World History

Feudalism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b76jyFUcU8 the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection. A political system in which nobles are granted the use of lands that legally belong to their king, in exchange for their loyalty, military service, and protection of the people who live on the land Feudalism was the system in European medieval societies of the 10th to 13th centuries CE whereby a social hierarchy was established based on local administrative control and the distribution of land into units (fiefs). A landowner (lord) gave a fief, along with a promise of military and legal protection, in return for a payment of some kind from the person who received it (vassal). Such payment came in the form of feudal service which could mean military service or the regular payment of produce or money. Both lord and vassal were freemen and the term feudalism is not generally applied to the relationship between the unfree peasantry (serfs or villeins) and the person of higher social rank on whose land they laboured. Problems of Definition Although the term 'feudalism' and 'feudal society' are commonly used in history texts, scholars have never agreed on precisely what those terms mean. The terms were applied to European medieval society from the 16th century CE onwards and subsequently to societies elsewhere, notably in the Zhou period of China (1046-256 BCE) and Edo period of Japan (1603-1868 CE). The term feudalism was not used by the people who lived in the Middle Ages. Neither can the feudal system, once defined, be applied uniformly across different European states as there were variations in laws and customs in different geographical areas and in different centuries. As a consequence, many historians beleive that the term feudalism is only of limited use in understanding medieval societies. The Oxford English Dictionary has as concise a definition for feudalism as anywhere while still including its various levels of application: The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection. Origins of Feudalism The word 'feudalism' derives from the medieval Latin terms feudalis, meaning fee, and feodum, meaning fief. The fee signified the land given (the fief) as a payment for regular military service. The system had its roots in the Roman manorial system (in which workers were compensated with protection while living on large estates) and in the 8th century CE kingdom of the Franks where a king gave out land for life (benefice) to reward loyal nobles and receive service in return. The feudal system proper became widespread in Western Europe from the 11th century CE onwards, largely thanks to the Normans as their rulers carved up and dished out lands wherever their armies conquered. THE VASSAL RECEIVED ANY INCOME FROM THE LAND, HAD AUTHORITY OVER ITS INHABITANTS & COULD PASS THE SAME RIGHTS ON TO HIS HEIRS. Lords & Vassals Starting from the top of society's pyramid, the monarch - a good example is William the Conqueror (r. 1066-1087 CE) who considered all the lands of England as his personal property - could give a parcel of land (of no fixed size) to a noble who, in return, would be that monarch's vassal, that is he would promise loyalty and service when required. The most common and needed service was military service, which entailed fighting in that monarch's army or protecting assets of the Crown such as castles. In some cases, a money payment (known as scutage), which the monarch then used to pay mercenary soldiers, might be offered instead of military service. The vassal received any income from the land, had authority over its inhabitants and could pass the same rights on to his heirs. The nobles who had received land, often called suzerain vassals, could have much more than they either needed or could manage themselves and so they often sub-let parts of it to tenant vassals. Once again, the person was given the right to use and profit from this land and in return, in one form or another, then owed a service to the landowner. This service could again take the form of military service (typical in the case of a knight) or, as tenants might be of a lower social class (but still be freemen) and they might not have had the necessary military skills or equipment, more usually they offered a percentage of their revenue from the land they rented (either in money or produce) or, later in the Middle Ages, made a fixed payment of rent. There were also irregular special fees to be paid to the lord such as when his eldest daughter married or his son was knighted. English Medieval Knight by The British Museum (Copyright) The arrangement which created a vassal was known as 'homage' as they often knelt before their particular lord and swore an oath of loyalty, for which, in return, they not only received the land but also their lord's protection if and when required. The promise of protection was no small matter in times of war, when there were frequent raids from hostile neighbouring states, and when there was a perpetual danger of general banditry. Protection also came in the form of legal support and representation if a vassal found himself in a civil or church court. A tenant usually handed down their tenancy to their heir although it was sometimes possible to sell the right of tenancy to a third party, provided the lord who owned the land agreed. Another type of relationship in feudal societies, especially in medieval Germany and France, involved the allod, an inalienable property, i.e. one that could not be taken back. Holders of an allodstill owed some form of allegiance to a superior local lord but the relationship was not based on land ownership and so that allegiance was harder to enforce. