White people

A white woman

White people are people with light skin. Most white people are of European origin. In American English, the term "Caucasian" is used to mean "white people." Outside of North American, it refers to people or things from the Caucasus Mountains.

Before the modern age, Europeans did not think of themselves as "white". They defined their race, ancestry or ethnicity in terms of their nationality: Greek, Roman, etc. The Ancient Greek civilisation was based on the Mediterranean. The Romans spread their empire from northern Europe to northern Africa.

The idea of a single white race came into use starting in the 17th century. The people who were the strongest supporters of the white race being supreme in 20th century Europe were fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. They felt that some European peoples such as Slavs as a different race even though they were white. This was just for political purposes.

White People Media

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  1820 drawing of a Book of Gates fresco of the tomb of Seti I, depicting (from left) four groups of people: four Libyans, a Nubian, an Asiatic, and an Egyptian.

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  Henry Strickland Constable's illustration in the nineteenth century which shows an alleged similarity between "Irish Iberian" and "Negro" features in contrast to the higher "Anglo-Teutonic"

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  The Georgian female skull Johann Friedrich Blumenbach discovered in 1795, which he used to hypothesize origination of Europeans from the Caucasus.

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  Portrait of the Fagoga Arozqueta family (a criollo couple with their ten children), anonymous painter, ca. 1735, Mexico City. Museo Nacional de San Carlos, Mexico City

Related pages

• Black people
• White Americans
• White Mexicans
• White Hispanic and Latino Americans
• Mixed race