We used to think human migration was a simple branching tree. Ancient DNA proved it's something far stranger. Harvard Geneticist David Reich explains https://t.co/tL4kiUJOsV
Map of Europe, January 1500
In January 1500,the Holy Roman Empire was not one country but a patchwork of hundreds of duchies, bishoprics, free cities and principalities loosely held together under an elected emperor. That same year Emperor Maximilian I convened the Diet of Augsburg and introduced Imperial Circles, an attempt to organize this chaos into six administrative regions for tax collection and common defense. It was, in a way, the empire admitting it could not function as a single state and trying to at least function as a committee. Some territories like Bohemia and Switzerland refused to join any circle at all,remaining deliberately 'unencircled' for centuries.
Map via u / Yetkinler, r / empirepowers