The split of the Roman Empire was a long time coming, and divisions had occurred prior to the final, permanent East-West divide in the fourth century, according to Humphries.

The eastern Roman empire was founded by Constantine the Great on May 11, A.D. 330. The empire fell on May 29, 1453, when the army of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II breached the walls of Constantinople.

You can imagine the Roman Empire gradually taking over more and more areas as they conquered and progressively moved to the east. North Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, Syria. And ...

Two thousand years ago, the Eurasian continent was dominated by two such empires: the Roman Empire in the west (which covered vast swathes of Europe and the Middle East as well as parts of North ...