Puerto Ricans are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, their descendants. Puerto Rico is home to people of many different national origins as well; the culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred to as mainstream Puerto Rican culture, a Western culture derived from the traditions of Spain, more Andalusia and the Canary Islands. Over 90% of Puerto Ricans atleast descend from migrants from these two southern regions of Spain. Puerto Rico has been influenced by African culture, with the majority of Puerto Ricans descended from Africans, though pure black Afro-Puerto Ricans are only a significant minority. Puerto Rico has received immigration from other parts of Spain such as Catalonia as well as from other European countries such as France, Ireland and Germany. Recent studies in population genetics have concluded that Puerto Rican gene pool is on average predominantly European, with a significant Sub-Saharan African, North African Guanche, Indigenous American substrate, the latter two originating in the aboriginal people of the Canary Islands and Puerto Rico's pre-Hispanic Taíno inhabitants, respectively.

The population of Puerto Ricans and descendants is estimated to be between 8 and 10 million worldwide, with most living on the islands of Puerto Rico and in the United States mainland. Within the United States, Puerto Ricans are present in all states of the Union, the states with the largest populations of Puerto Ricans relative to the national population of Puerto Ricans in the United States at large are the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, with large populations in Massachusetts, California and Texas. For 2009, the American Community Survey estimates give a total of 3,859,026 Puerto Ricans classified as "Native" Puerto Ricans, it gives a total of 3,644,515 of the population being born in Puerto Rico and 201,310 born in the United States. The total population born outside Puerto Rico is 322,773. Of the 108,262 who were foreign born outside the United States, 92.9% were born in Latin America, 3.8% in Europe, 2.7% in Asia, 0.2% in Northern America, 0.1% in Africa and Oceania each.

The populations during Spanish rule of Puerto Rico were: The original inhabitants of Puerto Rico are the Taíno, who called the island Borikén. Besides miscegenation, the negative impact on the numbers of Amerindian people in Puerto Rico, was entirely the result of Old World diseases that the Amerindians had no natural/bodily defenses against, including measles, chicken pox, mumps and the common cold. In fact, it was estimated that the majority of all the Amerindian inhabitants of the New World died out due to contact and contamination with those Old World diseases, while those that survived were further reduced through deaths by warfare with each other and with Europeans. Both run-away and freed African slaves were in Puerto Rico; this interbreeding was far more common in Latin America because of those Spanish and Portuguese mercantile colonial policies exemplified by the oft-romanticized male conquistadors. Aside from the presence of slaves, some indication for why the Amerindian population was so diluted was the tendency for conquistadors to bring with them scores of single men hoping to serve God, country, or their own interests.

All of these factors would indeed prove detrimental for the Taínos in Puerto Rico and surrounding Caribbean islands. In the 16th century, a significant depth of Puerto Rican culture began to develop with the import of African slaves by the Spanish, as well as by the French, the Portuguese, the British, the Dutch. Thousands of Spanish settlers immigrated to Puerto Rico from the Canary Islands during the 18th and 19th centuries, so many so that whole Puerto Rican villages and towns were founded by Canarian immigrants, their descendants would form a majority of the population on the island. In 1791, the slaves in Saint-Domingue, revolted against their French masters. Many of the French escaped to Puerto Rico via what is now the Dominican Republic and settled in the west coast of the island in Mayagüez; some Puerto Ricans are of British heritage, most notably Scottish people and English people who came to reside there in the 17th and 18th centuries. When Spain revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 with the intention of attracting non-Hispanics to settle in the island, thousands of Corsicans during the 19th century immigrated to Puerto Rico, along with German immigrants as well as Irish immigrants who were affected by the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s, immigrated to Puerto Rico.

