Youtuber “EmperorTigerstar” specializes in documenting the development of world historical events by combining hundreds of maps into time-lapse movies. In past years, we’ve featured his “map animations” from the American Civil War (1861-1865), World War I (1914-1918), and World War II (1939-1945). Today we highlight a more ambitious project, an attempt to visually document the rise and fall of the Romans. The video covers 2000 years of history in just ten minutes.
The animated map, which ranges from 753 BC to 1479 AD, shows the territorial boundaries of Rome changing as the Roman Kingdom transformed into the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Then the weight of history takes over and we experience the gradual decline of Roman civilization. We see a bifurcation that divides the empire into western and eastern (Byzantine) parts until only a small piece remains.
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History of the Byzantine Empire (or Eastern Roman Empire): An Animated Timeline Covering 1100 Years of History
