- published: 07 Feb 2015
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Historical powers include great powers, nations, or empires in history.
The term "Great power" represent the most important world powers. In a modern context, recognised great powers came about first in Europe during the post-Napoleonic era. The formalization of the division between small powers and great powers came about with the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. A "great power" is a nation or state that, through its great economic, political and military strength, is able to exert power and influence over not only its own region of the world, but beyond to others.
The historical term "Great Nation", distinguished aggregate of people inhabiting a particular country or territory, and "Great Empire", considerable group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, are colloquial; use is seen in ordinary historical conversations (historical jargon).
The terms ancient Near East or ancient Orient encompass the early civilizations during the time roughly spanning the Bronze Age from the rise of Sumer and Gerzeh in the 4th millennium BCE to the expansion of the Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE. The ancient Near East is generally understood as encompassing Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria), Persia (modern Iran), Armenia, the Levant (modern Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestinian Authority), and at times Anatolia (modern Turkey) and Ancient Egypt.
The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.
As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.