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM PERPETUATED ITSELF AS A STATUS QUO BECAUSE THE CONTROL OF LAND REQUIRED THE ABILITY TO PERFORM MILITARY SERVICE & LAND WAS REQUIRED TO FUND MILITARY SERVICE. The feudal system perpetuated itself as a status quo because the control of land required the ability to perform military service and, because of the costs involved (of weapons, armour and horses), land was required to fund military service. Thus there was a perpetual divide between the landed aristocracy (monarchs, lords, and some tenants) and those who worked the land for them who could be free or unfree labourers. Unfree labourers were serfs, also known as villeins, who were at the bottom of the social pyramid and who made up the vast majority of the population. The peasantry worked, without pay, on the land owned or rented by others to produce food for themselves and, just as importantly, food and profit for their masters. They were often treated as little more than slaves and could not leave the estate on which they lived and worked. The term feudalism, however, is generally applied by modern historians only to the relationship between lords and vassals, and not the peasantry. Rather, the relationship between serf and landowner or tenant is referred to as the manorial system after the most common unit of land, the 'manor'. Consequences & Effects The consequence of the feudal system was the creation of very localised groups of communities which owed loyalty to a specific local lord who exercised absolute authority in his domain. As fiefs were often hereditary, a permanent class divide was established between those who had land and those who rented it. The system was often weighted in favour of the sovereign as when a noble died without an heir, his estate went back to the monarch to either keep for themselves or to redistribute to another noble. Monarchs could distribute land for political purposes, fragmenting a noble's holdings or distancing him from the court. It also became difficult to keep track of who owned what which led to such controls as Domesday Book of 1087 CE. Great Domesday Book by UK National Archives (CC BY) Additional effects were the presence of vassals in the local courts which deliberated on cases involving the estates of their lords. Thus, there could be a clear conflict of interest and lack of impartiality, even if the more serious criminal cases were referred to the courts of the Crown. In addition, the system could create serious unrest. Sometimes a monarch might insist on active military service because of a war but nobles might also refuse, as happened to King John of England in 1215 CE and the Barons' Revolt which led to the signing of the Magna Carta. In 1215 CE, and in subsequent revolts in the 13th century CE, the barons were acting collectively for their own interests which was a direct threat to the entire system of feudalism, based as it was upon single lords and vassals working out their own private arrangements. Military service was reduced to fixed terms, typically 40 days in England, in an effort to reduce the burden on nobles so that they did not leave their lands unattended for too long. However, 40 days was not usually enough to see out a campaign and so a monarch was obliged to pay mercenaries, dealing another blow to the tradition of feudalism and vassalage. Decline of Feudalism The feudal system was essentially based on the relationship of reciprocal aid between lord and vassal but as that system became more complex over time, so this relationship weakened. Lords came to own multiple estates and vassals could be tenants of various parcels of land so that loyalties became confused and even conflicting with people choosing to honour the relationship that suited their own needs best. Another blow to the system came from sudden population declines caused by wars and plagues, particularly the Black Death (which peaked between 1347-1352 CE), and by peasant revolts (most famously in England in 1381 CE). Such crises caused a chronic shortage of labour and the abandonment of estates because there was no one to work them. The growth of large towns and cities also saw labour leave the countryside to find a better future and the new jobs available there. By the 13th century CE, the increase in commerce and the greater use of coinage changed the way the feudal system worked. Money allowed lords to pay their sovereign instead of performing military service; the monarch's use of mercenaries then meant military service, and thus the barons themselves became less important to the defence of the realm. Conversely, a monarch could now distribute money instead of land in his system of rewards. A rich merchant class developed with no ties of loyalty to anyone except their sovereign, their suppliers and their customers. Even serfs could sometimes buy their freedom and escape the circumstances into which they were born. All of these factors conspired to weaken the feudal system based on land ownership and service even if feudalism would continue beyond the medieval period in some forms and in some places.

