In 1566 there was no Germany. The city of Rostock was part of the Hertzogtum Mecklenburg, itself part of the Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation. (the Duchy of Meckleburg in the Holy Roman Empire of the German People in English)
Rostock was not a very cooperative component of Mecklenburg. Indeed just the previous year there was a revolt spurred by the introduction of a new tax on beer by the Hertzog, Johan Albrecht 1. An ineffective revolt as Rostock surrendered when the Hertzog appeared with 500 Landsknecht. However, in 1584, Rostock achieved its dream of receiving Rechtsfreiheit, becoming a self-ruling city free from the landed aristocracy.
So Tycho Brahe attended university in Mecklenberg, one duchy of many in the HRE. A minor point now, but very much important then.
Prague, the city of Brahe’s drunken death, as well was part of the HRE, capital of the Königreichs Böhmen, ruled by the House of Habsburg, which it would remain until 1918.
And the Vikings never landed in Newfoundland, since there was nothing named Newfoundland until much later. And the U.S. did not succeed from the U.K., since the name “United States” wasn’t used until after the American Revolution. And the human race didn’t arise in Africa, since the name “Africa” didn’t appear till much later. Who cares?
As others have said, Germany existed as the name of a geographic region (like the Middle East or Latin America or Scandinavia) before it was a political entity.
Ah, the dangers of pedantry! If you’re going to argue that Rostock and Mecklenburg weren’t part of ‘Germany’ at this time, you shouldn’t assert with equal confidence that Prague was then part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Although the King of Bohemia was a vassal of the Emperor, an elector and the arch-cupbearer of the Empire and although, under Rudolf II, the Emperor lived in Prague, those were in this period the only formal ties between Bohemia and the Empire. The imperial law courts had no jurisdiction in Bohemia, the inhabitants paid no imperial taxes, only the King was represented in the Reichstag and Bohemia was not part of the Reichskreise. So whether Bohemia was part of the Empire at all was actually a highly controversial issue. The Bohemian Estates usually argued that it was not. Subsequent events did make that argument somewhat less plausible, but during Brahe’s lifetime the issue was a thoroughly ambiguous one.
They certainly were not discussing Fermat, as he would not be born until more than 30 years later.
The expression is “quicker off the line”, not “quicker off the line”. Interesting that something like half the Google hits for the “dime” version are quotes of this article.
“United States of America” is used in the Declaration of Independence, which obviously didn’t come after the Revolutionary War but at the very beginning of it.
No, that’s not why the U.S. did not secede from the U.K. The reason is because before 1801 there was no United Kingdom to secede from: the American colonies seceded from Great Britain.
We succeeded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain which was established as a political union back in 1707. Before that, we were strictly English colonies ruled by the English crown and over seen by the English parliament. Before 1801, England and Scotland were still technically two separate countries although they both shared a king since 1603.
In 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain became The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
By the way, the Declaration of Independences calls the nation the united States of America. At that time of the signing, the many of the colonies had already declared their independence from the United Kingdom, and the overall government was thought of as a union of independent states (much like the European Union).
It wasn’t until the passing of the Constitution that we became The United States of America with a single over arching government and thus a true nationstate.
No. The United Kingdom of Great Britain had existed since Queen Anne’s day, specifically, since the first Act of Union of 1707. 1801 was when the second Act of Union added Ireland to the mix.