Posted on 06/06/2011 6:41:52 PM PDT by lancer256
The liberal media's most recent effort to turn Sarah Palin into a dolt over her version of Paul Revere, on which historians are now defending her, has prompted me to share with you some confusing points of European history I have recently re-encountered in my lay study of the subject.
With apologies in advance to professional and amateur historians, here are a few fun "facts."
First, the nutshell version: The Roman Empire is not to be confused with the Roman Republic, except that the latter was an extension of the former and is sometimes included in a broader definition of the former. The Holy Roman Empire is not remotely related to the Roman Empire, other than perhaps through the desire of the former to be favorably associated with the latter. The Byzantine Empire is also not to be confused with the original Roman Empire, though some consider it an eastern extension of the Roman Empire. And the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire are entirely different animals, except that the latter helped to demolish the former and ended up dominating much of the same territory.
(Excerpt) Read more at davidlimbaugh.com ...
Awesome. David shines in his own light.
Rome wasn’t sacked in a day.
I thought the Ottoman Empire was a furniture store.
Well, no, but a footstool was their only contribution to mankind. (Thank God I’m not Palin, I’d really have some ‘splainin to do.)
To continue. . . .
The Third Reich began and ended under Hitler.
And Obama has ambitions to start the Fourth Reich.
Or is it the Caliphate, with Obama as Caliph? Not quite sure, yet.
History can be very confusing when you have members of the Press Corpse go overboard trying to prove how dumb ‘Cuda is.
“At last the [British] officers began to feel the full import of what Paul Revere had been telling them. His words of warning took on stronger meaning when punctuated by gunfire. The sound of a single shot had suggested to them that surprise was lost. The crash of a volley appeared evidence that the country was rising against them. As they came closer to the Common they began to hear Lexington’s town bell clanging rapidly. the captive Loring, picking up Revere’s spirit, turned to the officers and said, ‘The bell’s a’ringing! The town’s alarmed, and you’re all dead men!’”
[Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer, pp. 135-6].
Okay article, except that Limbaugh, despite getting the fact of the capital having been moved to “New Rome” (as Constantine called it) or Constantinople (as everyone else called it), manages to repeat the nonsense of making a distinction between the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire. The name “Byzantine Empire” is an invention of Western historians, notably Gibbon, who had an anti-Christian axe to grind and wanted to dispossess the Greek-speaking Christian Romans (romanoi) of their Roman-ness.
It was also Gibbon who invented the idea that the retirement of the last Western Augustus in 476, when the Emperor Zeno decided to promote Odovacer to the status of Patrician of the Romans and entrust him with Imperial affairs in Italy was “the Fall of Rome”. At the time, no one noticed. In 800, when Charlemagne inveigled the Pope of Rome to crown him Emperor, he assumed he was reviving the role of Western Augustus, not creating a new Empire.
Wow, can you imagine hearing that from a prisoner, when you’re in a land you don’t know well?
Sarah Rocks!
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