They were followed by smaller waves from China. During the early 20th century Jews began to settle in Puerto Rico; the first large group of Jews to settle in Puerto Rico were European refugees fleeing German–occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. The second influx of Jews to the island came in the 1950s, when thousands of Cuban Jews fled after Fidel Castro came to power; the native Taino population began to dwindle, with the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, through disease and miscegenation. Many Spaniard men took Taino and West African wives and in the first centuries of the

La Société Française des Métaux Rares treatment plant is a heritage-listed smelting works at Wolfram, Shire of Mareeba, Australia. It was built from 1911 to 1913, it is known as French Company Rare Metal Treatment Plant Site. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 4 July 2006; the former La Société Française des Métaux Rares treatment plant operated between 1911 and 1913. The plant used an unusual dry blowing treatment process for wolfram. Wolfram was discovered in 1894 in the headwaters of the Hodgkinson River scattered over the surface as bunches in quartzose boulders or in drifts interdispersed with coarse gravel. In 1899 when wolfram was at its highest price, 240 long tons were sent away for £38 per 1 long ton; the township, named after the mineral, formed on the banks of the Bulluburrah Creek in two parts, Upper Wolfram or Top Camp, Lower Wolfram or Bottom Camp. In 1900, 91 pounds of molybdenite was discovered at Wolfram; this was said to contain some of the finest specimens of molybdenite discovered in Australia.

There were 100 men working at Wolfram by late 1900, on wolfram and bismuth. The Irvinebank Mining Company invested at Wolfram in 1900. Demand for high-grade wolfram, after the development of tungsten as a lamp filament in 1904, for molybdenite for use in patent alloys, led to an early interest in rare minerals by British firms, the most prominent being Liverpool's George G. Blackwell and Sons. Prices in 1904 for both metals were high— up to £200 a ton for molybdenite and £140 a ton for wolfram; this attracted many goldminers. Of the 1,136 people on the Hodgkinson by 1904, 700 were miners working at Wolfram. By 1909, wolfram was returning £41,820 compared to the value of gold at £7,089, but the rare metals industry was unstable— there was insecurity in the unknown overseas markets where demand fluctuated erratically and local miners were never sure of their returns. So the Wolfram Co-operative Association was formed to arrange advances and shipments through intermediaries such as the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency and WJ Lempriere and Co, but the local industry was poorly organised.

The workings extended without a break from over 3 kilometres along the contact of the intrusive granite with older porphyries and slates from high rugged slopes down to the valley of Bulluburrah Creek. Settlement was concentrated on the higher slopes at Top Camp. From 1904, 2,500 long tons of wolfram valued at £250,000 were produced at Wolfram Camp, half of which went through Moffatt's Irvinebank Co. Mill; the Irvinebank Mining Company set up a battery on Bullaburrah Creek in the lower valley. This battery was a stabilising influence on Wolfram Camp, although it was closed for long periods throughout 1909 because of strikes over the 44 hour week, it operated again from 1910 to 1912 and was closed in the rationalisation of Irvinebank Mining Company's assets at the end of that year. The area around the mill in the lower valley became the main settlement after 1907; the township, clustered on a ridge north of the battery, was at its peak during World War I. The wolfram mining industry passed through a depression for several years from 1910, chiefly because of the exhaustion of the residual surface accumulations of ore, thus ending the days of the gouger.

La Société Française des Métaux Rares was registered in Queensland in 1911. That same year Frenchman, Mr Poulet, took over a number of mine dumps and tailing heaps on behalf of French syndicate; the objective was to extract wolfram and bismuth from the lowest grade mixed-metal ore using a specially-designed treatment plant. The crushing plant was delivered in August 1911 and the earthworks were underway in July 1912 for installation of the plant above Bulluburrah Creek in Upper Wolfram; the power plant imported by the company included an early 240 horsepower MAN diesel engine, type A4V49, weighing nearly 35,000 kilograms, coupled axially to a DC generator. An extensive system of overhead wire ropeways to collect ore from mullock heaps and a dam in Bulluburrah Creek were some of the proposed constructions; the cost of installation was expected to be over £50,000 and required constant employment of 50 people skilled mechanics. After a few short and unsuccessful trial runs, the process plant was liquidated in 1913 because of the health hazards associated with the dry blowing process.

