On 8/23/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Well, each of those three probably has a defined beginning - I know that both the UK and US do. That's if you are talking about the political entity, of course, not the geographical area.
This is very true. However, how many *other* countries do? Take Germany. Do you go back to reunification in 1990, separation in 1945, the beginning of Bismarck's empire in 1871 or some point in the far off past? It is not obvious, and I expect many other countries will have similar difficulties.
I feel this may be slightly beside the point.