<span>Spain was really the first global superpower, although it might share that limelight with Portugal. Spain (and Portugal) were the first states to be able to truly project their power around the globe,and extend economic relations (i.e., trade) globally as well. After Ferdinand and Isabella united the Castille-Leon and Aragon crowns in 1492 to form the Spanish kingdom, the Habsburgs took over the Spanish imperial throne in the early 1500s, at a time when the Habsburgs ruled the Holy Roman Empire (i.e., most of Germany, Austria, eastern France, Netherlands, Switzerland, northern Italy, Bohemia, "Royal" Hungary, as well as southern Italy (Sicily and Naples). The Habsburg-Spanish imperial empire was at its height under Charles V and his son, Philip II in the 1500s, when Spanish troops were on the Rhine River, in South America, in the Philippines (named after Philip II), in Albania, and elsewhere. Under Philip II the Habsburg empire was split in two, with a Central European (Austria-based) half, and a Western European (Spanish) half. Unfortunately the Spanish wasted much of the vast amounts of money (in the form of silver) pouring into the Spanish treasury from Peru, mostly in fruitless wars trying to suppress Protestantism in Central and northern Europe, and by 1600 Dutch, French and English ships were intruding on Spanish imperial interests and establishing their own colonies. But for most of the 1500s, Spain was easily the world's premier military power.</span>
Members of the Immigration Restoration League "wanted to restore the U.S. to its former glory." They believed that most of the immigrants coming into the United States were racially inferior to whites.
Many of the rights and liberties Americans cherish—such as freedom of speech, religion, and due process of law—were not enumerated in the original Constitution drafted at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, but were included in the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights.
With unemployment rates at 25 percent, many families that had been middle-class during the 1920s slipped into poverty, contributing to rising incidence of hunger and malnutrition among children and adolescents. Psychological stress on adults resulted in domestic violence and child abuse.
Like the modern bubonic plague, scientists believe the Plague of Justinian spread through fleas. Studies indicate the plague may have originated in China or India and was then transported to the fertile valleys of Egypt through trade routes.