effects of Inter Caetera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFSmctbZaIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Qllx4YH9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Qllx4YH9A An important if initially unintended effect of the combination of this papal bull and the Treaty of Tordesillas was that nearly all the Pacific Ocean and the west coast of North America were given to Spain. King John II naturally declined to enter into a hopeless competition at Rome, and simply ignored the bulls, thus neither admitting their authority nor defying the Church. According to Oskar Spate, if Rome was in Ferdinand's pocket, highly placed personages at the Spanish Court were in his, and kept him well informed of its moves.[7] Controlling the sea lanes from Spain to the Antilles and in possession of bases in the Azores and Madeira, Portugal occupied a strategic naval position and he chose to pursue negotiations. A map of the Spanish (red) and Portuguese Empires (blue) in the period of their personal union (1581-1640). Areas explored & claimed by the Spanish, but unsettled, (e.g. the Amazon basin) are not shown. Neither side paid any attention to Pope Alexander's bulls.[7]Instead they negotiated the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, which moved the line further west to a meridian 370 leagues west of the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands, now explicitly giving Portugal all newly discovered lands east of the line.[11] In response to Portugal's discovery of the Spice Islands in 1512, the Spanish put forward the idea, in 1518, that Pope Alexander had divided the world into two halves.[12] By this time, however, other European powers had overwhelmingly rejected the notion that the Pope had the right to convey sovereignty of regions as vast as the New World. Even within Spain influential voices, such as Francisco de Vitoria, had denounced the validity of the Inter caetera. While Spain never gave up its claims based on papal bulls, neither did the Spanish crown seek papal sanctions over the Pacific Ocean line of demarcation. Rather, Spain negotiated directly with Portugal.[2]

during age of exploration, part of North America claimed by france was ______

new. france- consisted of Appalachian mountains included st. Lawrence valley. =, Great Lakes, missipii valley and entire region of land westward to the rockies

