In South American colonial society European settlers tended to mix much more freely with the native population than in North American colonial society. This can be evidenced by words like Mestizo and Mulatto which were used in the Spanish colonial hierarchy to denote those individuals who had been born of mixed European and native ancestry.

Millets have a long established history in areas of the world ruled by Islamic governments. Millets pertain to the rights of non-Muslim populations living under Muslim-rule. In the Ottoman Empire Millets were protected communities designed to ensure the legal protection of non-Muslim citizens in the empire.

Peninsulares were at the top of the Spanish colonial hierarchy. Peninsulares were Spanish settlers who had been born in Spain and came to settle in Spanish America. The King kept the peninsulares distinct from the creoles (those who had been born in the colonies to Spanish parents) so as to better ensure his control over the administration of the empire.

The Vaishyas are the third highest of the four broad groupings in the Indian caste system. Of these options, only warriors would not be included as Vaishyas. Soldiers, warriors, and secular rulers would have been in the second caste (beneath the Brahmins) known as the Kshatriya. The Vaishyas were merchants and artisans.

During the medieval period, the status of women was most elevated in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa (outside of the Islamic north) societies were often matriarchal and would trace their lineage matrilineally. In almost every other society on Earth at this time, women were restrained and oppressed either through social custom or by law.

In the Indian caste system, which was established by the nomadic Aryan people upon their arrival in India circa 3,500 years ago, Brahmins are at the very top of the hierarchy. Hindu priests are drawn from the ranks of the Brahmins and they are considered the most holy of all the castes.

The rise of industry sees the political and financial rise of industrialists, which encourages investing in new foreign territories. Any monarchs that tried to return to eighteenth-century styles of rule were quickly overthrown, and while the middle class grew wealthier, the working class did not follow suit. 

French Society before the Revolution was divided into three factions, those who pray, those who rule, and everyone else. This meant the First Estate was the Clergy, the Second the nobility, and the third estate was the rest of society (including peasants and merchants).

The 1800's saw the birth of labor unions. Today they are simply referred to as unions. These groups met much violent resistance to their calls for better working conditions, pay, and hours. Over time they achieved their goals of making the factories safer places to work, with shorter hours and better pay.

The idea that one could change their circumstances was called social mobility. This meant that a person who worked hard and saved money could save enough to advance up in class from a lower class to a higher one. At the time very few people made the transition from lower to upper class though. This was often due to the very poor wages paid by most of the factories at the time, which kept the workers just barely above the poverty line.