The Dust Bowl migration of the Great Depression has been immortalized in American culture though pieces of literature like John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The movement began because the extremely harsh and arid climate of the 1930s, combined with the loss of jobs caused by the Great Depression, meant that many farmers in America’s Great Plains and Midwest states were no longer able to sustain themselves. They migrated, with their families, en masse to the west coast. Because this migration was caused by an environmental disaster it is known as an “eco-migration.”

In general, the majority of contemporary human migration is from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to North America and Europe. The general pattern is north and west.

The former British colony of Australia has an interesting and somewhat unique early history compared to other British colonies. After the abolition of slave labor in the British Empire, the British began to send convicted criminals to Australia in a forced resettlement. Conditions were harsh for the convicts and their lives often shared many similarities with the lives of slaves. It is worth noting that when the Europeans arrived in Australia they did not find a deserted continent devoid of human life. There, as most everywhere else, they encountered native people (in Australia usually called Aboriginals) and violently suppressed them.

The Donation Land Claim Act was passed to encourage Americans to migrate westward to the Oregon Territory in the North-West of America. The act promised a sizeable grant of free land to anyone who made the endeavor and intended to reside there permanently. This sort of law was passed often in the early years of the American republic in order to encourage the westward expansion of the young nation. In the Oregon Territory it was of particular importance for the American government to encourage settlement because control over the area was disputed by the British government. If enough Americans lived there it would seem to be “natural” American territory.

The Roma people arrived in Europe some time in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. They migrated from some place in the East, probably over several generations, with the most commonly suspected point of origin being somewhere on the Indian subcontinent. Like the Jewish people who were already well dispersed around Europe the Roma did not assimilate smoothly into the countries they emigrated to. They retained their social customs and religious beliefs and were distrusted by large sections of the local population. For much of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they were officially persecuted and banished by many of the societies of Europe and forced to migrate endlessly around Europe. State persecution of the Roma continues to this day in many countries.

The Boers were settlers who arrived in what is now called South Africa in the seventeenth century. They came, almost exclusively, from the Netherlands - although some were Huguenots from France and other European countries.

The territory that comprises the modern day state of Utah had long been settled by Native Americans when the first white settlers began to arrive in the nineteenth century. The first group to settle in Utah in large numbers was the Mormons, who were fleeing religious persecution in the East of the United States.

By 1998, the Croats had successfully found independence from their Serb occupiers. What's important here is that 1) Croats are a unique nationality, 2) Serbs are a unique nationality, and 3) the Muslims throughout the region are considered a nationality too. Following the Croatian victory, many ethnic Serbs living in Croatia did not want to be governed by the new Croats' government. So nearly thousands of ethnic Serbs fled Croatia for their “homeland” of Yugoslavia and Bosnia. Remember that Yugoslavia soon after devolved into Serbia-Montenegro, and the dictator Slobodan Milosevic was removed from power by his people.

For several decades of American history Ellis Island served as the point of arrival for immigrants coming to New York City and the United States from Europe and the rest of the world. Due to the vast numbers of Americans whose ancestors arrived via Ellis Island it retains a certain cultural significance even though the vast majority of contemporary immigrants arrive via plane or land borders.

The first inhabitants of North America crossed over a land bridge from Asia into North America approximately fifteen thousand years ago. Having arrived in the new continent it took little more than two thousand years before the descendants of these new arrivals had spread across the whole of the Americas.