European and Global History Lecture Series

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and concepts from recorded Western and World history lectures, ranging from the Neanderthals to Enlightenment-era global exploration.

Eurasia

The interconnected landmass of Europe and Asia that was historically connected through networks like the Silk Roads for trade, migration, warfare, and cultural exchange.

Neanderthals

An extinct human species related to modern Homo sapiens that lived in Europe and western Asia roughly $400,000–40,000$ years ago, utilized tools and fire, and interbred with modern humans.

Indo-Europeans

Peoples speaking languages belonging to a specific language family that includes Greek, Latin, Germanic, Celtic, Sanskrit, and Persian; the term does not refer to a single race.

Roman Empire

A Mediterranean-based empire traditionally dated from $27\text{ BCE}$ (under Augustus) until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in $476\text{ CE}$, known for spreading Latin, law, and Christianity.

Renaissance

A period of cultural and intellectual transformation beginning in the $14\text{th}$ century in Italy, characterized by humanism and a renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman culture.

Ptolemy

A $2\text{nd}$-century CE scholar who authored the Almagest and Geographia, providing a geocentric model of the universe and maps that influenced Renaissance explorers.

Bonnet Rouge

Also known as the Phrygian Cap, this ancient-style soft cap became a political symbol of liberty and revolutionary republicanism during the French Revolution.

Fall of Constantinople

Occurred on $29\text{ May }1453$ when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, ending the Byzantine Empire and serving as a major turning point in European history.

Admiral of the Ocean Sea

The title given to Christopher Columbus by the Spanish monarchy following his $1492$ voyage which brought Europeans into sustained contact with the Americas.

Hern
an Cort
es

The Spanish conquistador who led the expedition arriving in Mexico in $1519$ that eventually destroyed Aztec political power through alliances and warfare.

Tenochtitl
an

The capital of the Aztec Empire located on an island in Lake Texcoco; it was conquered in $1521$ and became the site where Spanish Mexico City was built.

Treaty of Tordesillas

An agreement sanctioned by the pope that divided newly encountered overseas territories between Spain (west) and Portugal (east).

New Laws of 1542

Spanish reforms intended to limit abuses of Indigenous peoples and the encomienda system, largely influenced by the criticisms of Bartolom
e de las Casas.

Encomienda system

A Spanish colonial system granting colonists rights to Indigenous labor and tribute, which in practice led to severe exploitation and forced labor.

Potos

A major silver-mining center in present-day Bolivia where deposits discovered in $1545$ fueled a global economy through the exploitation of Indigenous labor via the mita system.

Catasto of 1427

A detailed tax assessment in Florence that recorded wealth and property, providing historians with evidence of economic inequality in Renaissance society.

Arsenal of Venice

A massive state-controlled naval and shipbuilding complex that was one of Europe's most significant pre-industrial industrial enterprises.

Florentine Chancery

The government office in Florence responsible for administrative and diplomatic correspondence, serving as a setting for the development of Renaissance political thought.

Lorenzo de’ Medici

Known as 'the Magnificent,' he was the dominant political figure and art patron in Florence from $1469–1492$ who embodied the link between wealth and humanism.

Treaty of Lodi

A $1454$ peace agreement between major Italian powers that established a balance of power and a stable period known as the Italian League.

Pazzi Conspiracy

An assassination attempt against the Medici family in which Giuliano was killed but Lorenzo survived, illustrating the intense political violence in Italian city-states.

Girolamo Savonarola

A Dominican friar who led Florence after the $1494$ Medici expulsion, known for his 'Bonfire of the Vanities' and his criticism of Church corruption.

Piero Soderini

A Florentine statesman who served as gonfaloniere for life from $1502–1512$ and whose government employed Niccolo Machiavelli.

Niccolo Machiavelli

A Florentine diplomat and thinker ($1469–1527$) who focused on the actual mechanics of political power and wrote The Prince and Discourses on Livy.

The Prince

A political treatise by Machiavelli that argues a ruler should prioritize political survival and effectiveness (virtu) over conventional Christian morality.

Francesco Petrarch

Known as the 'Father of Humanism,' he was an Italian poet ($1304–1374$) who promoted the study and preservation of classical Latin manuscripts.

Humanism

An intellectual movement focused on the studia humanitatis (rhetoric, history, literature, philosophy) and the study of classical Greek and Roman texts.

Lorenzo Valla

A humanist scholar ($1407–1457$) who used linguistic analysis to prove the 'Donation of Constantine' was a medieval forgery.

Treatise on the Donation of Constantine

Valla’s work showing that the document granting the pope political authority was written centuries after the time of Constantine, challenging institutional authority.

Cyriac of Ancona

A humanist and antiquarian ($1391–1452$) who traveled the Mediterranean recording ancient monuments and inscriptions to preserve classical knowledge.

