xhonzi said:
What claims that the Empire was around for 40 years at the time of ANH?
I think Zahn implies such a date in the Thrawn trilogy. It's a wonky timeline, but I do think it can be made to work with what's stated in the OT if you assume the Republic and the Empire were actually seperate entities that co-existed at some point in the past.
How it squares with the idea of the Empire being created by a young Senator Palpatine decades after the end of the Clone Wars, as stated in later EU, though ...