AP WORLD Semester 1 Final Exam Vocab

Achaemenid Persian Empire

a large empire in southwest Asia that lasted for two centuries until it was conquered by Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

son of Philip II; received military training in Macedonian army and was a student of Aristotle; great leader; conquered much land in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia; goal was to conquer the known world

Hellenism

Greek culture spread across western Asia and northeastern Africa after the conquests of Alexander the Great. The period ended with the fall of the last major Hellenistic kingdom to Rome, but Greek cultural influence persisted until the spread of Islam.

Augustus

(63 BCE - 14 CE) First emperor of Rome (27 BCE - 14 CE) He restored order and prosperity to the Empire after nearly a century of turmoil. Grandnephew to Julius Caesar.

Pax Romana

200 year period of peace in Rome.

Legalism

A Chinese philosophy that was devoted to strengthen and expand the state through increased agricultural work and military service.

Confucianism

A philosophy that adheres to the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius. It shows the way to ensure a stable government and an orderly society in the present world and stresses a moral code of conduct.

Hinduism

A religion and philosophy developed in ancient India, characterized by a belief in reincarnation and a supreme being who takes many forms

Siddhartha Gautama

Founder of Buddhism

Saint Paul of Tarsus

A key figure in the development of early Christianity. He also wrote the majority of the New Testament.

Jesus of Nazareth

a teacher and prophet born in bethlehem and active in nazareth; his life and sermons form the basis for Christianity

Aristotle

A Greek Philosopher, taught Alexander the Great, started a famous school, studied with Plato

Mauryan Empire

(321-185 BCE) This was the first centralized empire of India whose founder was Chandragupta Maurya.

Han Dynasty

imperial dynasty that ruled China (most of the time) from 206 BC to 221 and expanded its boundaries and developed its bureaucracy

Qin Shihuangdi

(r.221-210 BCE) The first emperor of the Qin Dynasty who believed strongly in Legalism and sought to strengthen the centralized China through public works.

Judaism

A religion with a belief in one god. It originated with Abraham and the Hebrew people. Yahweh was responsible for the world and everything within it. They preserved their early history in the Old Testament.

Swahili Civilization

An East African civilization that emerged in the eighth century C.E. from a blending of Bantu, Islamic, and other Indian Ocean trade elements.

Song Dynasty

(960-1279 CE) The Chinese dynasty that placed much more emphasis on civil administration, industry, education, and arts other than military.

Byzantine Empire

Eastern half of the Roman Empire that survived the fall of the Western half.

Hangzhou

Capital of later Song dynasty; located near East China Sea; permitted overseas trading; population exceeded 1 million.

Caesaropapism

A political-religious system in which the secular ruler is also head of the religious establishment, as in the Byzantine Empire.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity

A branch of Christianity that developed in the Byzantine Empire and that did not recognize the Pope as its supreme leader

Ghana

First known kingdom in sub-Saharan West Africa between the sixth and thirteenth centuries C.E. Also the modern West African country once known as the Gold Coast. gold and salt trade.

Al-Andalus

A Muslim-ruled region in what is now Spain, established by the Berbers in the eighth century A.D.

Aztec Empire

Central American empire constructed by the Mexica and expanded greatly during the fifteenth century during the reigns of Itzcoatl and Motecuzoma I.

Seljuk Turks

nomadic Turks from Asia who conquered Baghdad in 1055 and allowed the caliph to remain only as a religious leader. they governed strictly

Roman Catholic Church

Church established in western Europe during the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages with its head being the bishop of Rome or pope.

Bushido

The Feudal Japanese code of honor among the warrior class.

American Web

A term used to describe the network of trade that linked parts of the pre-Columbian Americas; although less intense and complete than the Afro-Eurasian trade networks, this web nonetheless provided a means of exchange for luxury goods and ideas over large areas.

Inca Empire

Empire in Peru. conquered by Pizarro, who began an empire for the Spanish in 1535

Western Christendom

Western European branch of Christianity that gradually defined itself as

separate from Eastern Orthodoxy, with a major break in 1054 C.E. that has still not been healed.

Maya civilization (300-900 CE)

Classical Mesoamerican civilization located on the Yucatan Peninsula, used slash and burn farming, organized into city-states

Ottoman Empire

Islamic state founded by Osman in northwestern Anatolia. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire was based at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) from 1453-1922. It encompassed lands in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, and eastern Europe.

Constantinople

A large and wealthy city that was the imperial capital of the Byzantine empire and later the Ottoman empire, now known as Istanbul

Temujin

birth name of the Mongol leader better known as Chinggis Khan (1162-1227)

The Mongol World War

Term used to describe half a century of military campaigns, massive killing, and empire building pursued by Chinggis Khan and his successors in Eurasia after 1209.

Khublai Khan

Mongol emperor and founder of the Yuan dynasty, grandson of Genghis Khan; he continued his grandfather's wars of conquest in China.

Yuan Dynasty

(1279-1368 CE) The dynasty with Mongol rule in China; centralized with bureaucracy but structure is different: Mongols on top->Persian bureaucrats->Chinese bureuacrats.

