OT: How small is your hometown?

[Taz-in-Space]

My town was so small, it almost couldn't display the town name: Cly

[Deathstalker]

"American culture is one of the newest on the planet. How is it that it excels, by magnitudes, in almost every conceivable, measurable aspect over cultures hundreds, if not thousands of years older?"

Oh boy, ya know I suppose the Romans thought this of the good old Holy Roman Empire. And we all know what happened to them

(hears fiddle music in the distance and smells smoke)

Sorry could not resist that statement.

[capnq]

I suppose the Romans thought this of the good old Holy Roman Empire.

I've read a quote somewhere to the effect that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

I know lots of people, myself included, who see a disturbing number of parallels between the USA and Imperial Rome. "Bread and circuses" is the quickest to come to mind.

[Fyron]

The "Holy Roman Empire" was the collection of Eurpopean countries that were predominantly Catholic during the Dark Ages, Middle Ages and some later periods of time (i forget exactly when). It did not exist during the time of the Roman Empire. It was fabricated at a later date by the Catholic Church and the monarchist governments of that era. And it was most definitely not a political "empire," it was a religious one.

[TerranC]

Actually, The Holy roman empire was at first was an attempt at bringing the Roman Empire back from the ashes of the former one, when the "Holy" Church hijacked it to match the strength of the Byzantine Empire.

After that, the New Roman Empire kept changing directions, where it was at first at rome, then france (King Karl of the Franks), then to germany before it's fall.

Barbarossa would be spinning in his grave...