Global Finals pt1

Humanism - A Renaissance intellectual movement focusing on human potential, achievements, and classical texts rather than purely divine contemplation.

Vernacular - The native language of a specific locality or region; writing in it allowed authors to reach a broader audience than Latin.

New Monarchies - 15th-century European rulers (e.g., in England, Spain, France) who centralized power, suppressed noble armies, and unified their states.

Mercantilism - An economic theory focused on maximizing exports, minimizing imports through protectionism, and hoarding wealth in the state's treasury.

Columbian Exchange - The massive transfer of goods, people, cultures, crops, and deadly diseases between the Old World and the New World.

Encomienda System - A brutal Spanish colonial labor system that granted conquerors the right to force native populations into labor on plantations and mines.

Middle Passage - The terrifying, deadly middle leg of the Triangular Trade where millions of enslaved Africans were forced across the Atlantic.

Petrarch - An early Italian Renaissance scholar known as the father of humanism who uncovered Cicero's lost letters.

Niccolo Machiavelli - Author of "The Prince", a political handbook advising rulers that it is much better to be feared than loved.

Johannes Gutenberg - Inventor of the movable-type printing press c. 1450, which allowed for the mass production of books and rapid spread of ideas.

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) - An agreement mediated by Pope Alexander VI that drew an imaginary line dividing the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal.