The Sun is Finally Setting on the British Empire This Year

While there are a few dates that could be pointed to for the sun setting on the British Empire, in fact, it's never literally been the case... But all that's set to change- after centuries of the sun always shining on some part of the British realm, this year, that will end. Here now is the story of the origin of the expression "the sun never sets on..." and the twisting, turning way it's been true for Britain and how it's about to end. While now commonly associated with the British Empire, slogans like “the sun never sets on our territory” have been used since antiquity. For example, Mesopotamian texts from the rule of Sargon of Akkad, who reigned from around 2334 to 2279 B.C.E, declare that the king: “…[rules] all the lands from sunrise to sunset.” While in his foundational 430 B.C.E. work The Histories, Ancient Greek historian Herodotus quotes Persian Achamaenid king Xerxes I as declaring: “We shall extend the Persian territory as far as God's heaven reaches. The sun will then shine on no land beyond our borders.” However, the territories controlled by these rulers were very small by modern standards, and it was not until the explosive expansion of overseas exploration, trade, and conquest in the Early Modern Period that the first truly global empires began to emerge. And among the very first was the Spanish Empire, which by 1780 covered 13.7 million square kilometres or 5.3 million square miles and included most of South and Central America and the West Indies; a large swath of what is now the Southwestern United States; various African colonies like Fernando Po, Oran, Ceuta, Guinea, and Rio Muni; and Asian and Asian and Pacific territories like Palau, New Guinea, the Marianas Islands, Guam, and the Philippines. This led contemporary writers like British polymath Francis Bacon to write: “…both the East and the West Indies being met in the crown of Spain, it is come to pass, that, as one saith in a brave kind of expression, the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shines upon one part or other of them: which, to say truly, is a beam of glory…” Interestingly, for 60 years the Spanish Empire was even larger. In 1580 King Henry of Portugal died... Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Caden Nielsen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices