WORLD HIST EXAM 1

Empire

Large, multi-ethnic state usually built by conquest, with a dominant center (metropole) ruling subordinate territories (peripheries/colonies)

Metropole

The ruling center of an empire

Land empire vs. maritime empire

Land: expands over connected territory (Ottoman, Mughal, Safavid, Qing, Russian, Mongol). Maritime: expands by sea to distant colonies (Spain, Portugal, England, Dutch, French)

Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC)

Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor; centralized bureaucracy; replaced nobles and local rulers; standardized writing, laws, currency, weights and measures; Great Wall

Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD)

Confucianism; imperial expansion

Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368)

Mongol dynasty founded by Kublai Khan

Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)

Removed Mongol influence; Zheng He's naval expeditions; trade with Europeans; Portuguese base at Macau (1557)

Zheng He

Ming admiral who led naval expeditions, 1405–1433; example of China projecting power outward

Qing Dynasty (1644–1912)

Last imperial dynasty of China (Manchu)

Order of Chinese dynasties

Qin, Han, Six Dynasties, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing

Legacies of the Roman Empire

Romance languages, civil law (based on Roman law), spread of Christianity

Constantine I (272–337 AD)

Roman emperor linked to the spread of Christianity

Fall of the Western Roman Empire

476 AD

Byzantine Empire

Eastern Roman Empire; capital Constantinople; Greek culture; Eastern Orthodox; split from Catholic Church c. 1050

Hagia Sophia

Church in Constantinople completed in 537 AD; now in Istanbul, Turkey

Siege of Constantinople

April 6 – May 29, 1453; Ottoman victory under Mehmed the Conqueror using siege cannons; ended the Byzantine Empire

Mehmed the Conqueror

Ottoman sultan who captured Constantinople in 1453

Black Death

Bubonic plague caused by Yersinia pestis; ~25 million deaths in Asia (c. 1340–1352) and ~25 million in Europe (1347–1351)

Primary source

Created at the time by participants or witnesses (letters, laws, diaries, paintings)

Secondary source

Later analysis of primary sources (textbooks, scholarly articles)

Feudalism

Hierarchy of monarch, nobles, knights, peasants, tied together by land ownership, military service, and agricultural labor

Medieval vs. Early Modern Europe

Medieval: rural, strict hierarchy, decentralized, one dominant Church. Early Modern: urban, more social mobility, centralized kingdoms, weaker Church

Renaissance

c. 1350–1600 "rebirth" through rediscovery of ancient Greece and Rome; realism, education, human-centered thinking, human agency

Michelangelo

Creation of Adam (Sistine Chapel, 1508–1512), Pietà (1498–1499), David (1501–1504)

Raphael

The School of Athens (1510–1511)

Botticelli

The Birth of Venus (c. 1485)

Brunelleschi

Designed the dome of Florence Cathedral

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)

Northern Renaissance artist, Germany

Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Northern Renaissance, Low Countries; painted peasants and everyday life (The Peasant Wedding)

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

English playwright; Roman history plays; human condition; mass audience

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)

Polish astronomer; heliocentrism; De revolutionibus (1543)

Johannes Gutenberg

Introduced the movable-type printing press to Europe, 1440s–1450s

Impact of the printing press

Increased literacy; fueled the Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment

John Wycliffe (c. 1330–1384)

Pre-Luther reformer in England; scripture's authority; English Bible; Lollards

Jan Hus (c. 1370–1415)

Pre-Luther reformer in Bohemia; burned at the stake; led to the Hussite Wars (1419–1432)

Indulgences

Payments to the Church to reduce punishment for sins ("selling salvation")

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

Ninety-Five Theses (1517); salvation by faith alone; German Bible; protected by German princes; Diet of Worms

Luther and print

German New Testament (1522), full Bible (1536); ~200,000 Bibles by 1550; ~3.1 million copies of his works 1516–1546

John Calvin (1509–1564)

Calvinism/Reformed Christianity; rejected bishops; Huguenots, Presbyterians, Puritans

Anabaptists

Radical reformers who were harshly persecuted (Michael Sattler executed, 1527)

Catholic doctrines

Papal supremacy; salvation by faith and good works; purgatory; Mass in Latin; transubstantiation

Isabella I and Ferdinand II

The "Catholic Monarchs" who unified Spain

Reconquista

718–1492; Christian reconquest of Iberia from Muslim rule

Caliphate of Córdoba (756–1031)

Muslim state in Iberia, later split into taifas (kingdoms)

Granada War (1482–1491)

Final campaign of the Reconquista; ended with the Treaty of Granada

Alhambra Decree (1492)

Expelled Jews from Spain

Spanish Inquisition

Protected the Catholic faith to create a "pure" Catholic society; targeted Jews, Muslims, heretics (incl. Protestants), and alleged witches

Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros

Cardinal and Grand Inquisitor of Spain

Navarre Witch-Hunt (1609–1614)

1,802 self-confessed witches (1,384 were children aged 7–14); 5,000 more accused; moral panic / mass hysteria

Alonso de Salazar Frías

Inquisitor who found no proof of witchcraft (1612)

Witch trial totals

42,215 tried and 16,152 executed in records; ~40,000 executed overall; 70–80% women

Bering Strait crossing

c. 14,500 BC; first people enter the Americas

Leif Erikson

Norse settlement in Newfoundland, 1021 AD

Christopher Columbus

Crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, 1492

Amerigo Vespucci

Sailed along South America's coast in 1499; "America" named after him

Canary Islands conquest (1402–1496)

Spanish conquest of the Guanches; precedent for conquest in the Americas

English colonization of Ireland

Conquest 1100s–1500s; Munster Plantation (1580s); Ulster Plantation (from 1609)

Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460)

Led Portuguese exploration of Africa's west coast using caravels

Early patterns of empire building

Spain: conquest. England: plantations. Portugal: commerce

Spices

Nutmeg, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, ginger; valued for taste, medicine, mystique and status; expensive due to middlemen and transport costs

Later wealth motives for colonization

Precious metals; animal products (fish, whales, furs); cash crops (tobacco, sugar, cotton, coffee, tea); slave trade