Historical Empires

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An Empire is a large political entity where one group of people gains the political, economic and military muscle to unify a bunch of other groups of people under it's banner and either lords over them or integrates them into a cohesive whole. Empire is derived from the Latin word Imperium which means Authority and more specifically the authority to command numerous roman legions.

Notable Real Life Empires

• The Akkadian Empire (circa 2234-2154 BC): The oldest known empire in human history, located within ancient Mesopotamia.
• The Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC–612 BC): An Empire which had in its foundation in a belief that if their army ever lost a battle the world would end, unsurprisingly it lasted until slightly after they lost their first major battle)
• The Achaemenid or first Persian Empire (550–330 BC)
• The Roman Empire (27 BC – 476 AD (Western), 330 – 1204 AD Eastern (Byzantine)): the trope codifier for fictional Empires everywhere, and (through borrowing/stealing Greek technology) largely blamed for turning Europe from a backwater land of barbarians into the home of the most ambitious superpowers in history. Has lots, and I mean LOTS, of children, whether it be the directly-descended Spanish and French Empires, or the more-religiously-oriented Roman Catholic Church, et cetera.
• The Chinese Empire: Going back to 2100 BC, they survived by making the Mandate of Heaven (if the dynasty turns into a bunch of idiots then your local emperor definitely isn't favoured by the gods and every peasant can hang them off), their equivalent of a constitution. Lasted until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in the early 20th century.
• The Portuguese Empire (1139-1975): the Western kingdom-turned-empire that hired Columbus, becoming the first global empire in the world. Notable for the founding of Nagasaki, moving their capital and court to Brazil to escape Napoleon, and coming back from the brink of dissolution three times. Also, their nicknames, Portugal Overseas: Ultramar Português or the Império Ultramarino Português has something to do with some smurfs made by a British company of Grimdark.
• Spanish empire 1402-1975 but it's height was 1516-1700 when there were ruled by the Hapsburgs and were pulling millions or maybe billions of Aztec gold and silver from the new world.
  • Treaty of Tordesillas June 7 1494. When talking about the Spanish and Portuguese empires the treaty of Tordesillas is worth a mention. Created by Pope Alexander VI the treaty split the new world between the Spanish and the Portuguese, with the Spanish get the new world West of the line, and the Portuguese everything to the East. Which is why Portuguese settled Brazil while most of the rest of south American speak Spanish and got to Japan because that was East of the line.
• The Mongolian Empire (1206–1368 AD)
• The Aztec Empire 1428–1521
• The Inca Empire 1438–1533
• The Ottoman Empire 1299–1923
• The Empire of Japan 1868–1947: 538 onwards, they've had an Emperor the whole time, but didn't actually make significant conquests of any sort or at all until 1894, and even from then through 1947 it is still debated whether the Emperor or the military was running things/and or in conflict with each other, with notable incidents such as the military attacking the Imperial Palace after Emperor Hirohito made a public broadcast, his first broadcast, asking the Japanese people to surrender to the United States. Also, Japanese used to revere the Emperor as the descendant of Amaterasu and therefore the rightful God-Emperor of Mankind. And people say the Tau are space weeaboos *BLAM*
• The Mughal Empire 1526–1857, though technically it spent its last century as a British Vassal.
• The Tsardom of Russia 1547–1721 (renamed to the Russian Empire by Peter the Great)
• The Russian Empire 1721-1917: Big, powerful but often backwards in technology and social development.
• The British Empire 1583-1997 (when Hong Kong was formerly turned over to China. even so they still have handful of oversees territory over which the sun has still yet to set). All Hail Britannia! It's God Save the Queen/King, you dolt.
• The First French Empire ("Vive la Napoleon!") 1804–1815
• Second French Empire-mostly known for getting their ass kicked by Prussia thus allowing Germany to be created: 1852–1870
• Austrian Empire (including time spent as Austria-Hungary) 1804–1918
• The Holy Roman Empire 962–1806 (Sometimes called the first Reich): Started as a powerful medieval power, but ever since Charlemagne died devolved into something "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." (Voltaire)
• The Ethiopian Empire 1137-1935/1941-1974: an empire of Africans, and one of the only two African nations to remain independent of the West. Also used to have Judaism as the official religion and the switched to its own version of Christianity. Its last Emperor, Haile Selassie, was revered by a religious movement as God incarnate.
• The German Empire 1871–1918 (The second Reich, put together by Otto von Bismarck's political genius and Prussian efficiency it took a collection of feuding principalities and in a few decades turned them into the greatest industrial power in Europe until it was exhausted fighting pretty much every other industrial power that mattered, twice.)
• Nazi Germany 1933 - 1945 (The third and shortest Reich, seriously they thought a thousand years was likely? Everybody point and laugh)

Note that when WWI started, the crowned rulers of Russia, Great Britain, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Germany, Romania, and Norway were all related by blood or law.

Notable Fictional Empires

• The First Galactic Empire (Star Wars)
• The Galactic Empire (Isaac Asimov's Foundation series)
• The Galactic Empire (Legend of the Galactic Heroes, this name is fairly common)
• The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)
• The Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40K)