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Curated playlist

Former transcontinental empires

  • Fatimid CaliphateThe Fatimid Caliphate began as a secret movement, not a kingdom. Hidden missionaries spread its doctrine.
  • Abbasid CaliphateThe last Abbasid ruler of Baghdad was wrapped in a carpet and trampled by horses.
  • Afsharid IranNader Shah seized the Peacock Throne from a Mughal emperor in Delhi in 1739. Iran paid no taxes for three years.
  • Achaemenid EmpireIn October 539 BC, Cyrus the Great captured Babylon. His Achaemenid Empire had already toppled Media and Lydia.
  • Safavid IranIn July 1501, Ismail entered Tabriz and made Twelver Shi'ism the required faith of Iran.
  • Timurid EmpireThe Timurid Empire lost its lands but founded the Mughal Empire. A Timurid prince, Babur, took Delhi in 1526.
  • Mongol EmpireMongol Empire riders regularly covered 125 miles a day by swapping horses at relay posts.
  • First French EmpireSoldiers ordered to arrest Napoleon joined him instead. He had escaped Elba with a thousand men and four cannons.
  • Spanish EmpirePortugal's navy blocked Castile from Africa, which pushed it toward Columbus. The Spanish Empire grew from that setback.
  • Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire never called itself Byzantine. Its citizens called themselves Romans, and the name came later.
  • Golden HordeThe Golden Horde did not have that name in its own day. Russian chroniclers first used it in 1565.
  • British EmpireThe British Empire began with trading posts and failed colonies. By 1920 it covered 35.5 million square kilometres.
  • Western Roman EmpireThe Western Roman Empire ended in 476 with barely anyone noticing. A Germanic leader deposed a teen emperor.
  • Italian EmpireThe Italian Empire began when a shipping company bought a coaling station. The company bought Assab Bay in 1869.
  • Ottoman EmpireThe last Ottoman sultan, Mehmed VI, was a direct male-line descendant of the empire's first sultan, Osman I.
  • Soviet UnionOn December 26, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev officially recognized the Soviet Union's dissolution.
  • Russian EmpireRussia sold Alaska to the United States for 11 million rubles in 1867. Russia called its colony indefensible.
  • Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire began as a republic run by elected officials. It still lasted, in one form or another, until 1453.

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