Middle ages in a nutshell.
Northern European tribes invade Rome leading to its fall. Raiders kill and rape everyone on the streets so people go to the church for sanctuary. Church abused its powers forcing people to believe their religion in order to not die on the streets. Holy wars begin to spread Catholicism throughout the world
Careful there.
The Known World. Expansion to the Americas didn't take place for until another thousand or so years. And also, it wasn't
technicaly the Church we know today. The Holy Roman Empire and the Holy See are two different bodies, though one precursored the other.
And that's another thing that should be brought up. The misconception that if Christianity didn't exist, then Medieval times would have never happened and we would live in a world with flying cars and happy governments. But if it weren't for the fall of Rome and the Medieval times, the Renassiance would have never happened in the first place. If Rome would have just collapsed without the church's existance, (And it would have. They were leading to that anyway, Christianity just added salt to the wound) who would have seized power? The Germaric barbarians? The Greeks? Israelis? No one can really tell. For all we know, human civilization could have just collapsed affter that, regressing to nomatic stages. But anyway...
Two of the most horrible events, the Crusades and the Bubonic Plague, actually turned out fairly well. I'm not saying it was good, but each did have it's positive side. The Crusades/Church Power opened trade routes to Asia and began spreading feudalism, which was the base of countries like Spain and France and England and Russia as independent entities. Because of the mass death of the Black Death, those who lived after it typically lead very good lives in many senses of the word. It wasn't happy cheery rainbow land, but the events did help us grow as a people.
Too Long; Didn't Read - We would probably not be some futuristic civilization if Christianity didn't exist and or if the medieval times never took place. One can't just cut out one age and expect the other to magically happen.
Napoleon wasn't really a midget.
He was six feet two and could beat up anyone's dad, yes? :D