Ming Dynasty

Succeeded Mongol Yuan dynasty in China in 1368; lasted until 1644; initially mounted huge trade expeditions to southern Asia and elsewhere, but later concentrated efforts on internal development within China.

Great Zimbabwe

City, now in ruins (in the modern African country of Zimbabwe), whose many stone structures were built between about 1250 and 1450, when it was a trading center and the capital of a large state.

Zheng He

An imperial eunuch and Muslim, entrusted by the Ming emperor Yongle with a series of state voyages that took his gigantic ships through the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to Africa.

Safavid Empire

Iranian kingdom (1502-1722) established by Ismail Safavi, who declared Iran a Shi'ite state.

Khanate of the Golden Horde

the Mongol empire, that, after the fall of Kiev, ruled all of southern Russia for 200 years

Srivijaya

A Malay kingdom that dominated the Straits of Malacca between 670 and 1025 C.E.; noted for its creation of a native/Indian hybrid culture.

Timbuktu

City on the Niger River in the modern country of Mali. It was founded by the Tuareg as a seasonal camp sometime after 1000. As part of the Mali empire, Timbuktu became a major major terminus of the trans-Saharan trade and a center of Islamic learning.

Angkor Wat

A temple complex built in the Khmer Empire and dedicated to the Hindu God, Vishnu.

Khutulun

A Mongol princess (ca. 1260-1306) whose exploits in battle and wrestling, along with her choice of husbands, provide insight into the relative freedom and influence of elite Mongol women in their societies.

Chaco Phenomenon

Name given to a major process of settlement and societal organization that occurred in the period 860-1130 C.E. among the peoples of Chaco canyon, in what is now northwestern New Mexico; the society formed is notable for its settlement in large pueblos and for the building of hundreds of miles of roads (the purpose of which is not known).

Black Death

The common name for a major outbreak of plague that spread across Asia, North Africa, and Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, carrying off vast numbers of persons.

House of Wisdom

a center of learning established in Baghdad in the 800s

Hernan Cortes

1485-1547, Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs and conquered Mexico

The Great Dying

Term used to describe the devastating demographic impact of European-borne epidemic diseases on the Americas.

Little Ice Age

A century-long period of cool climate that began in the 1590s. Its ill effects on agriculture in northern Europe were notable.

Devshirme

'Selection' in Turkish. The system by which boys from Christian communities were taken by the Ottoman state to serve as Janissaries.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages.

Mercantilism

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought

Mestizo

A person of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry.

Settler Colonies

Colonies in which the colonizing people settled in large numbers, rather than simply spending relatively small numbers to exploit the region; particularly noteworthy in the case of the British colonies in North America.

Mulattoes

People of African and European descent

Yasak

Tribute that Russian rulers demanded from the native peoples of Siberia, most often in the form of furs.

Qing Expansion

The growth of Qing dynasty China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into a central Asian empire that added a small but important minority of non-Chinese people to the empire's population and essentially created the borders of contemporary China.

Mughal Empire

Muslim state (1526-1857) exercising dominion over most of India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Akbar

Most illustrious sultan of the Mughal Empire in India (r. 1556-1605). He expanded the empire and pursued a policy of conciliation with Hindus.

Aurangzeb

Mughal emperor in India and great-grandson of Akbar 'the Great', under whom the empire reached its greatest extent, only to collapse after his death.

Benin

a kingdom that arose near the Niger River delta in the 1300s and became a major West African state in the 1400s

Maroon Societies

Communities formed by escaped slaves in the Caribbean, Latin American. and the United States.

African Diaspora

The separation of Africans from their homeland through centuries of forced removal to serve as slaves in the Americas and elsewhere.

Transatlantic Slave Trade

The brutal system of trading African Slaves from Africa to the Americas. It changed the economy, politics, and environment. It affected Africa, Europe, and America. It implies that slaves were used for cash crops and created a whole new economy.

"soft gold"

Nickname used in the early modern period for animal furs, highly valued for their warmth and as symbols of elite status; in several regions, the fur trade generated massive wealth for those engaged in it.

Fur Trade

European powers sought to capitalize on popularity of fur in Europe; involved trade with Indians

Potosi

Located in Bolivia, one of the richest silver mining centers and most populous cities in colonial Spanish America.

pieces of eight

Spanish coins minted from silver from the new world; became the first global currency

"silver drain" (611-15)

Term often used, along with "specie drain," to describe the siphoning of money from Europe to pay for the luxury products of the East, a process exacerbated by the fact that Europe had few trade goods that were desirable in Eastern markets; eventually, the bulk of the world's silver supply made its way to China.

Dutch East India Company

Government-chartered joint-stock company that controlled the spice trade in the East Indies.

British East India Company

A joint stock company that controlled most of India during the period of imperialism. This company controlled the political, social, and economic life in India for more than 200 years.

Manila

Capital of the Spanish Philippines and a major multicultural trade city that already had a population of more than 40,000 by 1600.