AP European History Flashcards

Flashcards covering key concepts from AP European History Units 1-9

What inspired the Renaissance?

A revival of interest in classical texts from ancient Greece and Rome, and a shift toward a more secular and individualistic way of thinking.

What is humanism?

Emphasized the study of classical history and literature as the foundation for education.

What did civic humanism prepare people for?

Careers in public service.

What created wealth during the Renaissance?

Increased trade, advancements in banking and bookkeeping.

Who became patrons of Renaissance artists?

The Medici family.

Why is Petrarch known as the 'Father of Humanism'?

He revived scholarly interest in classical studies.

What are the characteristics of Renaissance art?

Naturalistic portrayals of human subjects, balance, linear perspective, and bright colors.

What is Raphael's famous painting featuring Plato and Aristotle?

The School of Athens.

How did Northern Renaissance writers differ from Italian Renaissance authors?

They were more focused on Christian principles and social reform.

How did Erasmus advocate for social reform?

He used the Gospels to criticize Catholic Church practices in 'The Praise of Folly'.

How did new monarchs in England, France, and Spain centralize power?

Collecting taxes directly and establishing standing armies.

Who were the 'Catholic monarchs' in Spain?

Ferdinand and Isabella.

What event occurred in 1492 under Ferdinand and Isabella?

The completion of the Spanish Reconquista.

Why did the Catholic monarchs authorize the Spanish Inquisition?

To ensure conversos did not lapse into heresy.

What inventions enabled Europeans to sail beyond the Mediterranean?

The compass and Mercator projection maps.

What were the different routes taken by the Portuguese and Spanish during the Age of Exploration?

The Portuguese sailed east around Africa, while Spain sailed west across the Atlantic.

How did Europeans conquer native populations in the New World?

Superior military technology.

What is the Columbian Exchange?

The permanent exchange of people, goods, food, animals, ideas, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds.

What role did Spanish and French missionaries play in the Age of Exploration?

They spread the Christian religion throughout North and South America.

How did new monarchs use wealth gained from centralizing tax collection?

They were able to consolidate power by patronizing the arts and sciences.

What helped the reformation spread rapidly?

The ability to disseminate ideas with the printing press.

What did John Calvin write that rejected incremental reform?

An entirely new system of systematic theology.

How did the French Wars of Religion end?

Henry IV converted to Catholicism and issued the Edict of Nantes.

What practices led to the criticism of the Catholic Church?

Simony and indulgences.

What is sola scriptura?

People only needed the Bible, not traditions or the Pope, to understand God's will.

Why was Baroque art encouraged by the Catholic Church?

In order to oppose the austerity of Protestant art and architecture.

What did Baroque art emphasize?

Grandeur, sharp contrasts, and detail to inspire an emotional response.

What was the goal of the Catholic Reformation?

To curb the worst excesses of the medieval church while affirming its core beliefs.

What did the Church begin to do after the humanist movement?

Require a higher level of literacy among priests.

What did the Catholic Church believe salvation was achieved through?

Faith and good works.

Why was the Jesuit order developed?

To support the Catholic Church in spiritual warfare against the Protestant reformers.

What was the model for a Protestant family?

Men and women engaged in separate, but complementary tasks, in order to serve God.

What task shifted from the Church to the state during the Reformation?

Regulating public morals.

What was the term used by absolute monarchs?

Divine right.

What was the result of subjects limiting the monarch power?

They are attempting to challenge God.

What was the focus of the Dutch Golden Age Painting?

Genre paintings focused on either depictions of real life scenes or illustrations of Dutch adages and moral lessons.

What did Dutch Golden Age painters create?

A scene that could not have existed in real life.

What political ideas did John Locke advocate?

Government should be based on a social contract between the people and the government.

What was established the governing body of England during the Glorious Revolution?

The Parliament.

Besides the Protestant work ethic, what fueled the Dutch Golden Age?

Cheap energy sources in the form of windmills and peat.

What did the Dutch East India Company do?

Enslaved indigenous populations in Indonesia and displaced them with Dutch settlers.

What is mercantilism?

