AP World History Review Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from AP World History lecture notes.

Song Dynasty

Chinese dynasty (960-1279) known for great wealth, political stability, and artistic/intellectual innovations; developed greatest manufacturing capability and became the world’s most commercialized society.

Grand Canal (China)

Efficient waterway transportation system enabling China to become the most populous trading area in the world.

Gunpowder

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

Tributes (China)

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

Neo-Confucianism

Syncretic system in China, evolved between 770 and 840, combining rational thought with abstract ideas of Daoism and Busthhism.

Shogun (Japan)

Military ruler installed by the Minamoto in 1192 in Japan; led to regional rivalries among aristocrats for four centuries. Created a strong central government that unified the country in the 17th century.

Tributary Relationship (Korea)

Korea's relationship with China; Korea centralized its government in the style of the Chinese; Koreans adopted both Confucian and Buddhist beliefs.

Dar al-Islam

(c. 1200 to c. 1450) - refers to Islamic culture across the world; advances in mathematics, literature and medicine.

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

Muslim scholar who laid the groundwork for trigonometry as a separate subject.

House of Wisdom

Center of scholarly and cultural transfers in Abbasid Baghdad.

Delhi Sultanate

Brought Islam into India and reigned for 300 years (13th-16th centuries).

Bhakti Movement

Beginning in the 12th century, some Hindus began to draw upon traditional teachings about the importance of emotion in their spiritual life and concentrated on developing a strong attachment to a particular deity (rather than rituals).

Srivijaya Empire

(670-1025) was a Hindu kingdom based on Sumatra in Southeast Asia; built up its navy and prospered by charging fees for ships that traveled between India and China.

Majapahit Kingdom

(1293-1520) Based on Java, had 98 tributes at its height. Liked Srivijaya, Majapahit held onto its power by controlling sea routes. Unlike Srivijaya, Majapahit was Buddhist.

Khmer Empire

(802-1431) Was situated near the Mekong River and was not dependent on maritime prowess for its power. The kingdom's complex irrigation and drainage systems led to economical prosperity, making it one of the most prosperous kingdoms in Southeast Asia.

Mississippian Culture

First large-scale civilization in North America (Mississippi River Valley); had a rigid class structure and a matrilineal society.

Maya City-States

Each ruled by a king and consisting of a city and its surrounding territory. Science and religion were linked through astronomy.

Aztecs

Hunter-gatherers who migrated to central Mexico from the north in the 1200s; developed a tributary system; Aztec government was a theocracy.

Inca

Empire was split into four provinces, each with its own bureaucracy; subject to the mit'a system, mandatory public service. Developed sophisticated terrace systems for the cultivation of crops such as potatoes and maize. Conquered by Spanish in 1533.

Bantu Migrations

Migrations of Bantu-speaking people outward from west-central Africa heavily formed the development of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ghana and Mali

West African kingdoms that profited from the gold trade and developed into centers of Muslim life.

Zimbabwe

Built its prosperity on a mixture of agriculture, glazing trade, and, above all, gold. Had rich gold fields .

Ethiopia

Flourished by trading goods obtained from India, Arabia, the Roman Empire, and the interior of Africa.

Griots

Storytellers that 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. Wealth was measured in land rather than cash, and the manorial system provided economic self-sufficiency and defense.

Estates-General

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

Hundred Years' War

Between 1337 and 1453, the rival monarchies of England and France fought a series of battles known as the Hundred Years' War.

Great Schism (1054)

The Christian Church was broken into two branches, a split called the Great Schism: Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Crusades

Series of European military campaigns in the Middle East (1095-1200's) to reclaim control of the Holy Land.

Bourgeoisie

The middle class including shopkeepers, craftspeople, merchants, and small landholders.

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. Humanists sought education and reform.

Mamluk Empire

Arose on land once controlled by another empire; formerly Abbasid territory.

Seljuk Empire

Arose on land once controlled by another empire; formerly Abbasid territory.

Delhi Sultanate

Arose on land once controlled by another empire; formerly Gupta territory.

Flying Cash

System of credit developed by China to manage increasing trade.

Diasporic Communities

As a natural result of waiting for favorable winds for travel, these merchants interacted with the surrounding cultures and peoples of the region, often creating diasporic communities.

Swahili City-States

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

Golden Horde

Army of 100,000 soldiers, led by Batu (grandson of Genghis Khan) into Russia. They conquered Russian kingdoms and forced them to pay tributes.

Trans-Saharan Trade

Trade routes from North Africa and the Mediterranean Basin across the desert to West and East Africa were where merchants traded salt from North Africa with gold from the kingdoms south of the desert.

Gunpowder Empires

Refers to large, multiethnic states in Southwest, Central, and South Asia that relied on firearms to conquer and control territories.

Ming Dynasty

Overthrew China’s Yuan Dynasty in 1368; tried to limit outside influence on trade.