Manufactured Goods

Definition of the Triangular TradeThe Meaning and Definition the Triangular Trade: The 'Triangular Trade' was so-called because it was three-sided, involving voyages from: England to Africa Africa to the Americas The Americas back to England The Triangular Trade is a term used to describe the trade occurring between England, Africa, and the Americas. The trade fell into the three categories: The raw materials and natural resources such as sugar, tobacco, rice and cotton that were found in the 13 colonies - also refer to Colonialism Manufactured products from England and Europe such as guns, cloth, beads Slaves from West Africa, many of whom toiled in the Slave Plantations Triangular Trade Route Map Triangular Trade - A Journey with various DestinationsThe Transatlantic Triangular Trade involved three journeys each with the promise of a large profit and a full cargo. In reality, the journey was more complicated with ships travelling from all over Europe carrying manufactured goods to different ports along the African coast to trade for slaves. The ships from Africa then sailed across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Americas to trade the slaves for raw materials. Finally the ships from America returned back to Europe with raw materials such as sugar, tobacco, rice and cotton. Definition of Imports and ExportsDefinition of Exports and Imports: Exports are goods sent for sale outside a colony or country. Exported goods earnmoney. Imports are goods brought into a colony or country. Imported goods cost money. The system of Triangular Trade allowed for goods to be traded for other goods, rather than being bought or sold. Triangular Trade - Trade is the WordThe triangular trade routes were pivotal to the practise of Mercantilism by England by which colonies had one main purpose: to enrich the parent country (England). The premise of Trade was that the different regions would trade goods that they had in abundance in exchange for those goods which were needed but lacking in their own region. Money did not change hands. John Hawkins Slave Ship Triangular Trade - The Slave TradeSlavery had existed in Africa since ancient times. Enslaved Africans became part of the international trade network of the period used extensively by the Spanish and the Portuguese in the Americas. The English became involved with the Slave Trade and the pattern of Triangular Trade across the Atlantic was formed. Sir John Hawkins is often considered to be the pioneer of the British slave trade, because he was the first to run the Triangular trade route across the Atlantic, making a profit at every stop. Leg 1: Ships from England would go to Africa carrying iron products, cloth, trinkets and beads, guns and ammunition. The ships traded these goods for slaves, gold and spices (pepper) Leg 2: Ships from Africa would go to the American Colonies via the route known as the 'Middle Passage'. The slaves were exchanged for goods from the Americas, destined for the Slave Plantations Leg 3: Ships from the Americas would then take raw materials back to England. The English would use the raw materials to make 'finished goods' And the same process would start all over again... The Slave Trade starting in Africa Triangular Trade - Goods from EnglandThe goods that needed to be brought into the colonies from England included manufactured products such as guns, cloth, furniture and tools. Other items such as tea and spices were also sent to the colonies. Triangular Trade - Goods to AfricaThe goods that needed to be brought from England to Africa included iron products, cloth, trinkets and beads, copper, guns and ammunition. Triangular Trade - Goods from AfricaSlaves were the most important 'commodity' sent from Africa. Other goods were exported from Africa including spices, gold, ivory and feathers - but these items were destined for Europe via other trade routes. Triangular Trade - Goods to EnglandThe goods that needed to be brought into England from the colonies consisted of raw materials from natural resources found in the New World such as timber, fur, iron, fish, whale oil, sugar, tobacco, rice and cotton. Rum was one of the few 'finished goods' that were sent to England. Triangular Trade - The Trade RoutesTriangular trade is a term that describes the Atlantic trade routes between three different destinations, or countries, in Colonial Times. The Triangular Trade routes, covered England, Europe, Africa, the Americas and the West Indies. The West Indies supplied slaves, sugar, molasses and fruits to the American colonies. The Triangular Trade Routes included the following: Trade Route 1: England to Africa to the Americas Trade Route 2: England to Africa to the West Indies Trade Route 3: Europe to the West Indies to the Americas Trade Route 4: Americas to the West Indies to Europe Triangular Trade - Goods traded by the 13 ColoniesTriangular Trade was made possible by the establishment of the 13 Colonies in Colonial America and their surplus of raw materials. The following chart indicates the natural resources and raw materials, together with goods that were manufactured in the colonies, that were used for trading purposes with England. These goods included timber, sugar fur, cotton, flour, iron ore products, tobacco, rice, indigo dye, fish, guns, ammunition. wool and rum. The following chart shows the main trade goods from each of the 13 Colonies for comprehensive facts and info refer to Colonial Times. Chart showing Goods traded by the 13 Colonies ● New England Colonies ● Middle Colonies ● Southern Colonies Name of Colonyor SettlementRegionTrade and Economic Activity Virginia ColonySouthernCorn, Flax, Tobacco & SugarNew York ColonyMiddleFur Trade, Flour, Timber, Iron ore productsMassachusetts ColonyNewEnglandShip building, Rum exports, Fish, Whale products, Fur, WoolMaryland ColonySouthernFish, Timber, Fur, Tobacco & SugarRhode Island ColonyNewEnglandShip building, Rum exports, Timber, CornConnecticut ColonyNewEnglandShip building, Flour, Fish, Rum New Hampshire ColonyNewEnglandShip building, Rum exportsDelaware ColonyMiddleFur, timber, Iron ore productsNorth Carolina ColonySouthernRice, Indigo, Tobacco & SugarSouth Carolina ColonySouthernIndigo, Rice, Tobacco & SugarNew Jersey ColonyMiddleAgriculture, Iron ore productsPennsylvania ColonyMiddleAgriculture, Iron ore productsGeorgia ColonySouthernTobacco, Cotton & SugarName of ColonyRegionTrade, Economic Activity Chart showing Goods traded by the 13 Colonies Triangular Trade - Navigation ActsThe Navigation Acts stated that Colonial exports had to be transported in English ships and that all Colonial imports had to first pass through English ports - whether the goods were for England or another country in Europe. The English policy of Salutary Neglect initially allowed the colonists to flout, or violate, the laws associated with trade. But after the French Indian Wars Britain needed to clear her massive war debts so trade laws were enforced and new taxes on goods were imposed on the American colonies. Triangular Trade - A Favorable Balance of Trade Triangular Trade, coupled with the policy of Mercantilism, provided a "favorable balance of trade" so that gold and silver would not flow out of England to purchase raw materials and food from the colonies. Neither would gold and silver flow out of the colonies for much needed manufactured goods. However, Colonists brought in much more than they sent out so, the balance of trade was in England's favor. England also prospered because the raw materials from the colonies were used to make different products in England - finished goods have a higher value than raw materials. Add to this the duties (taxes) collected by England on goods imposed by the Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act, the Townshend Acts and the Tea Act it becomes clear why the American Revolution was inevitable.

Rise of Islam

Islam spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries. Arab Muslim forces conquered vast territories and built imperial structures over time. Most of the significant expansion occurred during the reign of the Rashidun from 632 to 661 CE, which was the reign of the first four successors of Muhammad. The caliphate—a new Islamic political structure—evolved and became more sophisticated during the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates. Over a period of a few hundred years, Islam spread from its place of origin in the Arabian Peninsula all the way to modern Spain in the west and northern India in the east. Islam traveled through these regions in many ways. Sometimes it was carried in great caravans or sea vessels traversing vast trade networks on land and sea, and other times it was transferred through military conquest and the work of missionaries. As Islamic ideas and cultures came into contact with new societies, they were expressed in unique ways and ultimately took on diverse forms. Different trajectories To begin to understand the rich history of Islam, let's start with the historical context and events that led to Islam's spread. For example, Islam initially spread through the military conquests of Arab Muslims, which happened over a very short period of time soon after the beginning of Islam. However, only a small fraction of the people who came under Arab Muslim control immediately adopted Islam. It wasn't until centuries later, at the end of the eleventh century, that Muslims made up the majority of subjects of the Islamic empires. The spread of Islam through merchants, missionaries, and pilgrims was very different in nature. These kinds of exchanges affected native populations slowly and led to more conversion to Islam. As Islamic ideas traveled along various trade and pilgrimage routes, they mingled with local cultures and transformed into new versions and interpretations of the religion. Another important thing to note is that not all military expansion was Arab and Muslim. Early on in Islamic history, under the Rashidun caliphate—the reign of the first four caliphs, or successors, from 632 to 661 CE—and the Umayyad caliphate, Arab Muslim forces expanded quickly. With the Abbasids, more non-Arabs and non-Muslims were involved in the government administration. Later on, as the Abbasid caliphate declined, there were many fragmented political entities, some of which were led by non-Arab Muslims. These entities continued to evolve in their own ways, adopting and putting forth different interpretations of Islam as they sought to consolidate their power in different regions. What are some of the ways in which Islam spread? When did most conversion to Islam occur? The first Arab Muslim empire During the seventh century, after subduing rebellions in the Arabian peninsula, Arab Muslim armies began to swiftly conquer territory in the neighboring Byzantine and Sasanian empires and beyond. Within roughly two decades, they created a massive Arab Muslim empire spanning three continents. The Arab Muslim rulers were not purely motivated by religion, nor was their success attributed to the power of Islam alone, though religion certainly played a part. Non-Muslim subjects under Arab Muslim rule were not especially opposed to their new rulers. A long period of instability and dissatisfaction had left them ambivalent toward their previous rulers. Like all other empires, the first Arab Muslim empires were built within the context of the political realities of their neighboring societies. A painting depicting five men, one of whom has his face covered. A depiction of Mohammed (top, veiled) and the first four Caliphs. From the Subhat al-Akhbar, a 17th-century Ottoman painting. Image credit: Wikipedia. During the Rashidun caliphates, Arab Muslim forces expanded outward beyond the Arabian peninsula and into the territories of the neighboring Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. These empires were significantly weakened after a period of fighting with one another and other peripheral factions like the Turks, economic turmoil, disease, and environmental problems. The Arab Muslim conquerors were primed to take advantage of this; they were familiar with Byzantine and Sasanian military tactics, having served in both armies. With the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires on the decline and strategically disadvantaged, Arab Muslim armies were able to quickly take over vast territories that once belonged to the Byzantines and Sasanians and even conquer beyond those territories to the east and west. Most conquests happened during the reign of the second caliph, Umar, who held power from 634 to 644. The Rashidun caliphate constructed a massive empire out of many swift military victories. They expanded for both religious and political reasons, which was common at the time. One political advantage the Rashidun caliphate held was their ability to maintain stability and unity among the Arab tribes. Distinct, feuding Arab tribes united into a