* The Expulsion of Muslims. In the 1860s. The Russian Tsar ordered the expulsion of most of the Muslim population of the North Caucasus in order to have access to the Black Sea coast. A whole population was eliminated in order to satisfy the economic interests of a powerful country.

* Algeria. 1830-1875. The French conquered Algeria and attempted to purify it (making it French) by killing an estimated 825,000 indigenous Algerians.

* North America. From the 1490s into the 1900s, native Americans were uprooted from their lands, subject to forced relocations, massacres, torture, and sexual abuse. Practice of their religion was outlawed, children were taken from their families in an effort to “educate” them away their culture.

* Ireland. 1650s. The native population of Ireland was forcibly displaced as part of the mission to transfer the land from Irish to English hands.

* Sri Lanka. 1983-2000. Genocide of the minority Hindu Tamils at the hands of the primarily Buddhist government.

* Democratic Republic of Congo. During the Civil War, there was a program called Effacer le tableau (wipe the slate clean) aimed at purifying the country by destroying the pygmy population.

* East Timor. 1975 onward. During the occupation of East Timor by Indonesia, the government tried to purify the country by killing, causing death from hunger and illness, and using starvation as a weapon to exterminate the East Timorese. Estimates of death ranged from 60,000 to 200,000.

* Indonesia. 1965-1966. The Indonesian government, with the support of Great Britain, Australia, and the United States, aided and abetted mass killings including beheading, evisceration, dismemberment, and castration of hundreds of thousands of leftists and those tied to the Communist Party.