Hey this is
Joshua Hwang, serving up another fresh and hot 90 Seconds to Culture podcast.
You may
know a little bit about the Roman Empire. If you are anything like me though,
this knowledge is from movies like Gladiator and Ben Hur and the TV series
Rome. This is an extremely brief timeline of the events leading to the fall of
the Roman then Byzantine Empire.
Before the
fall of what is called the Roman Empire, the Empire was split in two: forming
the Western and the Eastern Empire. The Western empire suffered from economic,
political and military hardships and was eventually taken over by Germanic
mercenaries in 476. The Eastern Roman Empire however, thrived and began to
reconquer lost lands. Historically, the Eastern Roman Empire is referred to as
the Byzantine Empire, even though its inhabitants still called themselves
Romans. The capital of the Byzantine Empire, Byzantium hence the name, was
refounded as Constantinople by Emperor Constantine the First (very original).
This
Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as its capital, would be one of the
longest lasting empires, lasting more than a millennium before being conquered
by the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). The fall of Constantinople represented the
official end of the great Byzantine Empire.
The most
culturally significant following from the decline and eventual fall of
Constantinople was the mass emigration of educated Greeks to Western Europe,
where their ideas and knowledge of ancient Greek studies would affect the
course of the European Renaissance, thereby changing modern culture today.