Butterfly, Roman Empire and all that...

Do you believe in butterfly effect? That is, a small changes in the initial condition of a dynamic state may lead to a different outcomes. Well, that's the rough idea, but anyway, answering the question, yes, I do believe in butterfly effect. As Philip Merilees once put it, 

"A flap of a butterfly's wings causes tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately lead to a tornado somewhere in Texas, or changes the path of the tornado"

Well, I'm not going to talk about a butterfly though.

From this small, harmless butterfly...

...to this giant TORNADO!!!

I read about Ancient Roman history on Wikipedia; I am always fascinated by their history, sometimes I fantasized I was there at that time. I even planned to visit the famous ruin of Ancient Rome one day, well, when I have lots and lots of "greens" in my pocket and nice shirts to bring with me, but anyway, I have been thinking, if Rome wasn't there in the first place then America would not exist at all. How? Remarkably, they do connected.

How does this connected to...

...Obama???

Here's how this thing works: The picture above (not Obama) is the sculpture of Romulus and Remus, the two legendary founder of Rome, however after Remus was supposedly killed by Romulus for some shit thing that Remus did (he allegedly "disrespect" the new city that Romulus built at that time), Romulus became the sole founder of the city. Over the next centuries and obscure history of the so called Roman Kingdom, the Romans overthrew their last king, Tarquinius Superbus, and reformed their government and created what we known today as Republic, but a lil' bit different than the one that we have today.

Romulus, the founder of Rome

Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of the Roman Kingdom

During the Roman Kingdom period, they engaged in wars with neighboring enemies and cities with little prospect of territorial expansion. However, after the Republic was form, as a move to protect themselves from further attacks, they decided that this is the time to expand. So they make wars with other factions, enemies, sacking cities, revolutionize their armies, especially after their humiliating defeat at the hands of some smelly Celtic group in 390/387 B.C., they were able to expand further and conquer the whole Italian peninsula and other lands outside of Italy.

Gradual territorial expansion of Rome on the Italian peninsula

Roman territorial expansion: 2nd Century B.C. (after Punic Wars)

Roman territory at the Late Republic

And finally after almost 500 centuries, they're back to the monarchy government, but with a little bit of Republican in it. This is the time when the Romans achieved its greatest territorial expansion under Emperor Trajan.

All hail Emperor Trajan

The Roman Empire under its greatest extent: Emperor Trajan (117 A.D.)

And I hope your attention are focused on the upper left corner of the map, cause that is Britain. Yup, the Roman Empire extend far north up until Britain at that time. What would become London today was actually known as Londinium at that time, a Roman colony.

Can you actually believe London was this small, once?

And after series of wars and battles fought, plus the separation of the Empire into two kingdoms, Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire, finally the former falls in the hands of a Gaul tribe known as the Ostrogoths in 476 A.D. (signalling the start of the Dark Age), while the latter falls in the hand of the Ottoman Turks. Anyway it's a win-win situation: the fall of the Western Roman Empire (WRE) gives the new religion at that time, Christianity, to spread to much of Europe, while also gives time for Islam to develop in the East. The fall of WRE also give ample "rest" time for Europe before its rebirth in the so called Renaissance, and the impact as we will see later.

Odoacer, the Ostrogoth's king who brought Rome to its knee in 476 A.D. He was already converted to Christianity during the conquest. Hallelujah...

Thanks to the Roman, I basked in Lord Jesus love and glory.

Enough with the Romans now, lets focus on Londinium. At that time Londinium was only a small military outpost and trading center. But over the centuries it grew into one of the most powerful cities, minus its own empire.

Medieval London: 1300 A.D.

And so London keep on growing, and growing, and growing (skip the medieval story and all that) and finally, to found a way to get the precious spice from India, plus the Renaissance that they experienced enabled them to build better ships. And finally they ventured out in the open sea and found trade routes that eventually led to India, and also Southeast Asia (that's how they conquer us). But they thought that routes are too far, hence they wanted to find a shorter route, so instead of travel around the continent to get to India, they eventually find themselves at the open Atlantic Sea in order to find those routes, which in reality too far from the routes they found earlier. One thing led to another, and they find themselves at what would be the first permanent English settlement in the North America, Jamestown.

Christopher Columbus, the first European to initiate widespread contact between European and Native Indians (he coined the term first)

Jamestown Fort, named after the English monarch at that time.

And so, the English settled in this area and many area to come in the next centuries, notably New York, which was founded by the Dutch in 1625.

New Amsterdam, the future New York City

After a period of growth, the colonists felt that they wanted to be free from the British, which by this time had already carved out a huge empire, reminisce of that Roman Empire, but seriously, this one is a global empire.

The once British Empire; it kinda fluctuated according to the time of conquest. For example, we were conquered roughly at the same time the American free themselves. Ah look, there we are: Malaya, Sarawak and British North Borneo.

So a couple of guys, well, a lot of guys gathered together and discuss the prospect of forming a government of their own. Finally on that one historic day, in July 4, 1776, they finally sign that paper which eventually became American Declaration of Independence.

The document that started it all, Declaration of Independence

And the rest is history, or more to me tired of explaining it. Well now you know how from two feral childs somewhere in Italy, to Obama sitting in his Oval office in the White House. Had Romulus didn't found the city, Roman Empire wouldn't be founded, Londinium wouldn't exists within the Empire, which is the basis of the global British Empire from which the Thirteen Colonies in America was founded. No British, no colonies in America. And North America would be different by now: carved out by powers such as Spain, France, Russia and else. Fuh, a long way. And in fact we wouldn't have almost anything that we have today without that naked child. So all things goes to Romulus and Remus themselves.