The empire on which the sun never sets
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"The Empire on which the sun never sets" (Spanish: el imperio en el que nunca se pone el sol) was first used of the Spanish Empire in the 16th century, and originates with a remark of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (Charles I of Spain), who declared "in my realm the sun never sets."
In the 19th century it became popular to apply the phrase to the British Empire, especially during the Victorian era, when British world maps coloured the Empire in pink, vividly highlighting British imperial power spanning the globe. The 19th-century politician Lord Salisbury complained that the £1.5 million spent on colonial defence by Britain in 1861 merely enabled the nation "to furnish an agreeable variety of stations to our soldiers, and to indulge in the sentiment that the sun never sets on our Empire." A Sri Lankan news source credits Colvin R. de Silva with coining the famous response: "That's because God does not trust the British in the dark."
Although the phrase has fallen out of British political usage, it remains true today that the sun still does not set on the British overseas territories or the Commonwealth Realms of which Elizabeth II is head of state.
In recent years a variant of this phrase has been taken into American political language. The Reader's Companion to American History describes how the 13 original colonies were "on the cutting edge" of British imperial expansion, and then remarks that subsequently "the United States itself became an empire that eventually surpassed the greatest projections of British power. Today, more than two centuries after independence, the sun never sets on American territory, properties owned by the U.S. government and its citizens, American armed forces abroad, or countries that conduct their affairs within limits largely defined by American power." On this kind of borrowing of politically symbolic language, compare the development: Pax Romana → Pax Britannica → Pax Americana. (The borrowing mechanism is discussed at Pax Britannica to Pax Americana.)
