A random thought at 5 AM

[omorka]

Anniversaries are important. We all know that. National anniversaries are especially important - I was barely sentient for the bicentennial, but I remember having heard about it a lot. Everyone remembers reading about the Silver Jubilee and all that from Victoria's reign, in Britain.

So what's England going to do in 2066?

Who else (other than China) has thousand-year anniversaries? Does France have a defining event like that (Chalemagne's coronation, maybe)?

Makes the US look like an angsty adolescent, that does . . .

Comments

[brezhnev.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on how one would choose to define it. There are several countries that have been around that long, though not necessarily under the same dynasty, and some have been fragmented for a time or ended up as part of another empire, later to regain sovereignty. I think the Byzantines and Japanese have had the longest dynasties, though I'm not 100% sure about the former.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

The Byzantines aren't around anymore ("Istanbul was Constantinople; now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople - been a long time gone, Constantinople; why did Constantiople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks . . . .").

Japan probably counts. How old is the current Imperial family?

[brezhnev.livejournal.com]

The Byzantines aren't around any more, but when they were, they lasted as a state for about 1000 years, though they were not much more than a city-state by the end. The Greeks are independent once more, and although the ancient capital is gone, perhaps they might still commemorate the glory days.

The current Japanese imperial dynasty is about 1000 years old. But, the role of the Emperor is now more of a ceremonial one, and political power lies with the Parliament. So this might disqualify them as being the oldest current regime. I'm not sure if they have a day commemorating the founding of the dynasty, or if the exact day that took place is lost in the mists of time.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Given that we started here with England, and their royal family doesn't currently have much more political power than the Japanese imperial family, I think we can still count them.

Heh. Yet another parallel between the two strange island kingdoms on either side of Eurasia.