A nation should produce as much of its own goods as possible and limit imports from other countries.

Why did mercantilist countries limit imports?

To increase the wealth of their own nations.

How did Jean-Baptiste Colbert turn France into a manufacturing power?

By employing a mercantilist economic approach.

What is emphasized in empiricism?

Observation and experimentation.

What is emphasized in rationalism?

Truth should be based on reason rather than emotion.

What ban did William Harvey break to study the human body?

The Church's ban on autopsies.

What characterized visual arts during Neoclassicism?

Clean lines, strong shading, and the absence of brush strokes in paintings.

What did Enlightenment philosophes believe about rational governments?

Rational governments should respect the will of the people.

What did Adam Smith suggest would promote economic growth?

Foster free trade.

How did Frederick the Great of Prussia reflect Enlightenment ideas?

By allowing religious tolerance towards minorities.

What did resentment against hereditary monarchy lead to?

Increasing secularization and a gradual loss of authority for the Church and the hereditary nobility.

What caused the British Agricultural Revolution?

New agricultural technologies meant that more food could be produced with less effort.

What challenges were created by urbanization?

Communal living and urban health and sanitation.

What did Enlightenment ideas question?

Questioned the ancien régime.

How did the French Revolution begin?

The bourgeoisie forced the French monarch to accept limitations and become a constitutional monarchy.

Who dominated the more radical phase of the French Revolution?

The Jacobins and the sans-culottes.

What did capitalism help European countries expand in the 18th century?

A worldwide network of trade.

What country gained control of the East Indies and extended its dominion into India?

Britain.

What did Romanticism emphasize?

Emotionality.

How did Napoleon rise to power?

By claiming that the new nation emerging from the revolution could live up to the revolution's ideas of equality, fraternity, and liberty.

What were the Napoleonic Codes?

A single set of laws that applied to all members of society equally.

What did the Age of Metternich oppose?

Revolutionary movements.

What did production in the Second Industrial Revolution focus on?

Steel and machinery.

What did the creation of the internal combustion engine, the telegraph, the telephone, and the radio create?

New industries and enhanced the quality of life.

Where did the First Industrial Revolution begin?

Britain.

What were the natural factors that started the First Industrial Revolution?

An availability of coal, iron, and rivers.

What did Realism focus on?

Depicting life in all of its imperfections.

What did the Concert of Europe try to suppress?

Nationalism and liberalism.

How was Britain forced to address the political trends?

Through several parliamentary reforms.

What group successfully advocated for improved working conditions in factories?

Labor unions.

How did liberals argue that the social challenges of industrialization could best be addressed?

Through popular sovereignty and universal male suffrage.

What did the New Developments in Science emphasize?

Positivism

What did Charles Darwin conclude?

All animals undergo a process of evolution over time during which they become increasingly adapted to their environment.

What did Social Darwinism argue?

Human civilizations were also subject to the "survival of the fittest" that Darwin observed in the animal kingdom.

What was the nation understood to be?

A community bounded together by a shared language and culture.

Who used realpolitik to unify the disparate and warring states in Germany?

Otto von Bismarck.

What did Post-impressionist artists focus on?

Abstract forms and expressive representations.

What was the result from Bloody Sunday?

They forced the Tsar to release the October Manifesto.

Give the reason why Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks were able to overthrow the existing government in 1917?

The living conditionals were worse than they were in 1905.

What did European counties compete in the number and types during the 20th century?

New military technologies.

What did the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 turn into?

It was a regional dispute in the Balkans into a worldwide war when nation after nation joined their allies.

What did the Treaty of Versailles do?

It punished Germany for its role in the war by requiring that Germany admit guilt and pay reparations to the Allies.

What characterizied Germany because of the War Guilt Clause?

Hyperinflation

Define the Nazi Party's policy

Lebensraum

What did European powers begin to after Germany invaded Poland?

Take sides either for or against Germany’s actions.

What did both the military forces sides of the Iron Curtain did?

They engaged in various "hot wars" in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

What successfully campaigned for freedom from foreign rule?

Nationalist movements.

How was the European Union formed?

Through the Maastricht Treaty.