World History Review: India, Byzantine Empire, Late Middle Ages, and Pre-Columbian Americas

Vocabulary practice cards covering key historical terms, figures, events, and concepts from post-Gupta India, the Byzantine Empire, the Crusades, the Late Middle Ages in Europe, and the Aztec and Inca civilizations.

Theravada Buddhism

A school of Buddhism that views Buddhist practice as a way of life centered on understanding oneself, rather than seeing the Buddha as a divine figure.

Mahayana Buddhism

A Buddhist school that regards Buddhism as a religion in which devotion to the Buddha brings salvation in a true heaven.

Ghazna

An Islamic state established at the end of the tenth century in modern-day Afghanistan by rebellious Turkish slaves.

Mahmūd of Ghazna

The ruler who succeeded the founder of Ghazna in 997, attacked neighboring Hindu kingdoms to the southeast, and extended his rule across the upper Indus Valley south to the Indian Ocean before dying in 1030.

Rajputs

Hindu warriors who relied on infantry supported by elephants, whose military tactics proved unable to withstand the speed of invading Muslim cavalry forces.

Sultanate of Delhi

A Muslim state established in northern India by 1200 that expanded south into the Deccan during the 1300s before falling into decline.

Timur Lenk

The ruler of a Mongol state based in Samarqand north of the Pamirs who seized power in 1369, expanded into Mesopotamia and east of the Caspian Sea, and massacred up to 100,000 Hindu prisoners during a raid on Delhi.

Khajuraho

A site containing notable Hindu temple art constructed between 500 and 1500, consisting of 80 tenth-century temples, of which 20 remain standing.

Dandin

A seventh-century master of Sanskrit prose who wrote The Adventures of the Ten Princes.

The Body of Civil Law

Justinian's legal codification of Roman law that served as the basis of imperial law in the Eastern Roman Empire until 1453 and influenced the civil law systems of modern Europe.

Battle of Yarmūk

A battle in 636 in which the Eastern Roman Empire was defeated by Muslim armies, resulting in the loss of Syria and Palestine.

Byzantine Empire

The historical term used for the smaller Eastern Roman Empire that, by the early eighth century, had been reduced to the eastern Balkans and Asia Minor.

Macedonian Dynasty

A Byzantine ruling dynasty (867–1081) that expanded the empire to include Bulgaria, Crete, Cyprus, and Syria, restoring it by 1025 to its greatest territorial extent since the 600s.

Schism of 1054

The formal separation of the Christian church into the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic branches following the mutual excommunication of the pope and the Byzantine patriarch.

First Crusade

A military campaign launched by three organized bands of largely French knights that captured Antioch in 1098 and seized Jerusalem in June 1099, followed by a massacre of its inhabitants.

Second Crusade

A military expedition from 1147 to 1149 preached by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and led by King Louis VII of France and Emperor Conrad III of Germany, which ended in total failure.

Third Crusade

A campaign led by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Richard I the Lionhearted, and King Philip II Augustus that culminated in a treaty with Saladin granting Christian pilgrims free access to Jerusalem.

Fourth Crusade

A crusading expedition redirected by Venetian leaders to intervene in a Byzantine succession dispute, culminating in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 to eliminate a commercial rival.

Children's Crusade

A 1212 movement initiated by youth such as Nicholas of Cologne in which thousands marched toward Italy and Marseille, resulting in many participants being turned away or sold into North African slavery.

Black Death

A devastating plague brought from Caffa to Sicily in October 1347 that killed an estimated one-third to one-half of Europe's 75 million inhabitants.

Avignon Papacy

The period from 1305 to 1377 when popes resided in Avignon rather than Rome, drawing public criticism for financial exploitation and luxurious living.

Great Schism (Western Church)

A crisis within the Roman Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417, during which competing popes in Rome and Avignon each claimed legitimacy, finally resolved at the Council of Constance.

John Hus

A Czech religious reformer who denounced clerical corruption and excessive papal authority, leading to his trial by the Council of Constance and execution at the stake in 1415.

Hundred Years' War

A protracted conflict between England and France that began in 1337 when King Philip VI of France seized the English-held duchy of Gascony from King Edward III, lasting until 1453.

Longbow

An English military weapon favored over the crossbow due to its greater striking force, longer effective range, and significantly faster rate of fire.

Battle of Agincourt

A 1415 battle during the Hundred Years' War in which King Henry V's English archers defeated heavily armored French knights on a muddy battlefield, killing 1,500 French nobles.

Joan of Arc

A French peasant girl who claimed visions from saints instructed her to liberate France, rallied French forces at Orléans, and was condemned and burned as a heretic in 1431.

Taille

An annual direct tax on land or property established in France and made into a permanent royal tax by King Louis XI.

Wars of the Roses

A series of civil conflicts among English aristocratic factions competing for the throne, resolved in 1485 when Henry Tudor established the Tudor dynasty.

Ivan III

A prince of Moscow who consolidated Russian territories and formally ended Mongol rule over Russia by 1480.

Tenochtitlán

The Aztec capital established in 1325 on marshy islands in Lake Texcoco following a sign of an eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus on a rock.

Tribute

Payments of goods or wealth demanded from subject populations by conquering authorities, which formed the economic foundation of the Aztec state.

Chinampas

Swampy, artificial agricultural islands divided by canals that provided constant irrigation for Aztec crops and direct water access to markets.

Ometeotl

The supreme Aztec deity who personified the primal, all-powerful forces of the heavens.

Huitzilopochtli

The Aztec god of the sun and war, to whom human hearts were offered to delay the prophesied destruction of the world and its fifth sun.

Quetzalcoatl

A Mesoamerican feathered-serpent deity who, according to legend, departed the Valley of Mexico during the tenth century with a pledge to return in triumph.

Pachacuti

The Inca monarch who launched extensive military conquests in the 1440s, transforming Cuzco from a local state into a centralized empire divided into four administrative quarters.

Quechua

The administrative language of the Inca Empire that newly conquered populations were obligated to learn.

Inca Road System

An engineered transportation network extending roughly 24,800 miles across the Andes and coastal regions, equipped with storage depots, rest houses, and suspension bridges.

Inti

The Inca sun god, revered as the divine ancestor of the Inca royal dynasty.

Machu Picchu

An Inca settlement situated at an elevation of approximately 8,000 feet above the Urubamba River, composed of about 200 structures and the 'hitching post of the sun' solar observatory.

Quipu

A record-keeping apparatus of knotted cords used by the Inca to track statistical and numerical data without a formal system of alphabetic or hieroglyphic writing.