AP World History Ultimate Review

Neo-Confucianism

popular during the Tang Dynasty; fused elements of Buddhism & Confucianism

Catholic Church

The largest of three main branches of Chrisitanity; centered in Rome and led by the pope; found most often in Europe, the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of East Asia.

Eastern Orthodox Church

The third largest of the three main branches of Christianity; originally based in the Byzantine Empire; found most often in Russia, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and parts of Central Asia.

Shi'a

One of the two main branches of Islam; commonly described as orthodox & differs from Shi'a in its understanding of the Sunnah and in its acceptance of the first three caliphs; is by far the most common branch of Islam worldwide.

Chinampa

a form of Mesoamerican agriculture in which farmers cultivated crops in rectangular plots of land on lake beds; hosted corns, beans, chilis, squash, tomatoes, and more; provided up to seen harvest per year

Mit'a

A mandatory public service system in the Inca Empire requiring all people below the age of 50 to serve for two months out of the year; not to be confused with the mita, a forced labor system practiced by conquisadors in the former Inca Empire.

Mandate of Heaven

Ancient Chinese concept stating that the right rule was granted by the heavens; used to explain the rise of every Chinese dynasty including the Qing in 1644.

Grand Canal

World's longest canal, connecting the fertile Huang He River to the highly populated cities in the north; allowed grain to be shipped easily.

Champa Rice

Introduced to China from Vietnam; allowed the Chinese to have two harvests per year, dramatically improving output; combined with an improved infrastructure, led to a significant growth of the Chinese population

Al-Andalus

Islamic state located in modern-day Spain; led by the Berbers; renowned for its achievements in science, mathematics, and trade.

Astrolabe

Introduced to the Islamic world in the 700s, where it was perfected by mathematicians; used by astronomers and navigators to determine latitude through inclination.

Trans-Saharan Trade

Trade network starting in the 400s and 500s; thrived due to an organized network of camel caravans carrying gold, salt, cloth, slaves, and other valuables; allowed the kingdoms of Ghana and Mali to thrive, and as Islam spread to Africa, allowed its teaching to impact the lives of kings and traders.

Feudalism

Political & economic system that developed as a result of the decentralization and collapse of the Western Roman Empire; lords, usually noblemen, protected vassals in exchange for mandatory labor or military service; vassals received a fief, or grant of land

Bills of Exchange

written guarantees of payment that were essentially the forerunners of modern-day bank checks; helped facilitate trade; known as sakk in the Islamic world; also used in China during this period

Crusades

Holy wars launched by Pope Urban II in 1095 that called for Christians to reclaim the Holy Land of Israel from Muslims; its for campaigns, lasting over 100 years, were unsuccessful; stimulated European-Muslim trade and reintroduced Europeans to wisdom that had been last taught during the Classical period.

Ottomans

Group of Anatolian Turks who, in their dedication to Islam, attacked the weakening Byzantine Empire and captured Constantinople in 1453; expanded to ceate an emprie in the MIddle East & Southeast Europe; collapsed after World War 1.

Mongols

Group of Central Asian nomads from Mongolia who, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, conquered large portions of the Asian continent; four empires, centered on Russia, China, Persia, and the Central Asian steppes, were led by Khan's successors until the Mongol Empire collapsed into disunity and civil war.

Genghis Khan

Mongol clan leader who united the clans and made the Mongols the most feared force in Asia; under his leadership, the Mongol Empire expanded greatly into China Persia, Central Asia, and Tibet; sons ruled the Four Khanates that followed; grandson, Kublai Khan, became leader of the Yuan Dynasty in 1271.

Mansa Musa

Ruling from 1312 to 1337, he was the most famous of the Mali emperors; capital city, Timbuktu, was a center of trade, culture, and education; most famous for going on pilgrimage to Mecca carrying a large caravan with satchels of gold, which he used to fund schools and mosques across North Africa.

