Rome didn't fell in one day, because of one event. It slowly became forgotten, superseded. The capital had moved, the Empire split, it's peoples replaced.

I like un-PC explanations:
- Mass immigration, which changed the nature of the Roman Empire and its perception of itself.
- Roman Catholicism. Rome was eaten from within. The worldy hierarchy crumbled, the Roman religious hierarchy took over. It is very much alive and kicking, and has been more powerful in the last two centuries then ever.


476 is not a historical turning point, nor an end of an era. A state was replaced by a civilization. This civilization has been quite succesful ever after 476. The Roman language, Roman law, Roman religion, and Rome as a symbol happily lived on, each one becoming bigger and more powerful than they had ever been before the political fall of Rome.


The other half of Rome lived on for another thousand years, until 1453, just a few decades before the discovery of America.
In the west, the idea of a universal Empire lived on until Napoleon disbanded the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.



I like the signature too.