AP World History Vocabulary Flashcards

Flashcards of key vocabulary and definitions from AP World History lecture notes about the period from c. 1200 to c. 1450.

Significance of the Song Dynasty

Under the Song Dynasty (960-1279), China enjoyed great wealth, political stability, and artistic and intellectual innovations.

The Grand Canal

An efficient waterway transportation system during the Postclassical period in China that enabled China to become the most populous trading area in the world.

Gunpowder

Technology that spread from China to all parts of Eurasia via traders on the Silk Roads.

Tributes

An arrangement to gain income in which other states had to pay money or provide goods to honor the Chinese emperor.

Neo-Confucianism

Evolved in China between 770 and 840. It was a syncretic system, combining rational thought with the more abstract ideas of Daoism and Buddhism.

daimyo

Landowning aristocrats in Japan who battled for control of the land.

shogun

A military ruler installed in Japan in 1192.

Trigonometry

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi laid the groundwork for making this a separate subject

‘A’ishah al-Ba’uniyyah

The most prolific female Muslim writer before the 20th century.

Chola Dynasty

Ruled over southern India for more than 400 years (850—1267).

Delhi Sultanate

Reigned for 300 years, from the l3th through the l6th centuries, bringing Islam into India .

Bhakti Movement

Concentrated on developing a strong attachment to a particular deity rather than emphasize performing rituals or studying texts.

Srivijaya Empire

A Hindu kingdom based on Sumatra, built up its navy and prospered by charging fees for ships that traveled between India and China.

Majapahit Kingdom

Based on Java and had 98 tributaries at its height and held onto its power by controlling sea routes and was Buddhist.

Khmer Empire

Situated near the Mekong River and was not dependent on maritime prowess for its power with complex irrigation and drainage systems.

Mississippian Culture

First large-scale civilization in North America, started in Mississippi River Valley, had a rigid class structure and a matrilineal society

Maya City-States

Each was ruled by a king and consisting of a city and its surrounding territory where each Mayan king claimed to be a descendant of a god (divine right)

The Aztecs

Hunter-gatherers who migrated to central Mexico from the north in the 1200s. In 1325, they founded their capital Tenochtitlan

mit’a system

Mandatory public service in the Incan Empire.

Bantu

Migrations of these speaking people heavily formed the development of Sub-Saharan Africa

Griots

Were the conduits of history for a community in Sub-Saharan Africa

Feudalism

Provided some security for peasants, equipment for warriors, and land to those who worked for a lord.

The manorial system

Provided economic self-sufficiency and defense

Estates-General

Advising body to the king of France which included representatives from each of the three legal classes, or estates, in France: the clergy, nobility, and commoners.

Holy Land

Europeans sought to reclaim control of this, the region of Palestine in the Middle East containing sites of spiritual significance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Renaissance

A period characterized by a revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman literature, culture, art, and civic virtue.

humanism

The focus on individuals rather than God.

Synthesis of Different Traditions

A state adapts foreign ideas to local conditions

Expansion in Scope

An existing state expands its influence through conquest, trade, or other means

flying cash

System of credit developed in China because the copper coins they used became too unwieldy to transport for everyday transactions.

Genghis Khan

Headed east and attacked the powerful Jin Empire in 1210.

Batu

Led a Mongolian army of 100,000 soldiers into Russia in 1236.

Diasporic Communities

These communities developed as a natural result of waiting for favorable winds for travel and merchants interacted with the surrounding cultures and peoples of the region.

Swahili City-States

The Indian Ocean trade created these thriving city-states along the east coast of Africa.

Mali

Connected West and North Africa through trade and spread Islam in West Africa.

Al-Andalus

Created vibrant, tolerant society that preserved classical Greek learning and fostered trade between Asia, Europe, and Africa

Byzantine Empire/ Kievan Rus

Carried on Roman legacy and developed first large civilization in Russia and spread Christianity eastward.

Zionism

The desire of Jews to reestablish an independent homeland where their ancestors had lived in the Middle East.

The French Revolution

Summarized in the slogan liberté, égalité, et fraternité (liberty, equality, and fraternity).

The Reign of Terror

A period during which the government executed thousands of opponents of the revolution, including the king and queen (French Revolution).

Toussaint L’Ouverture

Led a general rebellion against slavery after being inspired by the American and French revolutions.

Otto von Bismarck

Favored realpolitik and used nationalist feelings to engineer three wars to bring about German unification.

spinning jenny

Allowed a weaver to spin more than one thread at a time.

water frame

Used waterpower to drive the spinning wheel.

Eli Whitney

Created a system of interchangeable parts for manufacturing firearms for the U.S. military. This system directly led to the division of labor.

steel

An alloy of iron and carbon and its mass production became possible with the introduction of the Bessemer Process

Telephone Patent

Issued to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.

Meiji Restoration

Abolished feudalism in Japan in 1868 by the Charter Oath.

monopoly

Control of a specific business and elimination of all competition. In the United States, John D. Rockefeller created a monopoly in the oil industry.

Racism

Colonial powers generally believed that they were inherently superior to those they subjugated. Pseudoscientists claimed to have proof of the intellectual and physical inferiority of nonwhite races.

Social Darwinism

Some thinkers adapted Darwin’s theory of biological evolution to society

Otto von Bismarck

Host of the Berlin Conference, a meeting where Europeans established colonial borders that were merely artificial lines that meant little to the people who lived within them.

Monroe Doctrine

Stated that European nations should not intervene in the affairs of the countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Roosevelt Corollary

Stated that if countries in Latin America demonstrated 'instability,' the United States would intervene.

Proclamation of 1763

This act reserved all the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River for Native Americans.

Indian Removal Act of 1830

Forced the Cherokee and other Southeast Native American tribes were forced to relocate to what is now Oklahoma.

Ghost Dance

A Native American resistance movement that resulted in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, marking the end of the Indian Wars and a loss for the Natives.

Railroads

The introduction of these lowered the cost of transporting raw materials for shipment and helped open up colonial markets for manufactured goods

Guano

Bat and seabird excrement that is rich in nitrates and phosphates which make it an excellent natural fertilizer.

Britain's Parliament

Banned Indian cotton textiles in 1721 because they competed with the native wool industry.

Encomenderos

Compelled indigenous people to work for them in exchange for food and shelter.

Indentured Servitude

Many people became this as a way to pay for their transportation from a desperately poor community to one with more opportunity.

Culture System

This system forced farmers to choose between growing cash crops for export or performing corvée labor, compulsory unpaid work (Dutch East India Company).

Brexit Revolt

In 2016, 52 percent of British voters agreed to leave the European Union, an international political and economic organization of 28 countries. This British exit was nicknamed .

Anti-Globalization

This movement has grown into a social movement as well. Its followers tend to focus on these issues: Human rights, Fair trade, debt relief or debt restructuring and Sustainable development.

Trenches

These are long ditches dug in the ground with the excavated earth banked in front in order to defend against enemy fire.

Total War

A strategy in which a nation's domestic population, in addition to its military, was committed to winning the war.

Propaganda

Communication meant to influence the attitudes and opinions of a community around a particular subject by spreading inaccurate or slanted information.

League of Nations

An organization in which all nations of the world would convene to discuss conflicts openly.

The New Deal

Relief for citizens who were suffering, Recovery to bring the nation out of the Depression and Reform to change government policies in the hopes of avoiding such disasters in the future.

New Economic Plan (NEP)

Reintroduced private trade, allowing farmers to sell their products on a small scale.

Five-Year Plan

Was meant to transform the USSR into an industrial power.

Tehran Conference

A meeting where the Allies during WW2 agreed that the Soviet Union would focus on freeing Eastern Europe, while Britain and the United States would concentrate on Western Europe.

Yalta Conference

At a resort on the Black Sea, the wartime leaders focused on plans for reconstructing Eastern Europe and for defeating Japan.

Potsdam Conference

The final meeting among leaders of the Big Three, the Potsdam Conference, began in July 1945 in Germany

Communes

Large agricultural communities where the state held the land, not private owners.

Venezuela

The government redistributed some five million acres of land in this Latin American country after they freed themselves from colonialism.

The Automobile

Just as Europe’s Industrial Revolution depended on cotton grown by the enslaved people of the Americas, their revolution depended on a substance grown in Southeast Asia: rubber.

Ghana

The Gold Coast combined with the former British Togoland to form this, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence in the 20th century.

Algeria

In northern Africa, the French colony of endured far more violence than Ghana before becoming independent.

The State of Israel

Long the goal of the Zionists,

The Zionist movement

Originated in the 1890s from reaction to the Dreyfus Affair.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike

The world’s first female prime minister, a position that was won in 1960 in Ceylon (later Sri Lanka).

apartheid

In South Africa, the white-minority government codified a system of racial segregation, called into law in the 20th century.

Pandemics

Used to fight the spread of disease by reducing illnesses and deaths across international borders.

Deforestation

The loss of Earth’s trees as a result of cutting down trees so the land could be used for agriculture.

Desertification

Occurs as a result of the removal of the natural vegetation cover through expansions and intensive use of agricultural lands arid and semi-arid land.

Crude Oil

In 1900, coal accounted for about half of the global energy consumed. This is known as _.

Finland

Had been an agrarian economy in the 1950s but followed other “European countries in industrializing after World War II.

Japan

Implemented economic policies similar to 18th-century mercantilist policies that were designed to increase exports and decrease imports, as well as policies to boost competitiveness

Fair trade

This is the system that ensures the person who provided the good or service receives a reasonable payment for it.

Sustainable development

A business venture that allow people and companies to make a profit without preventing future generations from meeting their own needs

Religious Issues

People in Northern Ireland protested over these issues during 1968.

human rights

These are basic freedoms that every person has, such as freedom from slavery and freedom to express opinions.

Penicillin Revolt

The first antibiotic, a useful agent in curing bacterial infections