Swahili city-states

cities in East Africa that became bustling ports due to interchanges between Bantu and Arab mariners; in an effort to facilitate trade, the Bantus created a hybrid language, Swahili, that allowed them tto communicate with the Arabs.

Melaka

Located in modern-day Malaysia; port city that became a waystation for sea traders from China and India inthe fourteenth century.

Bubonic Plague

Disease that spread from China to Europe through rats and decimated Europe's population; ended the feudal system & led many people to question religion; also known as the Black Plague or the Black Death.

Ibn Battuta

Islamic traveler who, in the fourteenth century, visited the kingdom of Mansa Musa in the Mali Empire; his writings stimulated an interest in African trade.

Marco Polo

Venetian merchant who spent over 20 years traveling the Silk Road through the Mongol Empire, where he actually served on the court of its ruler, Kublai Khan; his efforts stimulated interest in trade with China.

Renaissance

A period of artistic and scientific self-discovery and relearning of Classicall wisdom, particularly from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries; stimulated by the Crusades and soldirers' exposure to Muslim advances in math, science, and the arts; also led to questioning of the nature of religion and natural phenomena.

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator who attempted to find a westward route to Asia under the sponsorship of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; first European to discover the New World

Conquest of Constantinople

In 1453, the Ottomans conquered the Byzantine capital and ended the Eastern Roman Empire, giving rise to the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until WWI.

Caravel

Inspired by the Arab dhow, a compact ship of Portuguese origin that featuredd triangular sails and a sternpost rudder making it capable of crossing oceans; used during hte Age of Exploration

Lateen Sail

Trangular sail that allowed ships to sail against the wind, increasing maneuverability and making early oceanic sailing possible.

Carrack

Large sailing vessel with multiple masts with a large cargo capacity; stable in rough seas, which enabled voyages of several months through difficult waters; originally developed in Europe by the Portuguese in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Fluyt

Dutch-built cargo ship with comparatively light construction, usually unarmed; alllowed for quick construction and smaller crew requirements, which facilitated the growth of Dutch maritime trade.

Joint-stock companies

Large, investor-backed companies that sponsored European exploration and colonization in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; precursors to modern corporations; a famous example is the British East India Company.

Columbian Exchange

Beginning with the explorations of Christopher Columbus, the interchange of plants, animals, pathogens, and people between the Old World and the New World.

Mercantilism

Economic system focused on maintaining a positive balance of exports to imports that encouraged domestic employement; measured the economic strength of a state relative to its neighboring states.

Sugar Cultivation

Specialized resource extraction process that relied on African slave labor after indigenous populations were decimated by disease; foreshadowed the intensive manufacturing of the Industrial Revolution.

Gunpowder

Chemical explosive developed by the Chinese; spread along trade routes like the Silk Road; Europeans introduced a slow-burning propellant to maximize the potential of explosive weapons.

Mughal Empire

Empire that reunified India in 1526, advocated religious tolerance, and sponsored great art & architecture projects; later collapsed because of Hindu/Muslim conflict and the competition of European traders

Songhai

Successor of the Mali Empire in West Africa in the 1500s; instituted administrative and economic reforms throughout their realm; conquered by the Moroccans in 1591.

Creoles

Persons of Spanish blood who were born in the Americas; descended from the peninsulares who came from the continent.

Mestizos

Persons of mixed European and indigenous descent in the Spanish colonies

Mulattos

Persons of mixed African and Spanish descent in the Spanish colonies.

Manchu

Nomadic group from Northeast China who were the principal rulers of the Qing Dynasty; created a multiethnic Chinese state; later came into comflict with Europeans, particularly the Russian Empire.

Peter the Great

Tsar of Russia form 1682 to 1725, he rapidly modernized Russia under autocratic rule; moved the capital to St. Petersburg to provide better access to Europe.

Tokugawa Shogunate

Ruled Japan from 1600 to 1867; isolated Japan form the rest of the world, banned Christianity, and ejected foreign merchants other than a small number of Dutch and Chinese ships annually.

