# A Thousand Years of History in Ten Minutes
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 29, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011 "2013-04-29T15:38:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/1 "2013-04-29T15:38:53Z")
[Here’s a pretty nifty video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fpnoIgar_nY) showing Europe and the Middle East’s border changes over the last thousand years.
They have the dates in the upper left corner, but if you ignore those it’s kind of fun to try and guess the year based on the map changes.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2013, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/2 "2013-04-29T15:50:25Z")
Tres kewl. MY AP Euro kids were rapt.
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### Author:  [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/3 "2013-04-29T15:52:29Z")
[Here’s just Europe itself](http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f54_1337075813).
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/4 "2013-04-29T19:04:38Z")
Nice video. It really highlights the advantage of the Channel. The borders in the British Isles stay stable for year after year as the borders on the continent roll back and forth.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/5 "2013-04-30T02:02:14Z")
I like how Portugal is all like “No.”
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### Author:  [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/6 "2013-04-30T02:22:24Z")
TL/DW
Who won?
😃
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/7 "2013-04-30T02:26:43Z")
Norway looks bored.
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/8 "2013-04-30T02:35:13Z")
I never new Lithuania was that big at one time. There was a huge Lithuania next to a moderate sized Poland. The it became a hugger Poland-Lithuania. And a couple hundred years later there was a huge Poland, and a tiny Lithuania.
Europeans don’t know how to hold onto land at all. 😉
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/9 "2013-04-30T02:37:05Z")
Although it would be fun if Risk had county level of detail and hundreds of players, the game might take 1000 years, but it would be fun.
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### Author:  [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/10 "2013-04-30T02:47:38Z")
This video makes me want to play Europa Universallis again.
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### Author:  [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/11 "2013-04-30T02:57:59Z")
About halfway through Switzerland just stays the same.
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### Author:  [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/12 "2013-04-30T02:59:41Z")
Good stuff.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/13 "2013-04-30T03:11:31Z")
There’s also the thirteenth century when suddenly half the map turns one color. “Hey, look, the Mongols are here!”
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### Author:  [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/14 "2013-04-30T05:21:23Z")
And yet, if you were to make a time-lapse of the same time period using photographs taken from orbit, you’d be hard pressed to notice any changes.
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### Author:  [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/15 "2013-04-30T07:59:04Z")
> [@wolfman](#):
>
> Although it would be fun if Risk had county level of detail and hundreds of players, the game might take 1000 years, but it would be fun.
Everyone who’s interested in this: check out the Paradox series of historically based computer games, specifically Crusader Kings 2 (1066-1463) and Europa Universalis 3 (1399-1821) - EU4 released later this year. Deep and detailed historical simulation and gameplay.
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### Author:  [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/16 "2013-04-30T09:05:52Z")
France should have moved east and taken all those Risk cards.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/17 "2013-04-30T12:19:35Z")
> [@wolfman](#):
>
> I never new Lithuania was that big at one time. There was a huge Lithuania next to a moderate sized Poland. The it became a hugger Poland-Lithuania. And a couple hundred years later there was a huge Poland, and a tiny Lithuania.
>
> Europeans don’t know how to hold onto land at all. 😉
Lithuania had a sea-coast on the Black Sea!?! Who knew?
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### Author:  [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/18 "2013-04-30T14:22:40Z")
Recently I stumbled onto [this timeline of human history](http://www.fsmitha.com/time/timeline2.htm). Might be a good read to go with those videos.
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### Author:  [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/19 "2013-04-30T15:29:24Z")
> [@2gigch1](#):
>
> Recently I stumbled onto [this timeline of human history](http://www.fsmitha.com/time/timeline2.htm). Might be a good read to go with those videos.
There goes my morning.
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### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thousand-years-of-history-in-ten-minutes/657011/20 "2013-04-30T17:29:44Z")
It is interesting the shifting of the lines. Each time one of those lines moved, it meant liberation for some, and oppression for others, and death for still others as a result of whatever conflict preceeded the line shift, I am sure.
But, this has been going on for more than the past 1000 years. IMHO we have been wanting to carve out a piece of land for “our kind” for a long time. I wonder how many more lines we will see form, and shift, as world populations climb and there is more competition for land and resources.
Part of my ancestry is from the city of Lviv in the Ukraine. My grandfather was born there in the early 1900s, and was marked as Austrian on his immigration form at Ellis Island. The city became part of Poland, then Germany, then USSR, and now Ukraine - all in the past 100 years. Prior to that the city belonged to many other entities. Crazy.
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