Daniel 7:1-3 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

If we read verse 17th from this same chapter, we will see that these beasts are four kingdoms which arose on earth, and afterwards, the kingdom of God would be established. These are the very same kingdoms that we saw in Daniel chapter two:

Daniel 7:17-18 These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.

Daniel 7:4 The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

Just as in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, in Daniel chapter two, the lion represents the Babylonian kingdom from the year 605bc. As the head of gold which was the most valuable metal among the others, the lion is considered to be the king of the jungle among animals.

Daniel 7:5 And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

This beast was the Meds and the Persians which formed alliance to conquer Babylon in the year 539bc. The three ribs in its mouth means the three mayor empires that Med Persia had to conquer to be able to take control of most of the known world, Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt.

Daniel 7:6 After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

History tells us that the kingdom which followed the Med Persian empire was the kingdom of Alexander the Great, Macedonia or the Greek empire. He obtained victory against the Med Persian empire in the year 331bc. The four heads which the leopard has represent four generals who obtained power after Alexander’s death.

When Alexander died in his bed, he said that his kingdom would be left to the strongest. This is how his empire broke up to the four cardinal points of earth, north, south, east, and west. The generals who divided the empire among themselves were: Ptolemy, Cassander, Seleucus and Lysimachus.

Daniel 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

The most powerful and terrible empire ever on earth that arose after the kingdom of the Greeks was the Roman Empire. Just as the legs of iron from the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, this beast has iron teeth and iron nails. We can say that the Roman Empire conquered the entire known world from the year 168bc up until the year 476ac, just before the kingdom started to divide. 
 

Just as the ten toes from the image of Daniel chapter two, the ten horns mean that the Roman Empire would be divided, parts of the kingdom would be strong and part would be weak.

Rome started to divide in the century that followed the year 476ac.

Daniel 2:41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided…

Daniel 7:8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by t he roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

Daniel 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them.

From within the ten tribes that Rome was divided into, a more controlling and powerful kingdom arose, whose politic would be entirely disguised with religion.

Daniel 7:24-26 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.

But before we proceed, we need to identify the ten horns of the beast, into which Rome was divided. Also, we need to identify the three tribes destroyed by the little horn. These ten kingdoms are the same ones that we saw in Daniel chapter two. These are the European nations that arouse from ancient Rome.

The little horn that destroyed the three other horns, Herulis, Ostrogoths, and Vandals is the kingdom of the antichrist which exists from the ancient times of Rome. According to history, the kingdom who destroyed these three horns was the Papacy or better known as the papal system, in other words, the Roman Catholic Church. But the judge shall seat, and his dominium shall be destroyed and ruined till the end.