Daimyo

The class of lords in a feudal system cetered on the relationship between lord and warrior or peasant, which was reformed during hte Tokugawa Shogunate.

Triangular Trade

Trade route between Europe and AFrica (manufactured goods), Africa and the New World (enslaved peoples), and the New World and Europe (raw materials like precious metals, sugar, and other agricultural products).

Encomienda

Spanish system of land grants that allowed colonists in hte Americas to force labor from indigenous populations.

Haciendas

Spanish system of landed estates in teh colonies; owners practiced the encomienda system and later the repartimiento system of labor, where workers were paid.

Printing Press

invented in Europe y Johannes Gutenberg in 1456; made mass literacy possible and contributed to several important social movements, such as the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.

Protestant Reformation

Movement questioning the practices of the Catholic Church during a period of social upheavel, particularly the selling of indulgences; commonly held to start with Martin Luther in Germany and his 95 Theses at Wittenburg; led to other reformers like John Calvin in Switzerland and John Wesley in England.

Peace of Westphalia

Series of treaties in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years' War, laid the basis for the modern state system.

Scientific Revolution

Period in which scientists challenged traditional accounts of reality by investigating the nature of natural phenomena like astronomical events; led to the scientifc method and progress in all of the natural sciences; early figures such as Galileo Galilei were persecuted by the Catholic Church.

Enlightment

Post-Renaissance period in European history devoted to the study and exploration of new ideas in science, politics, the arts, and philosophy.

American Revolution

Conflict between American colonists and the British governmnent, caused by growing resentments based on taxation and governing policies; Revolutionary War lasted from 1775 to 1781; ultimately ended in American independence and the first large-scale democracy since ancient Greece.

French Revolution

Conflict between the Third Estate (peasants, townsfolk, and merchants) and the First & Second Estates (clergy and nobility,respectively) for political and social controll; inspired by the American Revolution; various political fractions competed for control of the government, with Napoleon Bonaparte ultimately seizing power in a coup.

Maroon

term for a nineteenth-century escaped slave in the Americas who established his or her own settleent away form plantations, causing tensions with colonial authorities; term is also used to describe the slaves' present-day descendants

Haitian Revolution

Slave revolt that lasted form 1791-1804 led by Toussaint L'Overture; the former French colony of Saint-Domingue became the independent nation of Haiti, the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere and the world's first black republic.

Latin American Independence Movements

Movements against Spanish colonial rule in Central and South America in the 1810s and 1820s, which led to the independence of every nation in the region; inspired by the success of the Haitian Revolutio; key leaders were Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin, and Bernando O'Higgins

Nationalism

The tendency of people to see themselves as part of a broader community with unifying forces such as common heritages, cultures, languages, religions, and customs; this sense of national identity and pride both fueled the expansion of empires and often occured as a reaction against foreign rule.

Adam Smith

Scottish economist whose 1776 work the Wealth of Nations advocated a laissez-faire policy toward economics (minimal government interference), making him one ofthe fathers of modern capitalism.

Factory System

System of labor that uses rigorous mechanization and large numbers of unskilled workers to mass-produce goods that were once made skillfully by hand; developed during the Industrial Revolution; the use of inter-changeable parts simplified assembly but made work repetitive.

Global Division of Labor

The sytem in which industrialized societies utilized the raw materials of less industrialized societies, to facilite large-scale manufacturing and transportaion; the growth of these industrialized societies provided an impetus for imperalist conquests later in the nineteenth century.

First Industrial Revolution

Rapid development and industrial production that occurred in European countries and the United States between 1760 & 1820; the development of the steam engine allowed steamships and early locomotives to rapidly increase the speed at which goods, people, and ideas spread.

Second Industrial Revolution

Continuing industrialization htat occured between 1870 and 1920, which included revolutionary new methods of producing steel, chemicals, and electrical power; changed society Western Europe, Japan, and the United States by introducing new ways of working and living.

