The world's Jewish population has had a complex and tumultuous history over the past millennia, regularly dealing with persecution, pogroms, and even genocide. The legacy of expulsion and persecution of Jews, including bans on land ownership, meant that Jewish communities disproportionately lived in urban areas, working as artisans or traders, and often lived in their own settlements separate to the rest of the urban population. This separation contributed to the impression that events such as pandemics, famines, or economic shocks did not affect Jews as much as other populations, and such factors came to form the basis of the mistrust and stereotypes of wealth (characterized as greed) that have made up anti-Semitic rhetoric for centuries. Development since the Middle Ages The concentration of Jewish populations across the world has shifted across different centuries. In the Middle Ages, the largest Jewish populations were found in Palestine and the wider Levant region, with other sizeable populations in present-day France, Italy, and Spain. Later, however, the Jewish disapora became increasingly concentrated in Eastern Europe after waves of pogroms in the west saw Jewish communities move eastward. Poland in particular was often considered a refuge for Jews from the late-Middle Ages until the 18th century, when it was then partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and persecution increased. Push factors such as major pogroms in the Russian Empire in the 19th century and growing oppression in the west during the interwar period then saw many Jews migrate to the United States in search of opportunity.

In 1800, the population of the area of modern-day Lithuania was estimated to be just under 780,000. Lithuania’s rate of population growth would remain largely unchanged in the 19th century, as the Russian Empire would slowly but gradually develop its border regions. While large numbers of Lithuanians would emigrate west-ward (largely to the United States) between 1867 and 1868 after a famine in the country, growth would remain largely uninterrupted until the beginning of the First World War in 1912, which would see Lithuania, like much of the Baltic region, devastated as the battleground between the German and Russian Empires. As the conflict spread, those who were not made to evacuate by orders from the Russian government would face economic turmoil under German occupation, and as a result, Lithuania’s population would fall from just under 2.9 million in 1910, to under 2.3 million by 1920.

While Lithuania’s population would start to grow once more following the end of the First World War, this growth would be short-lived, as economic turmoil from the Great Depression, and later occupation and campaigns of mass extermination in the Second World War, most notably the extermination of 95 to 97 percent of the country’s Jewish population in the Holocaust, would cause Lithuania’s population growth to stagnate throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In the years following the end of the Second World War, Lithuania’s population would steadily climb, as industrialization by the Soviet Union would lead to improved economic growth and access to health, and campaigns of mass immunization and vaccination would lead to a sharp decline in child mortality. As a result, by the 1990s, Lithuania would have a population of over 3.7 million. However, Lithuania’s population would rapidly decline in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as economic crises and mass emigration from the country, paired with sharp declines in fertility, would result in a dramatic reduction in population. As a result, in 2020, Lithuania is estimated to have a population of just over 2.7 million.

Prior to 1829, the area of modern day Greece was largely under the control of the Ottoman Empire. In 1821, the Greeks declared their independence from the Ottomans, and achieved it within 8 years through the Greek War of Independence. The Independent Kingdom of Greece was established in 1829 and made up the southern half of present-day, mainland Greece, along with some Mediterranean islands. Over the next century, Greece's borders would expand and readjust drastically, through a number of conflicts and diplomatic agreements; therefore the population of Greece within those political borders** was much lower than the population in what would be today's borders. As there were large communities of ethnic Greeks living in neighboring countries during this time, particularly in Turkey, and the data presented here does not show the full extent of the First World War, Spanish Flu Pandemic and Greko-Turkish War on these Greek populations. While it is difficult to separate the fatalities from each of these events, it is estimated that between 500,000 and 900,000 ethnic Greeks died at the hands of the Ottomans between the years 1914 and 1923, and approximately 150,000 died due to the 1918 flu pandemic. These years also saw the exchange of up to one million Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece, and several hundred thousand Muslims from Greece to Turkey; this exchange is one reason why Greece's total population did not change drastically, despite the genocide, displacement and demographic upheaval of the 1910s and 1920s. Greece in WWII A new Hellenic Republic was established in 1924, which saw a decade of peace and modernization in Greece, however this was short lived. The Greek monarchy was reintroduced in 1935, and the prime minister, Ioannis Metaxas, headed a totalitarian government that remained in place until the Second World War. Metaxas tried to maintain Greek neutrality as the war began, however Italy's invasion of the Balkans made this impossible, and the Italian army tried invading Greece via Albania in 1940. The outnumbered and lesser-equipped Greek forces were able to hold off the Italian invasion and then push them backwards into Albania, marking the first Allied victory in the war. Following a series of Italian failures, Greece was eventually overrun when Hitler launched a German and Bulgarian invasion in April 1941, taking Athens within three weeks. Germany's involvement in Greece meant that Hitler's planned invasion of the Soviet Union was delayed, and Hitler cited this as the reason for it's failure (although most historians disagree with this). Over the course of the war approximately eight to eleven percent of the Greek population died due to fighting, extermination, starvation and disease; including over eighty percent of Greece's Jewish population in the Holocaust. Following the liberation of Greece in 1944, the country was then plunged into a civil war (the first major conflict of the Cold War), which lasted until 1949, and saw the British and American-supported government fight with Greek communists for control of the country. The government eventually defeated the Soviet-supported communist forces, and established American influence in the Aegean and Balkans throughout the Cold War. Post-war Greece From the 1950s until the 1970s, the Marshall Plan, industrialization and an emerging Tourism sector helped the Greek economy to boom, with one of the strongest growth rates in the world. Apart from the military coup, which ruled from 1967 to 1974, Greece remained relatively peaceful, prosperous and stable throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The population reached 11.2 million in the early 2000s, before going into decline for the past fifteen years. This decline came about due to a negative net migration rate and slowing birth rate, ultimately facilitated by the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008; many Greeks left the country in search of work elsewhere, and the economic troubles have impacted the financial incentives that were previously available for families with many children. While the financial crisis was a global event, Greece was arguably the hardest-hit nation during the crisis, and suffered the longest recession of any advanced economy. The financial crisis has had a consequential impact on the Greek population, which has dropped by 800,000 in 15 years, and the average age has increased significantly, as thousands of young people migrate in search of employment.

