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"No nation is older than 250" (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A threads post saying "There has never been another nation ever that has existed much beyond 250 years. Not a single one. America's 250th year is 2025. The next 4 years are gonna be pretty interesting considering everything that's already been said." It has a reply saying "My local pub is older than your country".

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The oldest existing democracy is Iceland depending on how you define democracy. But that was around 930 ad and had free men participating in making laws

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

depending on how you define democracy.

This part of your comment seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting.

According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in 874 AD, when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the island's first permanent settler.[15] In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, immigrated to Iceland, bringing with them thralls (i.e., slaves or serfs) of Gaelic origin. The island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the native parliament, the Althing, one of the world's oldest functioning legislative assemblies. After a period of civil strife, Iceland acceded to Norwegian rule in the 13th century. In 1397, Iceland followed Norway's integration into the Kalmar Union along with the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, coming under de facto Danish rule upon its dissolution in 1523. The Danish kingdom introduced Lutheranism by force in 1550,[16] and the Treaty of Kiel formally ceded Iceland to Denmark in 1814.

Influenced by ideals of nationalism after the French Revolution, Iceland's struggle for independence took form and culminated in the Danish–Icelandic Act of Union in 1918, with the establishment of the Kingdom of Iceland, sharing through a personal union the incumbent monarch of Denmark. During the occupation of Denmark in World War II, Iceland voted overwhelmingly to become a republic in 1944, ending the remaining formal ties to Denmark. Although the Althing was suspended from 1799 to 1845, Iceland nevertheless has a claim to sustaining one of the world's longest-running parliaments. Until the 20th century, Iceland relied largely on subsistence fishing and agriculture. Industrialization of the fisheries and Marshall Plan aid after World War II brought prosperity, and Iceland became one of the world's wealthiest and most developed nations. In 1950, Iceland joined the Council of Europe.[17] In 1994 it became a part of the European Economic Area, further diversifying its economy into sectors such as finance, biotechnology, and manufacturing.

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago

It does a lot of heavy lifting when defining the US to be a democracy too.

You'd have to be a white supremacist to think the US was a democracy when slavery existed. Sure some people may have been voting, but there were Lords in a lot of places in Europe voting on stuff for a very long time.

We may as well say the Holy Roman Empire was a democracy because people voted for who would be Emperor. Sure the peasants didn't get to vote, but it doesn't matter if not every one gets to vote? Or does it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

And how you define nation/country. You could say the Isle of Mann, but it probably doesn't meet the definition.