Lose yourself for a few minutes in the territorial evolution of Europe and the US.

[sandbender]

While searching for the location of a particular US state I found this .gif which shows the territorial evolution of the USA...

http://i.imgur.com/O9V2y.gif

...Which also led me to this similar video for Europe.

[video=youtube;ugqGueQ9Ud8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugqGueQ9Ud8[/video]

Enjoy

 

[boatman]

They seem to have missed the Angevin Empire.

 

[boatman]

Interesting animation. The various Khanates were impressive. Anyone read Dmtri Donskoi a novel of Russian resistance to the mongols and princely double dealing?

 

[santaman2000]

The US one seems to have left out American Samoa, The Marshall Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the American Virgin Islands, (as well as Cuba and the Phillipines back when they were US territories)

 

[sandbender]

They seem to have missed the Angevin Empire.

Isn't that it at around 14 secs in?

 

[sandbender]

The US one seems to have left out American Samoa, The Marshall Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the American Virgin Islands, (as well as Cuba and the Phillipines back when they were US territories)

Indeed, sticking with the mainland is easier I suppose, they did get Greer County and some of those little odd bits that needed tidied up.

 

[sandbender]

Interesting animation. The various Khanates were impressive. Anyone read Dmtri Donskoi a novel of Russian resistance to the mongols and princely double dealing?

I will check them out.

 

[santaman2000]

Indeed, sticking with the mainland is easier I suppose, they did get Greer County and some of those little odd bits that needed tidied up.

LOL. I suspect it was more to do with sticking with the ones that achieved statehood, After all they did get Alaska and hawaii in there (and I suspect they'll include Puerto Rico when it finally becomes a state)

But as to tidying up those odd bits, you might have a look at a series on the History channel, How The States Got Their Shapes. it gives a lot of info on various political compromises along the way. For instance Texas lost all it's area above a certain line because it was a slave state and slavery was illegal above that, Utah was carved up because of fear of the Mormons, etc.

 

[boatman]

Isn't that it at around 14 secs in?

Yes, sorry I ran it through again and thought oops!