Artist-engineer

A Renaissance concept of the artist as a creator who also possesses technical expertise in anatomy, geometry, engineering, and optics.

Leonardo da Vinci

The quintessential 'Renaissance man' ($1452–1519$) who combined artistic work like the Mona Lisa with scientific studies in anatomy and mechanics.

Domenico Fontana

An architect and engineer ($1543–1607$) who worked for Pope Sixtus V and was famous for erecting large Egyptian obelisks in Rome.

Johannes Gutenberg

A German printer who developed the movable-type printing press around the mid-$15\text{th}$ century and produced the first printed Bible.

Printing press

A technology using movable metal type that lowered the cost of books and helped spread humanism, Protestantism, and scientific ideas across Europe.

Wittenberg

The German city where Martin Luther served as a professor and preacher, and where the $95$ Theses were associated in $1517$.

Frederick the Wise

Elector of Saxony who protected Martin Luther from the Catholic Church, ensuring he avoided arrest and allowing the Reformation to develop.

Martin Luther

A German theologian ($1483–1546$) whose criticism of indulgences and emphasis on salvation through faith alone triggered the Protestant Reformation.

Indulgences

Practices in the Catholic Church regarding the remission of temporal punishment for sin; their aggressive sale was the primary trigger for Martin Luther's protest.

Salvation by grace, scripture, and faith alone

The three Lutheran principles: sola gratia (God's grace), sola scriptura (Biblical authority), and sola fide (justification through faith).

Priesthood of all believers

Luther's argument that all Christians have a direct spiritual relationship with God, rejecting the exclusive spiritual authority of the Catholic hierarchy.

Christian humanism

A movement applying Renaissance humanist methods to Christian scholarship, emphasizing a return to early Church texts and Scripture for reform.

Erasmus of Rotterdam

A Dutch scholar ($1466–1536$) and major Christian humanist who edited the Greek New Testament and criticized Church corruption while remaining Catholic.

Treaty of Augsburg (1555)

An agreement that recognized both Catholicism and Lutheranism in the Holy Roman Empire, allowing rulers to choose the religion for their territory (cuius regio, eius religio).

Scientific renaissance

The recovery and transformation of ancient scientific knowledge (Aristotle, Ptolemy, Galen) through observation and experimentation during the Renaissance.

Scientific revolution

A $16\text{th}–17\text{th}$-century transformation in understanding the natural world through mathematics and systematic investigation, led by figures like Copernicus and Newton.

Francis Bacon

An English philosopher ($1561–1626$) who promoted empiricism, inductive reasoning, and the use of knowledge to improve human life.

Divine right of kings

A political theory asserting that monarchs receive their authority directly from God, often used to justify absolutist rule.

Salomon's House

A fictional research institution described in Bacon’s New Atlantis that serves as an early vision of organized, state-sponsored scientific collaboration.

Royal Society of London

Founded in $1660$ with the motto 'Nullius in verba,' this institution promoted experimental science and included members like Isaac Newton.

French Royal Academy of Sciences

Founded in $1666$ under Louis XIV to support scientific research and connect scientific progress with the prestige and power of the state.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

The chief minister to Louis XIV who promoted mercantilism, manufacturing, and the creation of scientific and cultural institutions.

Absolutism

A political system where monarchs, such as Louis XIV, sought centralized authority divinely sanctioned by God, supported by administration and military power.

Philip II of Spain

The King of Spain ($1556–1598$) and defender of Catholicism who ruled a global empire and launched the failed Spanish Armada against England in $1588$.

Elizabeth I

Queen of England ($1558–1603$) who consolidated Protestantism and oversaw a period of exploration, cultural flourishing, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Thirty Years’ War

A complex European conflict ($1618–1648$) involving Catholic-Protestant tensions and balance-of-power struggles that resulted in massive destruction in Central Europe.

Peace of Westphalia

A series of treaties in $1648$ that ended the Thirty Years' War and recognized the sovereignty of states, often linked to the start of the modern state system.

Treaty of the Pyrenees

A $1659$ treaty that ended the conflict between France and Spain, marking the decline of Spanish dominance and the rise of French power in Europe.

Huguenots

French Calvinists who were granted rights by the Edict of Nantes ($1598$) until it was revoked by Louis XIV in $1685$, leading to their mass exodus.

Oliver Cromwell

The English military and political leader who defeated Charles I during the Civil Wars and served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth from $1653–1658$.

Charles II of England

The monarch restored to the throne in $1660$, ending the Commonwealth period and marking a move toward political compromise in England.

Constitutional monarchy

A form of government where royal authority is legally limited by institutions like Parliament, as seen in England after the Glorious Revolution of $1688$.