cohesive political force, partially through the promise of military conquest. However, this unity was tentative and ultimately gave way to major divergences that disrupted state and religious institutions in the coming centuries. How quickly did the Arab Muslim Empires spread? What were some of the reasons the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires were vulnerable to attacks by the Arab Muslim conquerors? A new political structure The Rashidun can be credited for military expansion, but did Islam truly spread through their conquests? Significant conversion and cultural exchange did not occur during their short rule, nor were complex political institutions developed. It was not until the Umayyad Dynasty—from 661 to 750—that Islamic and Arabic culture began to truly spread. The Abbasid Dynasty—from 750 to 1258—intensified and solidified these cultural changes. A dome situated in the courtyard of a mosque. Dome of the Clocks, Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria. The Dome was built in 780, while the mosque was completed in 715. Image credit: Wikipedia Before the Umayyads, Islamic rule was non-centralized. The military was organized under the caliphate, a political structure led by a Muslim steward known as a caliph, who was regarded as the religious and political successor to the prophet Muhammad. The early caliphate had a strong army and built garrison towns, but it did not build sophisticated administrations. The caliphate mostly kept existing governments and cultures intact and administered through governors and financial officers in order to collect taxes. The Rashidun caliphate was also not dynastic, meaning that political leadership was not transferred through hereditary lineage.11start superscript, 1, end superscript During this period, it seems the Arab tribes retained their communal clan-based systems of choosing leaders. However, to sustain such a massive empire, more robust state structures were necessary, and the Umayyads began developing these structures, which were often influenced by the political structures in neighboring empires like the Byzantines and Sasanians. Under the Umayyads, a dynastic and centralized Islamic political state emerged. The Umayyads shifted the capital from Mecca to Syria and replaced tribal traditions with an imperial government controlled by a monarch. They replaced Greek, Persian, and Coptic with Arabic as the main administrative language and reinforced an Arab Islamic identity. Notably, an Arab hierarchy emerged, in which non-Arabs were accorded secondary status. The Umayyads also minted Islamic coins and developed a more sophisticated bureaucracy, in which governors named viziers oversaw smaller political units. The Umayyads did not actively encourage conversion, and most subjects remained non-Muslim. Because non-Muslim subjects were required to pay a special tax, the Umayyads were able to subsidize their political expansion. A map depicting the extent of the Umayyad caliphate in 750 CE, which extended from Spain in the west to northern India in the East and covered northern Africa, southern Europe, Anatolia, and the Arabian Peninsula. This map shows the extent of the Umayyad Empire in 750 CE. Image credit: Wikipedia. The Umayyads did not come into power smoothly. The transition between the rule of the Rashidun and the first Umayyads was full of strife. Debates raged about the nature of Islamic leadership and religious authority. These conflicts evolved into major schisms between Sunni, Shia, and Ibadi Islam. Ultimately, there were many factions that regarded the Umayyads as corrupt and illegitimate, some of whom rallied around new leaders. These new leaders claimed legitimacy through shared lineage with the prophet Muhammad, through the prophet's uncle, Abbas. They led a revolt against the Umayyads, bringing the Abbasid caliphate to power. The Abbasids were intent on differentiating themselves from their Umayyad predecessors, though they still had a lot in common. Abbasid leadership was also dynastic and centralized. However, they changed the social hierarchy by constructing a more inclusive government in a more cosmopolitan capital city, Baghdad. The distinction between Arab Muslims and non-Arab Muslims diminished, with Persian culture exerting a greater influence on the Abbasid court. In the forefront, a decorated, gold structure. In the background, a tall minaret. Dome of the Treasury, Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria. The Dome was built in 789, while the mosque was completed in 715. Image credit: Wikipedia Under the Abbasids, Islamic art and culture flourished. They are famous for inaugurating the Islamic golden age. Religious scholars, called ulema, developed more defined religious institutions and took on judicial duties and developed systems of law. It was also during Abbasid rule that many people converted to Islam, for a multitude of reasons including sincere belief and avoiding paying taxes levied on non-Muslims. As a result, Islamic culture spread over the Abbasids' vast territory.

