england

[XXAARONXX]

is it true that the english once ruled the world

[starmack]

In their dreams!

[Whickerman]

Nope. But they did rule great swathes of it, look up British Empire.

But then to give some perspective, you need to look up the Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, and the histories of Spanish, Portugese and German expansion,

[fairkatrina]

Germany is a relatively new nation, and the German's complex about that and their desire for an empire to rival England's or France's was a cause of WWII.

England had the largest empire of any nation, mainly because the Romans didn't have the technology to get any further around the globe than they did, but relatively speaking theirs was probably the biggest.

[maxximus]

i believe the largest land empire was the mongolian empire.

[chwinc]

It was called the BRITISH EMPIRE not ENGLISH EMPIRE for god sake there were Welsh Irish and Scottish in the armies and they also fought in all the wars for Britain not England. Typical English arrogance !!

[Lonnie]

When I was at school, two thirds of the world was shown on maps as pink, these were british possessions and mandates.

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

[maxximus]

correction, largest contiguous land empire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire

[Bellringer]

The Sun never set on the British Empire.
But the politicians sold it down the river.

[Kromovaracun]

I don't blame them, considering that by the time we started decolonising our presence was generally costing us more than it was helping us.

To verify the size comparison:

http://www.hostkingdom.net/earthrul.html

[starmack]

There is an absence in this debate of an assessment of the damage done in world politics by the reckless poiicies of expansion by the British Empire in its day.
It is a shameful legacy and nothing, nothing, to be proud of.

[MrsT]

We didn't rule the world but we brought a lot of good things, even to ungrateful tw@ts like Starmack.

Ok Starprat, what part of France are you from then?

[lordjazz]

He perhaps doesn't come from France, this 'starmack' .When I've been to France i've always found them to be very pleasent . lordjazz