Perrin3088
|> I find that Native Americans, are living in the past... we don't have Native Carthaginians, do we...? Native Byzantinians..? Native Czechoslovakians..?

Subtle difference: "American" refers to a piece of land, it's a geographical reference; Carthagia, Byzantium and Czechoslovakia all refer to countries, they're national references. (And, I'm quite sure there's a lot of Native Czechoslovakians left, after all, they only split up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.)

On a semi-related note, I have a lot of international friends; comparing passports is always funny. If felt a little weird to see a Slovenian passport for the first time: "Country of birth: Yugoslavia". Of course it makes sense when you think about it. I was caught off-guard (should've known better) the first time looking at a Russian passport: "Country of birth: Soviet Union". None of my Turkish friends are old enough for their passport to say "Country of birth: Byzantine Empire" though. :p

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Moros
|> Does anyone know any country that was never colonized/conquered?
Depends on how you define things. For instance, during the time of the Kalmar Union, the current countries of Denmark, Norway (including Iceland and Greenland) and Sweden (including Finland) where not actually "colonised", yet they were not independant either:

[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_union):
|> The countries had not technically given up their sovereignty or even their independence, but in practice, they were not autonomous, the common monarch holding sovereignty and, in practice, leading foreign policy (..)

Also, where do you begin to count? Do the Roman Empire and Alexander the Great's empire count for instance? If you only look at the last few centuries, you could go with the USA (probably, they did have some issues with Mexico, I'm not sure if Mexican soldiers were ever on the USA side of the current border), Canada, Australia (I think they lost some small parts of territory during WWII) and probably Great Britain (maybe some issues with (North) Ireland and some islands close to France were lost during WWII) and the countries who's WWII-neutrality was respected (Switzerland and the Vatican).

It's probably cheating, but if you only look at "not being conquered since the birth of the country", there's a lot of "new" countries which would qualify. In Europe that would be Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, even Kosovo if you're "flexible" enough with your definitions. In Asia most countries that were (officially) formed after the end of WWII (such as Indonesia). Of course, most of those were independent territories before, but (I think) not really in the modern sense of a "country".

In short, mankind has waged far too many wars already; with the utterly screwed up and shameful history our species has, it's highly unlikely you'll find any territory at all which has been peaceful and left alone by its neighbours since the dawn of time... :(

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|> Ok, I tried zooming in on North Korea it wasn't surprising, but funny anyway:)

You weren't surprised? I was astonished at the zoom level available. Sure, there's only one city labelled, but if you zoom in far enough, labels for rivers start appearing; it's not nearly as blank as you'd expect. Look at this [stadium](http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.049738,125.775505&z=19) for instance; I doubt imagery as detailed as this was available (outside of the USA and Russian intelligence agencies) even just a few years ago.

Anyway, the the first post is one of the stupidest i have ever read :|

How long after an empire/nation dies, do we consider it gone..?
How long after an empire/nation survives as a subset of another nation, do we still consider it of itself..?

some say history is formed in the collective memory after 50 years have passed. so, to answer perrin's questions, i'd guess two generations (roughly 50 years) are needed after the change in status/nature.

@Richelieu:
|> |> How long after an empire/nation dies, do we consider it gone..?
How long after an empire/nation survives as a subset of another nation, do we still consider it of itself..?
|>
|> some say history is formed in the collective memory after 50 years have passed. so, to answer perrin's questions, i'd guess two generations (roughly 50 years) are needed after the change in status/nature.

I'd love to hear your opinion on the reunification of Germany, approximately 50 years after it had been split into West Germany and East Germany.

if i were curious about german reunification, i'd rather hear from a german who experienced the changes, at least two generations (or 50 years) afterwards.

What I meant was that on both sides, people were *very* eager to restore one Germany, even though, according to "your" 50-year-theory the "old" (united) Germany should've been gone from the collective memory already.
My apologies if my post wasn't clear enough / assumed too much background-knowledge.

Well actually it fits quite neatly into the limit ('45-'89 is 44 years).
But that aside, German reunification is a fairly obvious exception to this rule (which ofc actually is more of a rule-of-thumb but Gui made that already pretty clear IMO) anyway. This is mainly because the cold war kept the German Division constantly on the public agenda. After all, Germany was a focal point of the conflict and both German states relied heavily on propaganda against each other, citing re-unification under their respective administration as a goal of their policy (though the DDR leaders more or less abandoned the idea later on).
Now take for example the current German-Polish border, which is (de-facto) of about equal age as the division. By the time this issue was finally officially settled (as late as 1991!), no one really made a big fuzz about it anymore except for a few right-wingers, whereas in the 50's and 60' there was still widespread sentiment against it ("Dreigeteilt niemals!"). Nowadays I'd say >=95% of Germans under 30 don't even know this had been quite an issue in the 15-25 years following WWII.

