Quote of the day

If you are going to look back to Rome as an example of how Europe should be (or Europeans in general):

The Roman Empire was one of history's most successful melting pots. In comparison to some of history's more recent super-powers, Roman society was relatively tolerant of foreign cultures and religions, provided they did not disturb the peace. Issues of skin color and physical characteristics, as far as can be told, were of little or no importance in the Empire, presumably due to the cosmopolitan nature of its major cities from the early Republic.

By the 1st Century AD, inscriptions and historic writings attest to the many cultural and national groups represented amongst the political and military elites of the Roman Empire. Gaulish chieftains were serving in the Senate at least as early as the reign of Claudius. Jews, Greeks, and Syrians were holding military commands from Egypt to Britain. Some of the most rich and powerful men in 2nd Century Rome were Africans and Spaniards, many of whom still spoke their Latin with Celtiberian or Punic accents.
It's not surprising that, by the 2nd Century, most of the Caesars were not even Romans - if one defines a "Roman" as being an Italian born in Rome or in the traditional Roman territories of Italy. In fact, most of the Emperors after the Julio-Claudians were provincial, or at best non-Roman Italian in origins.

Wow, I like this map of Europe animation better than the other one

Next time some person who thinks Europe is better than other cultures shows up--show them this! It's still somewhat truncated, but it does a better job of showing how other cultures (e.g., Asian and Arabic) influenced European Culture. Not as much illustration of how Africa influenced Europe as I would like, but you can't have it all.

For those of you who may have missed it...

The current political map of Europe is fairly recent.  I would add that this doesn't even cover the ethnicities which one finds in Europe: