Antisemitism first began to emerge in Europe during the High Middle Ages. The primary reason for this, other than the growing power of local church authorities, was the simple fact that Christians were forbidden from moneylending. Moneylending is an important part of a functional economy and someone had to step in to fill the void left behind by the Christian prohibition. Jews, in many European societies, grew wealthy as a result of moneylending practices, which in turn made them unpopular and created an antisemitic discourse that persists until this day.

Janissaries were soldiers in the Ottoman Empire who had once been Christians, prior to their enslavement and forced service in the Ottoman army. Janissaries were an important component of the Ottoman armed forces and a significant component of Ottoman society.

In the fifteenth century, Spain was not a unified country and was instead divided into a few different kingdoms. With the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the unification of Spain was effectively complete. Their marriage marked the emergence of Spain as a colonial and global power.

Herbert Spencer is often remembered for his passionate belief in Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is the belief that the biological theory of natural selection can be used to explain geopolitics and the differences between western nations and the rest of the world. It was used to reinforce the legitimacy of European imperialism in the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

Almost all of the ruling dynasties of Persia (Iran) over the last 1000 years have been of Turkic origin. The Pahlavi dynasty, which took power in 1925, ended this long pattern.

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.