Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims

Can anyone tell me the difference and where it is rooted historically.

Is it like Protestant/Catholic?

I s'pose I could Google it, but I don't like multiple clicks.

Sunnis said the one most qualified, the Shi'as wanted to keep it in the family, like a dynasty.

In a nutshell.

all that. I'd also like to remind the OP that there are many other types of Muslims as well.

Shi'ites are the minority sect; they view themselves as having been historically oppressed by the Sunnites. Sunnites have also considered Shi'ites to be politically extreme, and some of their religious practises wacko (though the Shi'ites could say the same about Sunni sects like the Mahdiists, or the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia).

Really, the story is a long, complicated, interesting mess, the same as it is with Protestant and Catholic Christians.

Add on top of that in Iraq you've got ethnic hatreds between the Kurds and Arabs, nationalist conflicts between Iraq and non-Arab Iran, and tribal and family conflicts within Iraq, and you can see why it is in such a mess today. Only a strongman like Hussein could have held Iraq together at long as it lasted, and he did it brutally.