History
The Imperium is established on Terra (Earth) in the 30th millennium AD as the planet's sole authority; several centuries later, it embarks on a Great Crusade, an interstellar crusade intended to bring all human-settled worlds in the Milky Way galaxy under its banner. Over the course of two Terran centuries, the Crusade reaches star systems more than 50,000 light years away from its original staging point in the Sol (Solar) System, assimilates millions of worlds into the Imperium, and gives Humankind a dominant position among the galaxy's species; according to Imperial propaganda, it is humanity's "Manifest Destiny" to rule the galaxy.
Early in the 31st millennium, the Crusade comes to a sudden stop as the Imperium is nearly torn asunder in a galaxy-wide civil war known as the Horus Heresy; the war decimates and eventually redefines the Imperium. Following the Horus Heresy, the crippled institution undergoes a centuries-long, often violent rebuilding.
Read more about this topic: Imperium (Warhammer 40,000)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
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“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)