The diesel engine was sold to Cooktown syndicate, transported to the Louisa mine on the Palmer Goldfield. It now resides at Totley. Many of the mines were closed during WWI; the Thermo-Electric Ore Reduction Corporation plant built near the site of the Irvinebank Company Mill at Lower Wolfram sustained the district through the war years with the government paying fixed prices. After slumps in metal prices after the return of free market forces in March 1920, the Thermo Co. failed to survive. Wolfram Camp was deserted within weeks of its shutdown. In 1926, Queensland Rare Metal Company erected a new battery on the site of the Irvinebank Mining Company's 10-head battery; as the prices of wolfram and molybdenite were declining, there was little hope of success and the plant worked intermittently, with no crushing in 1934. Increased wolfram prices in 1935 attracted miners back to Wolfram and in 1937, the Pepper mine was dewatered and had 200 men working in the area. During World War II, 3 tributers worked mines at Wolfram: Larkin and Forget-me-Not.

In 1946, the contract price for wolfram between the British and Australian governments expired. No further prices were quoted and operations ceased. There were small scale workings at some of the mines in 1947. There was a brief

Waterloo-Tor is a war memorial in Osnabrück, commemorating the Battle of Waterloo. Along with its surrounding area the Waterloo-Tor is referred to as “Heger Tor” by residents of Osnabrück. A large number of soldiers from Osnabrück fought at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 under British high command, as part of the city’s territorial army regiments, its light field battalion or the King’s German Legion. In 1816 a local resident, Gerhard Friedrich von Gülich, had donated 1,000 thalers to set up a memorial honouring his fellow citizens who had fought; the Waterloo-Tor was designed by Johann Christian Sieckmann at the behest of Gülich. Its appearance resembles that of both a triumphal arch and a fortification, as parts of the Heger Tor – the city’s historic fortification, knocked down in 1815 – were integrated into its design. During the medieval period, the actual Heger Tor had been situated further out from the city; this can be seen in the fact that the still-existent Akzisehaus – which used to be located directly in front of the city gate – is now situated on the other side of the Wallring.

The old name “Heger Tor” continued to be used by locals to refer to the new Waterloo-Tor. Waterloo-Tor is a triumphal arch built in the style of the Arch of Titus in Rome. Additionally elements of other classical gate constructions of the time – such as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin – were included; the archway is framed on both sides by coupled ionic pillars on stylobates. The architrave bears an inscription in gold capital letters: „Den Osnabrückischen Kriegern die bei Waterloo / den 18. Juni 1815 deutschen Muth bewiesen / widmet dieses Denkmal G. F.v. Gülich D. R. D.“. The gate’s platform is accessible by means of ramps on the sides of the wall or a flight of steps, allowing good views over the medieval Altstadt to the east. For centuries carts and carriages used to run through the old and new “Heger Tor” towards Münster and Holland, or arriving here from the west. In 1957 vehicular passage through the gate was stopped and it was converted to a pedestrian zone. Today the so-called “Heger-Tor-Viertel” is situated behind the Heger Tor.

An old chestnut tree positioned on the Heger Tor platform was uprooted during a storm in November 1957. Trees which were planted there afterwards were removed during renovation of the gate in 2013; the Waterloo-Tor’s façade – visible only from the outer side by the ringroad – helps give the structure a dual character, depending on which side the gate is observed from: from the Altstadt side it appears to be an unadorned city gate from the time of the old Heger Tor, a medieval fortification. From the other side it is distinctly recognisable as a heroes’ memorial; the gate can be looked at as a passage between two urban worlds – the noisy, modern new town running along the Heger Tor wall on the outside, the tranquil, traffic-calmed Altstadt on the inside