Hello and welcome to Dead Funny History.
I'm Greg Jenner, I'm a historian and I want to tell you about some cool people.
Who is history's biggest power couple?
Zendaya and Tom Holland have nothing on Justinian and Theodora,
the co-rulers of the Byzantine Empire.
What's a Byzantine Empire?
Ah, it was the eastern part of the Roman Empire.
ranging from Greece all the way to the Middle East and Egypt,
and lasting from the 4th century all the way to the 15th century CE.
And even though they still called it the Roman Empire, it didn't actually have Rome in it anymore.
Yeah, the western half of the Roman Empire had been taken over by different tribes,
and they all had names like thrash metal bands.
The Byzantine Empire's main city was called New Rome, but mostly people called it Constantinople.
It sits at the meeting point of Europe and Asia, and these days it's called Istanbul in Turkey.
It was then home to the largest and most spectacular church in the world, the Hagia Sophia,
or Holy Wisdom, and it was built by the nephew of a pig farmer.
You want?
Yep.
Justinian was born in the Balkans in around the year 480 CE.
His name was Flavius Petrus Sabatius Yossianus Augustus.