Jaltcoh: Europe, 1000-2005 in 3 and a half minutes

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

[UPDATE: The video has been taken down. I'm leaving this post up to preserve the comments.]

Richard Lawrence Cohen said...: Cool. Assume an average of one war per change on the map. (There would have been some map changes due to peaceful dynastic succession, but also some wars that didn't result in map changes. Also some of the big wars like WWII resulted in more than one map change.) Sustain that for a thousand years and see if you don't want to become a unified, peace-loving continent of government-protected office workers and intellectuals.; May 15, 2012
John Althouse Cohen said...: How would "dynastic succession" cause a change in two countries' borderlines?; May 15, 2012
Richard Lawrence Cohen said...: In many ways! If, for example, A German prince married a Polish princess who brought a little of Poland with her as a present and added it to his realm. Or if a Holy Roman Emperor divided his lands among his sons, which might occur peacefully at first but then lead to internecine war and further boundary changes. (A lot of this stuff happened in the Holy Roman and Hapsburg empires. Also when Napoleon doled out his conquered lands to his family.); May 16, 2012
Susan said...: The map's not available any more, due to copy right issues it says. -Susan; May 19, 2012
John Althouse Cohen said...: Woops! I wonder if I indirectly caused it to get taken down by posting the link to Metafilter.; May 19, 2012

Jaltcoh