The empire on which the sun never sets

In its modern form, it was first used for the Habsburg Empire of Charles V, who, as Duke of Burgundy, King of Spain, Archduke of Austria, and Holy Roman Emperor, attempted to build a universal monarchy.

οὐ γὰρ δὴ χώρην γε οὐδεμίαν κατόψεται ἥλιος ὅμουρον ἐοῦσαν τῇ ἡμετέρῃ "We shall extend the Persian territory as far as God's heaven reaches.

[8][9] Charles V of the House of Habsburg controlled in personal union a composite monarchy inclusive of the Holy Roman Empire stretching from Germany to Northern Italy with direct rule over the Low Countries and Austria, and of Spain, which also included the southern Italian kingdoms of Sicily, Sardinia and Naples and the long-lasting Spanish colonies in the Americas.

In 1585 Giovanni Battista Guarini wrote Il pastor fido to mark the marriage of Catherine Michelle, daughter of Philip II, to Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy.

[12] In the early 17th century the phrase was familiar to John Smith[13] and to Francis Bacon, who writes: "both the East and the West Indies being met in the crown of Spain, it is come to pass, that, as one saith in a brave kind of expression, the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shines upon one part or other of them: which, to say truly, is a beam of glory [...]".

"[25] In 1821, the Caledonian Mercury wrote of the British Empire, "On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges.

"[26] Daniel Webster famously expressed a similar idea in 1834: "A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.

"[28] By 1861, Lord Salisbury complained that the £1.5 million spent on colonial defence by Britain 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".

[29] A rejoinder, sometimes attributed to John Duncan Spaeth, runs in one variant, "The sun never set on the British Empire, because even God couldn't trust the English in the dark".

"[37] Although most of these sentiments have a patriotic ring, the phrase is sometimes used critically with the implication of American imperialism, as in the title of Joseph Gerson's book, The Sun Never Sets: Confronting the Network of Foreign U.S. Military Bases.