Railroads

Steam-powered locomotives invented in England in hte 1820s; started a "transportation revolution" in which mass-produced goods could be transported over-land more quickly and inexpensively than ever before; by 1900, virtually every industrialized nation had a well-developed railroad system.

Liberalism

Political and economic ideology based on Enlightenment philosophies that advocated for constitutional government, separation of powers, and natural rights, as well as limited government in the regulation of hte new industrialized economy.

Socialism

Utopian ideal developed in response to the poor working conditions faced by factory workers; in this radical form of society, the workers would run the economy in a self-sufficient manner and share everything fairly, thereby eliminating the wealthy classes.

Communism

Extreme form of socialism in whigh governments centrally plan the economy; inspired by the Communisst Manifest (1848), which advocated the overthrow of the bourgeoisie (capitalists) by the proletariat (workers).

Tanzimat Movement

Period of reform in the Ottoman Empire, lasting form 1839 to 1879, that resulted in a modernized infrastructure, a new legal code modeled after the French system, and religious inequality under the law.

First Opium War

Conflict waged between China and Great Britain in 1839 after Chinese customs officials refused British imports of Indian opium due to the addictive effects it had on Chinese workers; this war weakened the Qing Dynasty and made China more vulnerable to unequal trade with the West.

Second Opium War

Conflict between China, Great Britain, and France that lasted from 1856 to 1860; spurred by the desire of the European powers to further weaken China's position in trade negotiations, to legalize the opium trade, and to expand the export of indentured workers from China.

Self-Strengthening Movement

Attempt by China, in the 1860s and 1870s, to modernize its miiltary and economy under its own terms; changed were minimal due to imperail resistance.

Taiping Rebellion

Christian-based uprising led by Chinese scholar Hong Xiuquan that lasted from 1850 to 1864; the violent reaction by the imperial court left China financhially strainedd and caused the bloodiest civil war in world history.

Boxer Rebellion

Movement undertaken by a society of Chinese and backed by Empress Cixi that sought to rid China of foreigners and foreign influence; the Boxers were defeated by a multinational force that included the United States, Russia, and Japan.

Meiji Restoration

Successful rebellion in which young reform-minded Japanese sought to overthro the isolationist Tokugawa shogunate and restore the power of Emperor Meiji; sparked by contact between Japan and the United States; followinng hte restoration, Japan experienced rapid industrialization and modernization.

Imperialism

Policy of a country extending its rule over other countries, often by force; the world saw a wave of imperialism from 1750 to 1900 in particular, which was spurred by industrial countries, need for raw materials and for makerts for their goods, as well as justified by various cultural, racial ideologies about the superiority of imperial powers.

Social Darwinism

Popular nineteenth-century theory used to justify capitalism and imperialism; drew on evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin's view of "survival of the fittest".

Indian Rebellion of 1857

Conflict fought in India between the British and the Indian soldiers in British service; the British victory strengthened the legitimacy of their rule.

Congo Free State

Colony in Central Africa established in 1885 by Belgium's King Leopold II; despite the name "Free State," it consisted of a series of a large rubber plantations worked by forced labor in brutal weather and working conditions; in the 1960s, it declared independence, beame the nation of Zaire, and is currently known as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Indentured Servants

System of labor in which workers are contracted to work for a fixed period of time, usually for a low wage, in exchange for land or other ssistance.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Law enacted in the United States in 1882 that severely limited immigration from China, which had been prevalent earlier in the nineteentch century during the time of the California Gold Rush and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.

Emancipation of Slaves

Process by which slavery was abolished and slaves were granted their freedom; partly the result of a new political movement that found slavery to be incompatible with Enlightenment ideals; between the 1830s and 1880s, every industrialized nation and its colonies gradually abolished slavery, turnig to other labor systems such as wage labor and indentured servitude.

Feminism

Movement undertaken by women that emerged as a result of the economic changes that occured following industrialization; challenged established gender roles and advocated for increased political and legal rights.