On a general note, I think the rule becomes more and more obsolete as oral tradition gradually fades in importance during the modern era. The invention of printing, a developing public education system leading to higher literacy rates and professional historiography and finally the rise and spreading of history as popular science through radio and television all contribute to our collective memory reaching farther and farther into the past. But as late as some 150-200 years ago, the vast majority of people really only were able to learn about those things from the past the eldest of their kin hadn't yet forgotten.

@RvW

first of all, Norway was if not colonized by sweden and denmark they where controled by sweden and denmark (belive me, I`am from Norway) you can think abaut it as a country, where norway was the lower part. As an exsaple norway didn`t have ur own constitution befor 1814...

I was really not surprised, ut i think that is kinda of topic;)

any way norway was once conquered by germany so ha

interesting, gnull.

rvw, maybe my shorter post wasn't clear enough to avoid your assumptions. i'll try again:

some categorize events as being 'historical' (ie, the methodological history learned in classes) or 'contemporary'.

at least a couple generations (or, at least 50 years) is needed for a 'contemporary' event to become a 'historical' event, bc (a) enough historical documents are needed to piece everything together in order to understand the event as best as possible (finding/organizing such documents takes time) and (b) a society's contemporary impressions are not always historically accurate or based on facts (it takes time for a society to be self-critical and to weed out false assumptions).

once an event transitions from 'contemporary' to 'historical', it could gain a special place in the collective memory (if a sufficient portion of a society deems it as being significant to their culture, in which case it would probably be taught in their schools' 'history' or 'social studies' classes).

it's a rule of thumb, as gnull noted.

Perrin, since you're confident there's nothing derogatory or racist about referring to black people in America as negro, why don't you test your theory. Start making that reference publicly. Try it out in front of a few different races. See how it goes.

@ IronHeart

I did mentioned that on an earlier post, but god point;)

*All countries have been conquered at some point in history except Nepal(supposedly)...everyone forgets Nepal, they have never been conquered neither occupied by any other nation.*
*Otherwise, as for as i know, each and every country has been either occupied or conquered or ruled by another one at least for some time in the last 3000 years.But this is supposedly, it has not been proven 100% yet.*

*England was conquered by the Romans.*

*Also contrary to popular belief, Scotland has been conquered by England,In 1652 the forces of the English Republic under Oliver Cromwell completed the military conquest of Scotland, imposing an English government regime which was supported by 10,000 troops and a network of fortresses, lasting until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.subjugated by English many times, including the rule of King Edward Longshanks and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.*

*USA, Canada, Mexico, and Americas- Native Americans conquered and land colonized*

*Australia- Aboriginal defeat at the hands of the British*

*Japan- US occupation following WWII*

*Thailand- Japanese during WW II*

*Afghanistan- ALEXANDER THE GREAT*

*Nepal can be argued for, although it served as a vassal state of the Gupta Empire and also under the incredible influence of the British Empire.*

*Sweden, which has maintained its sovereignty throughout history has had many unions with other countries, becoming semi-autonomous, most notably the Kalmar Union. During World War II, the Swedes served at the whim of the Third Reich of Germany, although they pleaded neutral, like Switzerland.*

*Bhutan has some claims, for records of the period between the 7th and 9th centuries are sketchy. Claims have been made that the Kamarupa Kingdom or Tibetan Empire conquered it during this time. The British and Indians have also had considerable influence.*

*So most countries have never remained autonomous. And Sweden, Nepal, and Bhutan (which has sketchy history) have come under major influence.*

*Ethiopia has never been colonized in its 3000 years history except the 5 years occupation of Italy.*
Ethiopians were able to defeat Italy in the Battle of Adwa in 1896 and became the first black nation to successful repel colonization.
*The five year occupation may disqualify Ethiopia from being one of the countries that have never been "conquered."*

*But if we consider occupation as being "conquered", all the countries that are listed above have been "conquered" since they have definitely been occupied not ruled by some other people at some point in their history.*

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110915141648AA3XV0B

China was never conquered if i am right

Mongolian empire... Did you even check out the link?

Are we defining "countries" as political entities, or as masses of land with people on them? If it's the former, then the (northern) USA has never been conquered or occupied.

War of 1812, Mercenary.

I think masses of land. America has been conquered by the British/French/Spanish armies, and later the USA "conquered" it all.
If we use countries we could just as well say that Kosovo or South-Sudan has never been conquered.

Interesting how indistinct the whole concept of a *country* or a *people* is after all, isn't it?

right, hangblague. shouldn't have used the word "occupied."