The saying that the sun never sets can be traced back to a speech in history by Herodotus, an ancient Greek writer. In the Old Testament, a similar concept may be earlier than Herodotus, in which the Psalm talks about the king of the Messiah: "He will rule from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth."
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After the decline of the Spanish Empire, the second one to win the title of "the sun never sets" was the British Empire.
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In the long Middle Ages and early modern times, Britain has been a major country in Europe and experienced many glories. Strangely, however, Britain's national movement shows an obvious wave-like trend, and after every glory, it will always fall into the trough of decline and become a second-rate country. When mainland countries were fighting for European hegemony (16 18- 1648 "Thirty Years' War"), Britain was busy with internal struggles and was almost ignored by other countries. As Ambassador Venice 1640 said, "In the eyes of all countries in the world, Britain is just an insignificant nation, so
After the glorious revolution, Britain challenged the hegemony of France, the number one power in Europe, with a brand-new attitude, and invested in two wars to prevent Louis XIV from dominating Europe. That is, the Nine-Year War (1689- 1697) and the Spanish War of Succession to the Crown (1701713), and achieved great success. After that, while ensuring the basic balance of power in the European continent, Britain steadily expanded its power mainly through successful overseas expansion, and its influence tentacles greatly exceeded the scope of Europe. When the situation in the European continent was turbulent again around 1740, Britain returned to Europe and once again resisted the resurgent ambition of France to dominate the mainland. In the Austrian War of Succession to the throne (1740- 1748) and the Seven-Year War (1756- 1763), the wars between Britain and Spain and France broke out before the wars in Europe, and the resulting results naturally surpassed Europe and spread all over the world. Britain not only maintained the stability of the balance of power in the European continent through the seven-year war, but also destroyed the maritime power of France and Spain again and seized almost all the French colonies in the North American continent and India. Churchill said that after the Seven Years' War, "Britain became the master of the sea and land outside Europe", and he quoted horace Walpole, a British politician, as saying, "It took the Romans 300 years to conquer the world, and we conquered the world after only three wars, but now the world is twice as big as the Roman era".
That is, 1763, after the victory of the seven-year war, Britain proudly claimed that "the sun never sets" for the first time. However, twenty years later, because of the defeat of the American War of Independence, Britain was forced to put away its pride and temporarily cancelled the saying that the sun never sets on the empire.
18 15 Britain's victory in the Napoleonic wars further consolidated its position as an international political and military power, and the industrial revolution made Britain an undisputed economic power. Therefore, after 18 15 won the Second Centennial War completely, Britain began to claim that it was an empire that never fell. The Victorian British Empire entered its heyday, and the population of 1938 reached 458 million, accounting for about a quarter of the world's total population. 1922 After the German colony was acquired through World War I, the land area reached 33.67 million square kilometers, accounting for 24.75% of the total land area of the world, and it spread from the British Isles to Hong Kong, Gambia, Newfoundland, Canada and New Zealand. The international order under British hegemony is called "peace under British rule". The global map of the British Empire published in Britain usually marks the territory of the empire in red, which can clearly understand the global influence of this huge empire.
British economist jevons once described it in 1865: "The plains of North America and Russia are our cornfields, Canada and the Baltic Sea are our forest areas, Australia is our pasture, Peru is our silver mine, South Africa and Australia are our gold mines, India and China are our tea plantations, east indies is our sugar cane, coffee and spice plantations, and the southern United States is our cotton plantation."
However, there are also criticisms about imperial expansion. /kloc-Lord Salisbury, a politician in the 0/9th century, complained in 186 1 that Britain spent10.5 million pounds a year to defend its colonies, "only nourishing many military stations and a sense of complacency that will never fall in the empire." ? [1] A Sri Lankan newspaper quoted colvin R. de Silva's famous answer: "That's because God doesn't trust the British in the dark.
However, in the middle of the 20th century, especially after World War II, with the rise of global nationalism and the decline of British national strength, its colonies became independent one after another. At the same time, the rise of the emerging hegemonic country, the United States, also contributed to the gradual disintegration of the British Empire. Today, Britain and most of its former colonial countries have formed an international organization-the Commonwealth to replace the British Empire. But unlike the British Empire, Britain has been unable to directly influence other members of the Commonwealth in politics, diplomacy and economy. ? [ 1]?
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Since the middle of19th century, the word "not falling into the empire" has been widely used in the culture of English-speaking countries. Its application objects clearly include Britain and the United States, and its significance is not only manifested in the possession of territory, but also extends to the fields of language (English), culture (Christian culture) and art (Western art). For example, Alexander Campbell wrote in 1852. Later, the word was applied to American sphere of influence. An earlier example is "boasting" in an article by 1897: "Uncle Sam's sun never sets."
American expansion
In recent years, this word has been avoided and introduced into American political language. The book A Guide to American History describes how the original thirteen colonies became independent from the "wave of the British Empire", and then goes on to say that "the United States of America itself has become an empire, and its influence has finally surpassed the greatest British hegemony. Today, more than two centuries after independence, the sun will never set on the territory owned by the US government, citizens and overseas troops, or over countries within the sphere of influence of the United States under the control of American hegemony. "
The original meaning of the word "the sun never sets on the empire" is that some old colonial empires meet the requirements, such as the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch Colonial Empire and the French Colonial Empire, and the sun will not set over their territories. When the word "the sun never sets" is extended to these countries, it coincides with the concept of "global empire", that is, as long as it meets the conditions of "the sun never sets in the territory", it can be called "the sun never sets".