When did Rome fall? That's actually kind of a complicated question. There are a couple different ways you can answer it, maybe three, even. So I will kind of talk through what these different options are of when to date the fall of Rome. So first of all, as English speakers, we inherit an English perspective on world history. And we need to be always cognizant of this when we're thinking about world history. There is a long tradition of English language education that looks at the history of the world and the history of Europe, which actually a lot of times was kind of synonymous in the curriculum, from the point of view of what was interesting to the English historically. And the Roman Empire is no exception to this. So the Roman Empire was a Mediterranean-based empire that happened to include England up at the edge of it. And it included Western Europe as well as southeastern Europe and parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Now at various times in the latter part of the period of the Roman Mediterranean Empire, the empire got split up in various ways for various reasons. And the final split that happened was in 395 when it was divided between a Western Roman Empire and an Eastern Roman Empire. And then from then on, those were two separate countries with separate imperial administrations and separate emperors. The Western Empire then fell in 476, so to speak. I mean, that's kind of an arbitrary date, but that's the standard date for the end of the Western Roman Empire. What happened was over the preceding decades during the 400s. Germanic tribes had relocated within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, and it ended up ruling different parts of the territory of the Western Roman Empire. And then finally in 476, a German leader in Italy named Odoeyser deposed the final emperor in the west. So from then on, the Western Roman Empire did not exist, at least for some time. And instead, there were these different kingdoms, different parts of Western Europe and North Africa in the territory that had been Roman. There were the Visigoths and the Austro-Goths and the Franks and the Vandals in different areas of that old territory. But while that was the end of the Western Roman Empire, that was not the end of the Roman Empire because there was still the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople. And that empire continued to exist for many centuries afterward. Now that Eastern Roman Empire is usually called the Byzantine or Byzantine Empire in English language instruction and English language books. Now that's an arbitrary designation that was placed upon the Eastern Roman Empire by modern historians. That's not what the Eastern Romans called themselves, or in other words, that's not what the Byzantines called themselves. Even though we call them Byzantines, that's not what they called themselves. They were never, and as far as they were concerned, they were not Byzantium, they were not the Byzantine Empire. They were Rome and the Roman Empire. And they continued to call themselves the Roman Empire right up until the end of their empire, which was in 1453, when Constantinople, which was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, was finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks. Now that ended the Eastern Roman Empire. So you have two different dates for the end of the empire. You have 476 and 1453. Now strictly speaking, 476 doesn't really end of the empire. It is kind of a convenient arbitrary date for the end of the Western Roman Empire. So I guess if you want to say, when did the Western Roman Empire fall? You could say 476. But no one at the time would have recognized that as the fall of Rome. At the time, everyone knew there was still a Roman Empire. It was over in Constantinople and ruled a very large territory in the Eastern Mediterranean. And in fact, there was an effort during the 500s on the part of the Eastern Roman Empire to reconquer the lands of the west of what had been the Western part of the Roman Empire to reunify those territories. It was not ultimately successful, and then eventually those territories were lost again. Okay, so those are the normal dates. You have the false date of 476, which is what you would often find in English language books, especially older ones. I don't know if newer ones still perpetuate this idea. But we still do have this notion, this terminology of the Byzantine Empire and insisting on referring to the Eastern Roman Empire of the Middle Ages as the Byzantine Empire, which is a change of terminology that really doesn't make any sense. But anyway, so we have 476, which is the old traditional date for the fall of Rome. And then there's 1453, which is basically the real date for the fall of Rome, because that's when the historical Roman Empire that was founded by Caesar Augustus, that's when it really was over, was in 1453. However, there is another way of looking at this. Because even though the Western Roman Empire was ended in 476, it didn't stay dead. It was revived in the year 800. What happened was, up until that time, during the 500, 600s and 700s, the Eastern Roman Empire had maintained a presence on the Italian peninsula and had controlled certain parts of the peninsula. And then there were Germanic tribes called Lombards, that controlled other parts of the Italian peninsula. And the Romans did not have enough resources to put enough troops into Italy to drive the Lombards out or pacify them. They only were able to maintain enough of a military force in Italy to hold down the major population centers of Ravenna, which was the provincial capital and Rome, where the Pope was, who was one of the leaders of the Christian Church. And they also controlled the southern areas, like Sicily and Southern Italy. And then there were two big pockets of Lombard power, one in the south, centered around Benavento, and then one up north. Well, in the 700s, the Roman Empire, based in Constantinople, was weakening. And so, they were no longer able to provide protection against the Lombards. And so, the Pope and Rome appealed to the King of the Franks. The Franks were a Germanic kingdom up in what is now northern France. And asked them to come down and provide protection for the Romans in Italy. And so, he did that. The King of the Franks at the time was named Charles. He came down to Italy and fought against the Lombards and made Italy safe for the Romans. And in return for that, the Pope crowned Charles Emperor. He restored the old defunct crown of the Roman Empire in the West. And so, that King Charles, or Emperor Charles, is known as Charlemagne, which is, comes from the French for Charles the Great. The restoration of the Western Empire was kind of annoying to the Romans in Constantinople, because they're like, we are the Roman Empire. If a Roman Emperor is going to be created in the West, we're going to be the ones to set that up. But also, why would we do that? Because if we're going to retake the West, we'll just rule that as part of the Roman Empire. At that point, the division of the Eastern Roman Empire was no longer a relevant issue, because that had happened centuries earlier under other circumstances. But there was nothing that the Romans and Constantinople could do about it. And so, the institution of the Roman Emperor in the West continued on. And it continued on at first through the Carolingian dynasty, which is the descendants of Charles the Great, or the descendants of Charlemagne. And then after that, the position of Emperor in the West passed on to other dynasties over the centuries. And it eventually ended up with the Habsburgs, who were the last dynasty to hold the title of Western Roman Emperor. And from 1556 onward, they were based in Vienna. That branch of Imperial Roman claimants continued down to 1806. So if we follow the line of the Holy Roman emperors, then the fall of Rome happened in 1806, when Francis II abolished the office of Holy Roman Emperor, but no one ever says the fall of Rome happened in 1806. So here's the short answer. If someone asks when was the fall of Rome, the correct answer, or the most correct answer, is 1453. But if you want to be an old-fashioned Western European Euro-Centrist, then you can say 476, because that's kind of the traditional date.