Originally Posted by
sdsearch
It's called First Class in the US because it always was, and it's called Business outside the US because that's what airlines in the rest of the world called it when they added it (much later than the US).
BS. Europe had the same kind of first class as the U.S. It was called first class and it had the same kind of seating as in the U.S. Since no one (except very few) was paying for first class in Europe anymore, "business class" was introduced instead.
Originally business class was offered for pax paying the full economy fare. The seating was mostly converted to economy class seating with maybe just a little better seat pitch and the curtain that could be adjusted according to demand was introduced. IIRC Swissair and Lufthansa retained first class within Europe a little longer than the others.