AP World History Modern Midterm Exam

Song Dynasty

(960-1279 CE) The Chinese dynasty that placed much more emphasis on civil administration, industry, education, and arts other than military.

Silk Roads

A system of ancient caravan routes across Central Asia, along which traders carried silk and other trade goods.

Gunpowder

Invented within China during the 9th century, this substance was became the dominate military technology used to expand European and Asian empires by the 15th century.

Caravel

A small, highly maneuverable three-masted ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish in the exploration of the Atlantic.

Buddhism

the teaching of Buddha that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, that suffering ceases when desire ceases, and that enlightenment obtained through right conduct and wisdom and meditation releases one from desire and suffering and rebirth

Textiles

cloth items

Manchus

Northeast Asian peoples who defeated the Ming Dynasty and founded the Qing Dynasty in 1644, which was the last of China's imperial dynasties.

Mughal Empire

Muslim state (1526-1857) exercising dominion over most of India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Filial Piety

In Confucian thought, one of the virtues to be cultivated, a love and respect for one's parents and ancestors.

Neo-Confucianism

The Confucian response to Buddhism by taking Confucian and Buddhist beliefs and combining them into this. However, it is still very much Confucian in belief.

Ottoman Empire

Islamic state founded by Osman in northwestern Anatolia. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire was based at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) from 1453-1922. It encompassed lands in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, and eastern Europe.

Lateen Sail

triangular sail that made it possible to sail against the wind; used in the Indian Ocean trade

Champa Rice

Quick-maturing rice that can allow two harvests in one growing season. Originally introduced into Champa from India, it was later sent to China as a tribute gift by the Champa state (as part of the tributary system.)

Safavid Empire

Iranian kingdom (1502-1722) established by Ismail Safavi, who declared Iran a Shi'ite state.

compass

an instrument containing a magnetized pointer that shows the direction of magnetic north and bearings from it.

Astronomical Charts

created from the movement of the stars to help navigation

Songhai

a West African empire that conquered Mali and controlled trade from the 1400s to 1591

Banking Houses

These European banks developed during the Middle Ages to aid trade. Along with innovations such as bills of exchange, or bank drafts, and credit; Supported the development of interregional trade in luxury goods.

Grand Canal

The 1,100-mile (1,700-kilometer) waterway linking the Yellow and the Yangzi Rivers. It was begun in the Han period and completed during the Sui Empire.

Islam

A religion based on the teachings of the prophet Mohammed which stresses belief in one god (Allah), Paradise and Hell, and a body of law written in the Quran. Followers are called Muslims.

paper money

legal currency issued on paper; it developed in China as a convenient alternative to metal coins

monumental architecture

architectural constructions of a greater-than-human scale, such as pyramids, temples, and tombs

Christopher Columbus

He mistakenly discovered the Americas in 1492 while searching for a faster route to India.

Judaism

A religion with a belief in one god. It originated with Abraham and the Hebrew people. Yahweh was responsible for the world and everything within it. They preserved their early history in the Old Testament.

Khanates

Four regional Mongol kingdoms that arose following the death of Chinggis Khan.

Tax farming

A government's use of private collectors to collect taxes. Individuals or corporations contract with the government to collect a fixed amount for the government and are permitted to keep as profit everything they collect over that amount. (p. 334)

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages.

Smallpox

The overall deadliest known disease in the history of the world. In the 20th century alone there were approximately 500,000,000 people who died of this disease.

Mongols

A people of this name is mentioned as early as the records of the Tang Empire, living as nomads in northern Eurasia. After 1206 they established an enormous empire under Genghis Khan, linking western and eastern Eurasia.

Devshirme

'Selection' in Turkish. The system by which boys from Christian communities were taken by the Ottoman state to serve as Janissaries.

Christianity

A monotheistic system of beliefs and practices based on the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus as embodied in the New Testament and emphasizing the role of Jesus as savior.