During the Second World War, the German invasion of Denmark took place on April 9, 1940, as part of Operation Weserübung. The primary aim of this campaign was the annexation of Norway, as control of the Scandinavian coast protected Germany's iron supply from Sweden and gave a tactical advantage for naval operations against the UK. Heavily outmanned and outgunned, the Danish government surrendered within a few hours, and this was the least-costly German invasion of the war (not including Austria), with just 16 Danish military fatalities on the day. Overall, modern estimates suggest that more than 6,600 Danes died as a direct result of the Second World War. Roughly half of these fatalities were civilian deaths, including upwards of 1,000 sailors killed by German submarines, and over 750 resistance fighters. However a significant share of Danes were also killed in the service of both the Axis or Allied Powers.

Danes in the service of Germany Almost one third of Danish fatalities were in the service of the German military, as over 6,000 Danish military volunteered to join the German war effort on the Eastern Front, alongside an unknown number of ethnic German volunteers (possibly 2,000) from Schleswig, along the German border. Almost 500 Danes were also killed for informing or collaborating with German authorities during the occupation; most of these were killed by the resistance during the occupation, although many were also executed after the war's conclusion.

The Danish resistance and the rescue of Denmark's Jews When compared with resistance movements in other countries, the rapid annexation of Denmark and the non-removal of the Danish government by Nazi authorities resulted in the Danish movement developing more slowly. The Danish government discouraged its citizens from rising up, and the restrictions imposed by Germany were initially less severe than in many other territories. However, resistance groups (including many military personnel) quickly formed and relayed a significant amount of information to the Allies in early years, before their actions became more violent in later years. Alongside numerous sabotage and assassination missions, a major operation of the Danish resistance was the rescue of Denmark's Jewish population. In early September 1943, German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz learned of Hitler's order to arrest and deport Denmark's Jewish population, and secretly organized their reception in Sweden, before leaking the information to Danish authorities. Just days before the order was given, the resistance, with aid from Danish authorities, Jewish leaders, and many ordinary citizens, then smuggled over 7,000 Danish Jews and their families to Sweden. Several hundred Danish Jews were ultimately transported to concentration camps, although the majority were eventually rescued by the Danish-Swedish "white bus" missions just before the war's end. More than 99 percent of Denmark's Jews would ultimately survive the Holocaust. Duckwitz was named as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1971, however, the Danish resistance requested not to be honored individually by Yad Vashem as theirs was a collective effort.

In 2023, about 33 percent of Americans were Protestants, down from 69 percent in 1948. In that same year, about 22 percent of Americans were Catholic, while 22 percent said that they had no religion at all.

In the U.S., median household income rose from 51,570 U.S. dollars in 1967 to 80,610 dollars in 2023. In terms of broad ethnic groups, Black Americans have consistently had the lowest median income in the given years, while Asian Americans have the highest; median income in Asian American households has typically been around double that of Black Americans.