Most Powerfull Empires or Countries in History.

[TheLastOne36]

Plus, I mean come on...when the Poles beat you, you're really screwing up.

Thank you... I think...

 

[Yui108]

I don't really know when did the British empire dissolved it's power. That is just a guess.

It dissolved it's power in the middle 20th century, if you mean giving up it's colonies. The British Empire, until the rise of the soviets and America, was still the combined military and economic power in the world. While at certain times Nazi Germany and the Second Reich could have defeated them militaristically it was still an economic overlord for the world.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I understand history more than you do.

If this thread is the acme of that superiority, then I concede, you're clearly much smarter than I.

 

[Dachs]

The Sassanids may be a second rate power, but it's still very powerful, even compared to the Romans who at the times suffered variously from internal corruption, decay and barbarian invasion. And while the Sassanids didn't score any "lasting" successes neither did the Romans against the Sassanids.

Sassanids had internal corruption and decay too, especially in the later part of their empire, when they underwent several succession civil wars. At the very end, when Arabs were swarming all over them, they even had their own little "Thirty Tyrants" period too. As for barbarian invasion, the Sassanids were dominated for near to half a century by a group called the Hephthalites, or White Huns, who controlled the military and political elite as foederati gone nuts, somewhat similar to the situation in the Roman West. And a lasting success against the Sassanids...huh, does Heraclius not count, or something? The fact that the Habsburgs never decisively defeated France, mostly because they were far busier in other theaters like Germany and the Mediterranean and Hungary, doesn't mean that France was equal to the Habsburgs during that period.

Not really. The first couple of centuries of the second half of the second millennium saw many dominant nations rising and expanding at the same time, with none becoming truly dominant over another.

Then the idea here is divide up the time slots more so that you have a much smaller number of nations vying for the various places.

I put in Portugal because their dominions were nonetheless administered separately from the Spanish at this time.

I suppose that's reasonable. And this is really the last point in time when they don't really have economic competition, since the Dutch are only an irritant at the very end and the VOC isn't formed until 1602 anyway.

Japan's very brief imperialist venture lasts from around 1590s to the Closing in the 1630s. During their first Korean campaign they actually did almost conquer Korea, until a combination of naval defeats, guerrila attacks and Ming intervention forced them to withdraw in 1593. Japan was quite active in the Asian trade until 1630 and sent an embassy around the world at this time. Maybe saying they are among the "most powerful" countries is a bit much, but they were nevertheless quite powerful during the early years of the Shogunate.

Yeah, Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were the shiz. Mostly the former; Hideyoshi may have been able to smash the relatively weak Korean army, but then he had to fight the Chinese and got thrown back to his Pusan Perimeter Part I anyway.

The conquest of Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and Mongolia occurs around this time, and at this time China is still the richest and among the most powerful countries, so I included it.

I thought that Xinjiang, Tibet, and Mongolia weren't conquered until Qianlong was emperor.

Thank you... I think...

Ha ha, just a joke. You guys did great at Warsaw - saved Europe's tuchas from the Reds and all that. Respeck.

 

[Verbose]

It dissolved it's power in the middle 20th century, if you mean giving up it's colonies. The British Empire, until the rise of the soviets and America, was still the combined military and economic power in the world. While at certain times Nazi Germany and the Second Reich could have defeated them militaristically it was still an economic overlord for the world.

The costs of the British Empire to the UK never really managed to get much above break-even in the first place, meaning the relative benefit to the UK compared to its main rivals was never as great as it seemed.

Germany caught it up industrially and GDP-wise around 1900. Already then it started to be apparent that the UK simply lacked the relative industrial and financial muscle to dominate the way it did particularly in the first decades of the 19th c., when it pretty much exclusively benefitted from the Industrial Revolution.

The US was first to overtake the UK economically (around the Civil War), followed by Germany, with France always a contender (eventually overtaking the UK in the 1960's), with Russia, and even Italy and Austria making great strides to catch the British up. The relative cut of the world GDP of the UK shrank all through the second half of the 19th c. and entire 20th c. That's how the empire was lost.

 

[aronnax]

Yeah, Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were the shiz. Mostly the former; Hideyoshi may have been able to smash the relatively weak Korean army, but then he had to fight the Chinese and got thrown back to his Pusan Perimeter Part I anyway.

I thought that Xinjiang, Tibet, and Mongolia weren't conquered until Qianlong was emperor.

Wait, didnt the Japanese begin to lose the war in Korea after their supplies from Japan got cut from Korean Sea power

 

[Dachs]

Wait, didnt the Japanese begin to lose the war in Korea after their supplies from Japan got cut from Korean Sea power

Yes. And then the Chinese sent in a 100,000 man army to aid the Koreans, which pushed the Japanese back to Pusan.

 

[joshhh]

But what was the most powerful nation BEFORE the Roman Empire? I guess Alexander's Empire & before that the Persian Empire & before that Egypt. Please. I said what was the most powerful NATION in each period of world history.

Before Rome?

You could say the Han Dynasty in China and its subsequent dynasties. Alexander's Macedonian Empire and its predecessor, the Persian Empire, was up there too. Carthage wasn't too shabby either, along with the Roman Republic. Babylon and Assyria were pretty powerful too back in their heydays. Not to mention Egypt under the Pharaohs and the Ptolemy's.

If anyone says Athens or Sparta, you guys are smokin' some serious crack y'all. Lay off watching 300.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't know if France really counts. Ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine July 1940.

For sale. 1 million french rifles. Only dropped once. Inquire at Berlin...

 

[Dachs]

I don't know if France really counts. Ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine July 1940.

For sale. 1 million french rifles. Only dropped once. Inquire at Berlin...

Ad in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (the Frankfurt newspaper), 1690: YOU TOO can donate money to help rebuild the Palatinate after the natural disaster French army came rumbling through...too bad none of the Holy Roman Empire's members could actually do anything to stop it...

 

[thecommonnate]

People here never cease to amaze me.

 

[holiday_hawk]

The Flamethrower was not invented by Germany

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamethrower

The English word 'flamethrower' is a loan-translation of the German word Flammenwerfer, since the modern flamethrower was first invented in Germany.

The modern flamethrower was invented in Germany