Abbasid Caliphate

(750-1258 CE) The caliphate, after the Umayyads, who focused more on administration than conquering. Had a bureaucracy that any Mulim could be a part of.

Samuri

a member of a powerful military caste in feudal Japan, especially a member of the class of military retainers of the daimyos.

measles

rubella, reddish or red

Indian Ocean Trade

worlds richest maritime trading network and an area of rapid Muslim expansion.

Divine Right

Belief that a rulers authority comes directly from god.

Malaria

A disease caused by mosquitoes implanting parasites in the blood.

cash crop

a crop produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the grower.

Delhi Sultanate

The first Islamic government established within India from 1206-1520. Controled a small area of northern India and was centered in Delhi.

Sufism

mystical Muslim group that believed they could draw closer to God through prayer, fasting, & simple life

Astrolabe

An instrument used by sailors to determine their location by observing the position of the stars and planets

Taj Mahal

A beautiful tomb built by the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan to honor his wife.

Tokagawa Japan

Feudal Japan which practiced isolationist trade polices

Dar al-Islam

a term used by Muslims to refer to those countries where Muslims can practice their religion freely.

Swahili city-states

dominated trade along the east African coast

Versailles

A palace built by Louis XIV outside of Paris; it was home to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

Kingdom of Kongo

Kingdom dominating small states along the Congo River that maintained effective, centralized government and a royal currency until the seventeenth century.

House of Wisdom

a center of learning established in Baghdad in the 800s

Hinduism

A religion and philosophy developed in ancient India, characterized by a belief in reincarnation and a supreme being who takes many forms

Protestant Reformation

A religious movement of the 16th century that began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the creation of Protestant churches.

Catholic Reformation

a 16th century movement in which the Roman Catholic Church sought to make changes in response to the Protestant Reformation

Chattel Slavery

Absolute legal ownership of another person, including the right to buy or sell that person.

Indentured Servitude

A worker bound by a voluntary agreement to work for a specified period of years often in return for free passage to an overseas destination. Before 1800 most were Europeans; after 1800 most indentured laborers were Asians.

Diasporic communities

merchant communities that introduced their own cultures into other areas

Sunni

A branch of Islam whose members acknowledge the first four caliphs as the rightful successors of Muhammad

Zheng He

An imperial eunuch and Muslim, entrusted by the Ming emperor Yongle with a series of state voyages that took his gigantic ships through the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to Africa.

Shia

the branch of Islam whose members acknowledge Ali and his descendants as the rightful successors of Muhammad

Encomienda

A grant of authority over a population of Amerindians in the Spanish colonies. It provided the grant holder with a supply of cheap labor and periodic payments of goods by the Amerindians. It obliged the grant holder to Christianize the Amerindians.

monsoon winds

These carried ships on the Indian Ocean between India and Africa

Sikhism

the doctrines of a monotheistic religion founded in northern India in the 16th century by Guru Nanak and combining elements of Hinduism and Islam

Hacienda

Spanish estates in the Americas that were often plantations. They often represent the gradual removal of land from peasant ownership and a type of feudalistic order where the owners of Haciendas would have agreements of loyalty to the capital but would retain control over the actual land. This continued even into the 20th century.

Trans-Saharan Trade

route across the sahara desert. Major trade route that traded for gold and salt, created caravan routes, economic benefit for controlling dessert, camels played a huge role in the trading

Ming Dynasty

A major dynasty that ruled China from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. It was marked by a great expansion of Chinese commerce into East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia

Camel Saddle

An invention which gives camel riders more stability on the animal and its invention and basic idea traveled along the Trans-Saharan Caravan Trade Route. Invented somewhere between 500 and 100 BCE by Bedouin tribes.

Syncretic

A religion that combines several traditions

Caravans

Groups of people traveling together for safety over long distances

Mali

Empire created by indigenous Muslims in western Sudan of West Africa from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. It was famous for its role in the trans-Saharan gold trade.

