Every Ruler in Europe Every Year Since 400 BC

But then I thought someone like Murdoch or Dacre would be appropriate as they have more power than May (but who doesn't)

And as you say, back in the days of absolute monarchs, it was easy to know who was "ruling", but in modern democracies there's a lot more people involved with ruling. I think every modern democracy has the Head of State above the Head of Government, but especially in the constitutional monarchies of Europe, the monarchs have been all but stripped of their powers, and the title is merely ceremonial.

At least the US makes it simple, the President is both Head of State and Head of Government. :-)

The Macedonian warlords who took control of Alexander's territory actually had to negotiate with cities like Athens and Rhodes. The cost of attacking them to get them to obey was too high. It was better to negotiate reasonable taxes. If a king can't set tax rates unilaterally, they aren't very powerful either.

Power exists along a long continuum.

So it migth at least be argued that their common ruler is Jean-Claude Juncker or some similar unelected bureaucrat or sinecurean.

I think you could also summarize; in the past governments were simpler and you could definitely say "X was ruler of Y"

Nowadays it's complicated and checks and balances make it almost impossible to say who is the top of the food chain in a government (atleast in title)

off topic - but I feel that the massive hole that privacy is in, is directly related to the -lack- of micropayments for authors.. so, not only is it not click-bait, it is actually a sustainable way to publish.. more, not less, reimbursement for individual authors IMO

[...] The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. [...]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections

(Although it could be argued, possibly, that we haven’t actually recovered, but rather buried our disagreements and enmities deep down, and they still occasionally resurface.)

This is one way that illustrations like this, while cool, are misleading or at least obscure the situation. Rome under the Republic was ruled by two Consuls who served a joint one-year term, hence the seemingly chaotic turnover when in fact the Republic was more-or-less stable for centuries under this system. The yearly turnover was an expected feature. This animation makes it seem like a period of eternal war where rulers are constantly being overthrown.

I don't think what you're observing there is plausibly described as an instance of some general law of increasing stability. What you're talking about is the transition from the Roman republic, with a(n unwritten) constitution that mandated annual elections, to the Roman empire, whose rulers (typically) remained in place until death.

Publius Gnaeus Dipshitus may have been elected Consul during the era of Sulla or Marius or Pompey, but guess how much real power they executed.

On the other hand, in some eras there was even greater fluidity, because in the middle ages especially, most of Europe consisted of land controlled by various nobles with often only nominal suzerainty of a king, and every time one of these landed nobles died or inherited or married the borders would change, and there existed hundreds of semi-independent states in modern Germany alone. That can't be represented well on a map this scale.

Secondly, the thing you're observing in Italy is just the normal functioning of the Roman republic, which elected two consuls every year.

Thirdly, the "single malignant character", aka the "Great Man Theory" of history, is honestly very simplified and not really accepted by modern historians. A modern historian would rather say the societal conditions were ripe for a warmongering dictator to arise, and would point to many factors outside the existence of any one individual as instrumental in creating that set of circumstances.

Overall, your observations show just how intellectually dangerous it is to draw broad conclusions from such a simplified presentation. It's neat to see, but it's far too arbitrary and simplistic to draw any sweeping conclusions about history from.

Also he didn't exactly fit what is usually understood by "dictator that was deposed", he was beloved by the french people, took over by referendum and deposed by the nobilities of the other surrounding countries because they got scared that their own populace would start asking for this whole "meritocracy" thing.

You make a few coalitions with all of europe against a country because they believe their people are all equals, don't be surprised that after a while they try seize control of your resources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

By the way, I fully recommend: https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/

Probably for the average commoner, living in one of those boring kingdoms with a now-forgotten ruler was a much better deal.

Really? That's "the" problem of Europe?

> every European country used to be a great empire once and people are nostalgic of those times

How can people even be nostalgic about times they can't even remember? The last "great empire" in Europe was perhaps Germany in the 1940s. Few people remain alive who can remember it, and I don't think any of them would express a desire to be occupied by Nazis again. What would you say are the great empires that "we" have been a part of? Perhaps the French Empire in the time of Napoleon? Or perhaps the Romans? Seems like a long time ago to be nostalgic about, I doubt most Europeans could even tell you in which centuries those things even happened.

Here in the Netherlands we used to be a naval superpower, with many colonies all over the world. While it's pretty cool to imagine such a little country having an amazing navy, it was also a time of slavery and oppression (and a very lucrative slave trade with North America). Hardly something any decent person would want to be a part of, or return to. In fact we made fun of one of our PMs when he coined the term "VOC-mentaliteit".

I think the desire for a union is mostly a desire to have some influence on the world. Compared to the countries such as the US, China, and India, most individual European countries are tiny, and unable to make much of a difference in the world. If the GDPR was introduced in only a single country (e.g. Italy) but not the rest of Europe, nobody would even care. I strongly doubt this desire has anything to do with nostalgia.

Coincidence? I say not.