AP World History Unit 3: Land-Based Empires (1450–1750)

Vocabulary flashcards covering the expansion, administration, consolidation methods, and religious developments of major land-based empires from 1450 to 1750.

Land-based Empire

An empire whose power is derived from the extent of its territorial land holdings.

Janissaries

An elite Ottoman military force comprised of enslaved Balkan Christians who were converted to Islam and trained as full-time soldiers.

Safavid Empire

A Middle Eastern land-based empire established at the beginning of the sixteenth century under Shah Ismail that expanded using gunpowder and made Shia Islam its official state religion.

Sunni-Shia Split

A theological division in Islam over leadership succession: Sunnis hold that any spiritually fit individual may lead, whereas Shia maintain that only blood relatives of the Prophet Muhammad are legitimate successors.

Babur

A Central Asian leader who defeated the Delhi Sultanate in 1526, founding the Mughal Empire in South Asia.

Akbar

Grandson of Babur who expanded the Mughal Empire and practiced religious tolerance toward the empire's Hindu majority.

Qing Dynasty

The final imperial dynasty of China, established in the seventeenth century by the non-Han Manchu people after replacing the Ming dynasty.

Safavid-Mughal Conflict

A series of wars fought over territory in what is modern-day Afghanistan, intensified by the religious divide between the Shia Safavids and Sunni Mughals.

Legitimizing Power

The methods and strategies used by a ruler to establish, justify, and validate their authority to govern.

Consolidating Power

The methods and strategies used by a ruler to transfer authority and control away from competing groups or elites into their own hands.

Devshirme System

An Ottoman administrative and military system where enslaved Christian boys from the Balkans were converted to Islam, educated in Istanbul, and placed into elite bureaucratic or military positions.

Divine Right of Kings

A European political and religious doctrine asserting that a monarch's authority comes directly from God, framing rebellion against the king as rebellion against divine will.

Imperial Portraits of Kangxi

State-sponsored paintings depicting Qing Emperor Kangxi surrounded by books to emphasize Confucian wisdom, designed to legitimize Manchu rule over the ethnically Han Chinese population.

Palace of Versailles

A monumental French royal residence constructed by Louis XIV to consolidate power by forcing the French nobility to live under his direct supervision.

Zamindar System

A Mughal administrative mechanism that used elite local landowners to collect taxes from agricultural peasants on behalf of the central government.

Tax Farming System

An Ottoman revenue generation system where the right to collect taxes from a population was auctioned to the highest bidder, who made a profit by extracting more money than owed.

Tribute Lists

Administrative inventories used by the Aztec Empire detailing the specific goods and supplies that conquered peripheral territories were required to send to the imperial capital.

Simony

The corrupt Catholic Church practice of buying and selling ecclesiastical offices and positions of authority.

Indulgences

Certificates sold by the Roman Catholic Church offering the forgiveness of sins, used extensively to fund papal building projects.

95 Theses

A document compiled by Catholic monk Martin Luther in 1517 criticizing ecclesiastical abuses—including the sale of indulgences—and challenging Catholic doctrines on salvation.

Council of Trent

A series of Catholic reform meetings that addressed institutional corruption while reaffirming traditional doctrines of salvation, solidifying the permanent division between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Sikhism

A syncretic religion originating in South Asia that blended Hindu and Islamic concepts—such as monotheism and reincarnation—while rejecting the Hindu caste system and Islamic gender hierarchies.