Geography

Longitude Latitude Prime Meridian Equator Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn Continents & Oceans World Biomes Land features United States Biomes Regions in Massachusetts The Berkshires The Connecticut River Valley acculturation

Iroquois

american northeast noted for their organized government famous 5 nations of the Iroquois made treaties among themselves and shared leadership of their peoples A later native group to the eastern woodlands. They blended agriculture and hunting living in common villages constructed from the trees and bark of the forests A term which designates a confederacy of 5 tribes originally inhabiting the northern part of New York state, consisting of the SENECA, CAYUGA, ONEIDA, ONONDAGA and MOHAWK.

Equator

an imaginary line drawn around the earth equally distant from both poles, dividing the earth into northern and southern hemispheres and constituting the parallel of latitude 0°. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pOKoIAnybg&list=TLPQMDMwNTIwMjCAhib_VKVh2A&index=1 An equator is an imaginary line around the middle of a planet or other celestial body. It is halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole, at 0 degrees latitude. An equator divides the planet into a Northern Hemisphere and a Southern Hemisphere.The Earth is widest at its Equator. The distance around the Earth at the Equator, its circumference, is 40,075 kilometers (24,901 miles). The Earth's diameter is also wider at the Equator, creating a phenomenon called an equatorial bulge. The diameter of a circle is measured by a straight line that passes through the center of the circle and has its endpoints on the boundary of that circle. Scientists can calculate the diameter of latitudes, such as the Equator and Arctic Circle.The Earth's diameter at the Equator is about 12,756 kilometers (7,926 miles). At the poles, the diameter is about 12,714 kilometers (7,900 miles). The Earth's equatorial bulge is about 43 kilometers (27 miles). The equatorial bulge means that people standing at sea level near the poles are closer to the center of the Earth than people standing at sea level near the Equator. The equatorial bulge affects the ocean, too—sea levels are slightly higher in equatorial regions than near the poles.The equatorial bulge is created by the Earth's rotation. As lines of latitude increase in size, a point has to travel faster to complete a circle (revolution) in the same amount of time. The rotational speed, or spin, at the Arctic Circle is slower than the spin at the Tropic of Cancer, because the circumference of the Arctic Circle is much smaller and a point doesn't have to travel as far to complete a revolution. The spin at the Tropic of Cancer is much slower than the spin at the Equator. Near the poles, the Earth's rotational speed, or spin, is near zero. At the Equator, the spin is about 1,670 kilometers per hour (1,038 miles per hour). The Earth's gravitational pull is slightly weaker at the Equator due to its equatorial bulge. The slightly weaker gravitational pull and momentum of the spinning Earth makes equatorial regions ideal places for space launches. It takes an enormous amount of energy to launch a satellite or other spacecraft out of the Earth's atmosphere. It takes less energy (rocket fuel) to launch in lower gravity. It also takes less energy to launch when the spinning Earth is already giving the satellite a push of 1,670 kilometers per hour (1,038 miles per hour). The United States launches most spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in southern Florida, as close to the Equator as possible in the continental U.S. Other rocket-launching facilities near the Equator include Shaba North, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Gan Island, Maldives.Recently, mobile launch platforms, such as Ocean Odyssey, have successfully launched satellites into orbit from the equatorial Pacific Ocean.Equatorial ClimatesTwice a year, during the spring and autumn equinoxes, the sun passes directly over the Equator. Even during the rest of the year, equatorial regions often experience a hot climate with little seasonal variation.As a result, many equatorial cultures recognize two seasons—wet and dry. The wet, or rainy, season often lasts most of the year. The long, warm, rainy season creates tropical rain forests. Some of the most expansive rain forests in the world are in equatorial regions: the Amazon rain forest of South America, the Congo rain forest of Central Africa, and the varied Southeast Asian rainforest stretching from India to Vietnam.Humid weather means that equatorial regions are not the hottest in the world, even though they are among the closest to the sun. The water in the equatorial air cools it slightly.Many cultures thrive in warm equatorial regions. The Fang people of Gabon, for instance, are successful farmers who take advantage of the warm temperature and long rainy season to cultivate crops such as corn, yams, and plantains. The Fang also raise livestock that have adapted to the climate, such as goats and chickens.Not all equatorial regions are hot and humid, however. Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, is only 330 kilometers (205 miles) from the Equator, but its elevation creates a climate with cool, dry weather and even alpine glaciers.The Andes are another equatorial region lacking the hot, humid climate often associated with the Equator. The mountain range includes a desert with almost no rain (the Atacama), as well as some of the tallest peaks on Earth. Here, too, cultures have thrived for thousands of years. The Aymara people of the Altiplano of Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, are primarily an urban people who identify strongly with the innovative navigational successes of their ancestors. In the 20th century, the Aymara helped build railroads through the high, equatorial Andes.Many plant and animal species thrive in equatorial climates. The Amazon and Congo rain forest ecosystems, for example, are amazingly rich in biodiversity. A single hectare (2.47) of rain forest in Brazil may contain 750 species of trees and twice that many species of insects. The equatorial savanna of Kenya includes mammals such as lions, cheetahs, and elephants. The chilly equatorial Andes are famous for its camelidspecies: llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos.