Peter the Great of Russia

The Tsar ($1682–1725$) who implemented westernizing reforms, built St. Petersburg, and transformed Russia into a major European power.

War of the Spanish Succession

An early $18\text{th}$-century conflict intended to prevent the unification of the French and Spanish crowns; it ended with the Treaty of Utrecht in $1713$.

Dutch East India Company

Founded in $1602$, this corporate entity held quasi-governmental powers and dominated the spice trade in Asia during the $17\text{th}$ century.

Dutch West India Company

Founded in $1621$, this company focused on Atlantic trade, colonizing parts of Brazil and the Caribbean, and participating in the slave trade.

Triangular Trade System

The Atlantic network linking Europe (manufactured goods), Africa (enslaved people), and the Americas (plantation goods like sugar and tobacco).

Tulipmania

A speculative frenzy in the Netherlands during the $1630\text{s}$ where the price of tulip bulbs reached extreme highs before collapsing.

Mercantilism

An economic policy focused on state power where governments sought favorable trade balances and used colonies as sources of raw materials and markets.

Seven Years’ War

A global conflict ($1756–1763$) from which Britain emerged as the dominant colonial power, while France lost significant territories in North America.

Imperial overstretch

A situation where an empire's territorial expansion exceeds its ability to maintain effective military, economic, or political control due to high costs.

Republic of Letters

An international intellectual network of Enlightenment scholars who communicated through books and correspondence, crossing political and religious borders.

Grub Street Hacks

A term for low-paid professional writers in London who produced popular pamphlets and newspapers for the growing commercial market of ideas.

Voltaire

A leading French Enlightenment writer ($1694–1778$) who advocated for freedom of expression and was a fierce critic of religious intolerance.

Denis Diderot

The primary editor of the Encyclop
edie ($1751–1772$) who promoted the systematic collection and dissemination of all human knowledge.

Encyclop
edie

A massive reference work of the Enlightenment that included scientific and philosophical entries designed to challenge traditional authority and improve society.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A philosopher ($1712–1778$) whose work The Social Contract argued that legitimate political power resides in the 'general will' of the people.

Emilie du Ch
atelet

An Enlightenment mathematician and physicist who translated Newton's Principia into French, serving as a key figure in spreading Newtonian science.

Dorinda Outram

A modern historian whose work re-evaluates the Enlightenment as a complex movement shaped by gender, empire, power, and social reality.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman ($1792$), she argued that women were rational beings entitled to the same education as men.

Immanuel Kant

The German philosopher who defined Enlightenment as 'humanity’s emergence from self-imposed immaturity' and championed the motto 'Sapere Aude' (Dare to know).

Salons

Intellectual social gatherings, often hosted by women (salonni
eres), where the ideas of the Enlightenment were discussed outside of formal institutions.

Emperor Joseph II of Austria

An 'Enlightened Absolute' ruler who attempted radical reforms including religious toleration and the reduction of Church power within the Habsburg lands.

Catherine the Great of Russia

An empress who corresponded with Enlightenment thinkers and promoted cultural reforms while maintaining aristocratic privilege and serfdom.

Frederick the Great of Prussia

The King of Prussia ($1740–1786$) who combined military expansion with Enlightenment-inspired administrative and legal reforms.

Sans Souci

The palace at Potsdam built by Frederick the Great as a retreat, symbolizing the cultural and intellectual lifestyle of an enlightened monarch.

Enlightened absolutism

A system where absolute monarchs adopted rational government and Enlightenment reforms (like legal reform) without accepting popular sovereignty.

Physiocrats

French economic thinkers who believed agriculture was the primary source of wealth and advocated for 'natural laws' in economics with limited government interference.

Adam Smith

A Scottish economist who wrote The Wealth of Nations ($1776$), emphasizing the division of labor, free markets, and the 'invisible hand.'

Laissez-faire

An economic principle meaning 'let do,' which argues for minimal government interference in the economy, marking a shift away from mercantilism.

Tupaia

A Tahitian navigator and priest who joined James Cook in $1769$, providing essential Indigenous geographical and navigational knowledge to the expedition.

James Cook

A British naval officer whose voyages across the Pacific ($1768–1779$) combined scientific observation and cartography with the expansion of the British Empire.

Terra Australis

Latin for 'Southern Land,' a theoretical continent Europeans long believed existed in the south, which motivated much of the exploration in the Pacific.

Omai

A Tahitian man who traveled to Great Britain with Cook's expedition in $1774$, becoming a symbol of the complex cultural encounters of the era.

Abb
e Guillaume Thomas Raynal

Author of the History of the Two Indies, a work that utilized Enlightenment ideas to fiercely criticize European colonialism, slavery, and imperial exploitation.