Divine Right of Kings

A common claim from the Middle Ages that the right to rule was given to a king by God.

Boyars

The noble landowning class in Russia.

Lutheranism

A German monk named Martin Luther concluded that several traditional Church practices violated biblical teachings.

Calvinism

In 1536, John Calvin authored The Institutes of the Christian Religion and helped reform the religious community in Geneva, Switzerland.

Anglicanism

The last of the three major figures of the Reformation was England's King Henry VIII (ruled 1509-1547). Declared himself the head of the Church of England, or Anglican Church because the Pope would not annual his marriage so he could remarry.

Counter-Reformation

A three-part strategy to maintain Catholicism as the largest Christian domination in the world as it was challenged by the Protestant Reformation.

Peace of Augsburg

Ended Conflict between Lutherans and the Holy Roman Empire in 1555, which allowed each German state to choose whether its ruler would be Catholic or Lutheran.

Edict of Nantes

Issued by Henry, which allowed the Huguenots to practice their faith. The edict provided religious toleration in France.

Scientific Revolution

In the early 1600s, scientific thinking gained popularity in northern Europe as trends in Renaissance ideas, curiosity, investigation, and discovery spread.

Astrolabe

Improved navigation; allowed sailors to determine how far north or south they were from the equator.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of germs, diseases, animals and foods in both directions across the Atlantic.

Commercial Revolution

The transformation to a trade-based economy using gold and silver.

Price Revolution

The high rate of inflation, or general rise in prices in the 16th and early 17th century.

Monroe Doctrine

Issued in 1823 by US President James Monroe, which stated that European nations should not intervene in the affairs of the countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Manifest Destiny

White Americans believed that they had a Manifest Destiny -- meaning a natural and inevitable right to expand to the Pacific Ocean.

Economic Liberalization

Opening up of a country’s economy by relaxing restrictions on trade.

Mercantilist Policies

Economic policies that were designed to increase exports and decrease imports, as well as policies to boost competitiveness.

The Enlightenment

Intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 17th to 19th centuries. Important thinkers challenged traditional forms of authority.

Zionism

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

The French Revolution

Revolution revolutionary ideals took on their own spin, summarized in the slogan liberté, égalité, et fraternité (liberty, equality, and fraternity). Causes includes the storming of the Bastille, during which the government executed thousands of opponents of the revolution, including the king and queen began.

The Haitian Revolution

Former slave Toussaint L'Ouverture led a general rebellion against slavery. L'Ouverture produced a constitution that granted equality and citizenship to all residents.

Otto von Bismarck

Prussian leader who used nationalist feelings to engineer three wars to bring about German unification. Favored realpolitik.

Eli Whitney

Inventor who created a system of interchangeable parts for manufacturing firearms for the U.S. military. Whitney's system directly led to the division of labor.

The Second Industrial Revolution

The developments of the second industrial revolution were in steel, chemicals, precision machinery, and electronics.

Social Darwinism

Some thinkers adapted Darwin's theory of biological evolution to society, creating the theory known as Social Darwinism. Belief that colonial powers were inherently superior to those they subjugated.

The Berlin Conference

Otto von Bismarck of Germany hosted 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.

The Zimmerman Telegram

Event that finally pushed the United States into World War I in January 1917. In this document, the German government offered to help Mexico reclaim territory it had lost to the United States in 1848 if Mexico allied itself with Germany in the war.

Propaganda

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

Great Depression

Though the 1920s brought modest economic gains for most of Europe, the subsequent Great Depression ended the tentative stability. Agricultural overproduction and the United States’ stock market crash in 1929 were two major causes of the global economic downturn.

World War I (Causes)

The causes of WW1 can be easily remembered by the acronym MANIA: Militarism, Alliances, Nationalism, Imperialism, Assassination.

Al-Qaeda

One of the deadliest group that used terrorist tactics to advance a political agenda. Financed by Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden,

Decolonization in Ghana

Britain agreed to negotiate independence for its West African colony of the Gold Coast which combined with the former British Togoland to form Ghana, Modern nation-state ideas influenced Ghanaian nationalism.

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Egyptian president who nationalized the Suez Canal, a valuable waterway that controlled two-thirds of the oil used by Europe. This triggered the Suez Crisis.

Nelson Mandela

Socialist lawyer who led the black resistance to apartheid, a system of racial segregation in South Africa.

Green Revolution

The Green Revolution emerged as a possible long-time response to hunger. Scientists developed new varieties of wheat, rice, and other grains that had higher yields and greater resistance to pests, diseases, and drought.

AIDS/HIV

New epidemics such as flu, HIV/AIDS emerged. Most recent stats show that 38.4 million people globally were living with HIV in 2021.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

Many countries signed an international accord that lifted restrictive barriers to trade. In 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) took over GATT’s operations, it currently governs more than 90% of all international trade.

The Cold War

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, that began in 1947