you don't hear much about any Mexican Empire!

Are you disavowing the British Empire on that basis?

[Chinolala]

The first one that comes to my mind is the Ottoman Empire because my mother's family lived under their rule prior to coming to the US in the 1920's. They changed peoples' names and spread Islam throughout the Balkans. To this day, I have family members that never converted back to Christianity from Islam, whereas other, like my grandfather, did. He changed his name back to his birthname when he came through Ellis Island. Needless to say, he wasn't too fond of the Turks.

[mofford]

Yes, the turks got their power because the worlds trade routes had to pass thru their turf. They had Russia pinned with the Black Sea and Caspian routes. The Europeans were blocked from India and China by the Ottoman Empire, always a thorn in their side too. This is what drove early explorers like Vasco De Gama and Columbus to bypass them. Its a shame so much valuable historical information was lost when Constantinople fell in the 1500s. Many archives about christianity and the eastern roman empire were destroyed by the islamic invaders.

[CLTKing]

Originally Posted by Trudeyrose

Of course that is the "British Empire"

Spain is another story...it was ruled by Islamic Moors for centuries...finally re conqured by the Spainards...their "Empire" was based mainly on gold and silver from the "New World" and did not last as long as the other Empires...after its downfall, it was called "The Sick Man of Europe" for a long time.

I always thought that "The Sick Man of Europe" was the Ottoman Empire?

[CLTKing]

Several more empires:

Armenian Empire, Trebizond Empire, Haitian Empire, Empire of Brazil, Central African Empire, Japanese Empire (the only monarchy left with an emperor).

[Thyra]

Originally Posted by CLTKing

I always thought that "The Sick Man of Europe" was the Ottoman Empire?

You are the second person that has pointed this out...so I did a little research, as I know I had read someplace that Spain was called that also. Here is what I found:
Sick man of Europe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
However, I have to agree that the Ottoman Empire is right, because the other countries that have been called "Sick Man" are pretty recent..
I stand corrected!!!

[Hasdrubal]

Originally Posted by Trudeyrose

Of course that is the "British Empire"

Spain is another story...it was ruled by Islamic Moors for centuries...finally re conqured by the Spainards...their "Empire" was based mainly on gold and silver from the "New World" and did not last as long as the other Empires...after its downfall, it was called "The Sick Man of Europe" for a long time.

well, not actually. Yeah, most of the Iberian Peninsula was under Muslim rule, except from small Northern kingdoms. They fought the Moors and succesfully defeated them taking about 8 centuries, that's why the Reconquista is considered the longest war ever fought.

[oldblueeyes01]

The best empire ever to have existed and is still kind of around today (commonwealth) was the British Empire!!

God Save The Queen

[texdav]

The british empire like all colonialism of western europe was muchh l;ike slavery. It sucked the colonies dry. It has been responsibler for much of the problems thru out the 20th centuries.It was driectly resposiblefor tweo world war that in the ned detroyed much of europe and brought about the start of teh end of those empires.