Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim in a country (Iraq) where the population distribution of Shia and Sunni Muslims is roughly even. Sectarian differences between Sunni and Shia have been the cause of much conflict in the Middle East for hundreds of years and are especially relevant today.

After the Napoleonic Wars at the start of the nineteenth century, many states were redrawn and reorganized. Additionally, the romantic and revolutionary movements of Europe in the early nineteenth century highlighted the shared histories of certain peoples. The desire for shared cultural, language, and religious heritages to be united in one state would both create modern Italy and Germany, while also spelling the destruction of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual nations like the Austro-Hungarian Empire by the end of World War I in 1918.

The Wannsee Conference took place near Berlin in 1942. It was a meeting of top Nazi officials to discuss the implementation of Hitler’s Final Solution. The Final Solution was Nazi Germany’s plan to eliminate the Jewish population of Nazi Europe during the Second World War. It culminated in the Holocaust and the execution of six million Jewish people living in Europe.

F. W. De Klerk was President of South Africa during the early 1990s and along with Nelson Mandela is credited with ending the government policy of apartheid (legal racial segregation) in South Africa.

The Armenian Genocide was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in the waning years of its existence. It involved the wholesale murder and forced deportation of the Armenian people living in territory in the Ottoman Empire. It took place during World War I and is responsible for the existence of a substantial Armenian diaspora living around the world.

The African National Congress is not a confederation of African states, rather it is a major political party in South Africa. The African National Congress is the party of Nelson Mandela and was the first party to be elected in the multi racial democratic elections of 1994, following the end of apartheid. The African National Congress abhorred apartheid and worked tirelessly and passionately for its end.

The primary goal of apartheid in South Africa was to control the country’s black population, prevent organized resistance, and ensure the legal superiority of the country’s white population. It was a formal policy of the ruling party of South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. It was not formally abolished until 1991 and not fully overturned until the elections of 1994, which ushered into power Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress.

The Holocaust occurred between 1941–45 and refers to the mass killing of minorities under the Nazi regime. This systematic slaughter impacted approximately 11 million people. 

Records estimate around 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators, though this number of deaths doesn't include those who were also targeted. This includes the disabled, homosexuals, and those deemed racially inferior such as the Slavs and Roma people.

The Nuremberg Laws were introduced to German society in 1935. They codified the inferior legal status of Jewish people living in Nazi Germany by making it illegal for Germans and Jews to marry and to have extramarital affairs and by declaring that Jews were not citizens of Hitler’s Reich. The Nuremberg Laws may be understood as precursor to the horrors of the Holocaust.

The first multiracial democratic elections after the end of apartheid were held in South Africa in 1994. Nelson Mandela was elected President. The African National Congress, the party of Mandela, has ruled as the leading party in South African government ever since.