Maya

Mesoamerican civilization concentrated in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and in Guatemala and Honduras but never unified into a single empire. Major contributions were in mathematics, astronomy, and development of the calendar.

Aztecs

Also known as Mexica, they created a powerful empire in central Mexico (1325-1521 C.E.). They forced defeated peoples to provide goods and labor as a tax.

Urbanization

An increase in the percentage and in the number of people living in urban settlements.

Mercantilism

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought

Inca

Largest and most powerful Andean empire. Controlled the Pacific coast of South America from Ecuador to Chile from its capital of Cuzco.

Ibn Battuta

Moroccan Muslim scholar, the most widely traveled individual of his time. He wrote a detailed account of his visits to Islamic lands from China to Spain and the western Sudan.

joint-stock company

A company made up of a group of shareholders. Each shareholder contributes some money to the company and receives some share of the company's profits and debts.

cultural synthesis

the blending together of two or more cultural influences

Pueblo Revolt

Native American revolt against the Spanish in late 17th century; expelled the Spanish for over 10 years; Spain began to take an accommodating approach to Natives after the revolt

Great Zimbabwe

City, now in ruins (in the modern African country of Zimbabwe), whose many stone structures were built between about 1250 and 1450, when it was a trading center and the capital of a large state.

Bubonic Plague

disease brought to Europe from the Mongols during the Middle Ages. It killed 1/3 of the population and helps end Feudalism. Rats, fleas.

Ethiopia

A Christian kingdom that developed in the highlands of eastern Africa under the dynasty of King Lalaibela; retained Christianity in the face of Muslim expansion elsewhere in Africa

Cossack Revolt

The Cossacks called for the, "true tsar" who would restore their freedom of movement, reduce their heavy taxes, and lighten the yoke imposed by landlords

Maratha

new warrior community that emerges in the 16-17th Century Deccan and posed a significant challenge to Deccani sultans and the Mughals.

Feudalism

A political system in which nobles are granted the use of lands that legally belong to their king, in exchange for their loyalty, military service, and protection of the people who live on the land

Serfdom

A type of labor commonly used in feudal systems in which the laborers work the land in return for protection but they are bound to the land and are not allowed to leave or to peruse their a new occupation. This was common in early Medeival Europe as well as in Russia until the mid 19th century.

Matacom's War

an armed conflict in 1675-1678 between Indian inhabitants of New England and New England colonists and their Indian allies.

Imperial Bureaucracy

organizations where appointed officials carry out the empire's policies

Maroon Communities

African refugees who had escaped slavery in the Americas and developed their own villages in Brazil and the Caribbean.

Civil Service Exam

In Imperial China starting in the Han dynasty, it was an exam based on Confucian teachings that was used to select people for various government service jobs in the nationwide administrative bureaucracy.

Qing Dynasty

Minority Manchu rule over China that incorporated new territories, experienced substantial population growth, and sustained significant economic growth.

Scholar Gentry

Chinese class created by the marital linkage of the local land-holding aristocracy with the office-holding shi; superseded shi as governors of China.

Casta system

A in colonial Spain determining a person's social importance according to different racial categories.

Foot Binding

Practice in Chinese society to mutilate women's feet in order to make them smaller; produced pain and restricted women's movement; made it easier to confine women to the household.

Bagdhad

Capital of Islamic Empire under the Abbasid Dynasty.

Crusades

A series of holy wars from 1096-1270 AD undertaken by European Christians to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule.

Mississippian Culture

Last of the mound-building cultures of North America; flourished between 800 and 1300 C.E.; featured large towns and ceremonial centers; lacked stone architecture of Central America.

Matrilineal Society

a society in which descent & inheritance come through the mother's kinship line

Mexicas

another name for the Aztecs

Mita System

The system recruiting workers for particularly difficult and dangerous chores that free laborers would not accept.

Animism

Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.

Kin-Based Networks

Relation between two or more people that is based on common ancestry or marriage

Manorial System

an economic system in the Middle Ages that was built around large estates called manors