the.com/conquest
empire-building's polite word for showing up uninvited and never leaving
means The act of taking control of a place, people, or thing by force — or, more loosely, any prize or person won through determined effort.
from From Latin 'conquaerere,' to seek out and win thoroughly — 'con-' (completely) plus 'quaerere' (to seek, the same root that gives us 'query' and 'quest'). It arrived in English through Old French 'conqueste,' and you can still hear the hunt inside it: conquest is the seeking-out taken all the way to the having.
- average lifespan
- empires last roughly 250 years before collapsing
- deadliest conqueror
- Genghis Khan killed an estimated 40 million people
- unexpected weapon
- smallpox conquered the Americas faster than soldiers
- linguistic trace
- English is 60% conquered French and Latin words
- final paradox
- conquerors are almost always absorbed by the conquered
norman conquest of england — william the conqueror defeated king harold at the battle of hastings in 1066
spanish conquest of mexico — hernán cortés conquered the aztec empire with 600 men in 1519-1521
conquest of granada — catholic monarchs ferdinand and isabella took the last muslim kingdom in iberia in 1492