Mercantilism

belief in the benefits of profitable trading; commercialism. 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 During the mercantilist period, military conflict between nation-states was both more frequent and more extensive than at any other time in history. The armies and navies of the main protagonists were no longer temporary forces raised to address a specific threat or objective, but were full-time professional forces. Each government's primary economic objective was to command a sufficient quantity of hard currency to support a military that would deter attacks by other countries and aid its own territorial expansion. Most of the mercantilist policies were the outgrowth of the relationship between the governments of the nation-states and their mercantile classes. In exchange for paying levies and taxes to support the armies of the nation-states, the mercantile classes induced governments to enact policies that would protect their business interests against foreign competition. These policies took many forms. Domestically, governments would provide capital to new industries, exempt new industries from guild rules and taxes, establish monopolies over local and colonial markets, and grant titles and pensions to successful producers. In trade policy the government assisted local industry by imposing tariffs, quotas, and prohibitions on imports of goods that competed with local manufacturers. Governments also prohibited the export of tools and capital equipment and the emigration of skilled labor that would allow foreign countries, and even the colonies of the home country, to compete in the production of manufactured goods. At the same time, diplomats encouraged foreign manufacturers to move to the diplomats' own countries. Shipping was particularly important during the mercantile period. With the growth of colonies and the shipment of gold from the New World into Spain and Portugal, control of the oceans was considered vital to national power. Because ships could be used for merchant or military purposes, the governments of the era developed strong merchant marines. In France, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the minister of finance under Louis XIV from 1661 to 1683, increased port duties on foreign vessels entering French ports and provided bounties to French shipbuilders. In England, the Navigation Act of 1651 prohibited foreign vessels from engaging in coastal trade in England and required that all goods imported from the continent of Europe be carried on either an English vessel or a vessel registered in the country of origin of the goods. Finally, all trade between England and its colonies had to be carried in either English or colonial vessels. The Staple Act of 1663 extended the Navigation Act by requiring that all colonial exports to Europe be landed through an English port before being re-exported to Europe. Navigation policies by France, England, and other powers were directed primarily against the Dutch, who dominated commercial marine activity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the mercantilist era it was often suggested, if not actually believed, that the principal benefit of foreign trade was the importation of gold and silver. According to this view the benefits to one nation were matched by costs to the other nations that exported gold and silver, and there were no net gains from trade. For nations almost constantly on the verge of war, draining one another of valuable gold and silver was thought to be almost as desirable as the direct benefits of trade. Adam Smith refuted the idea that the wealth of a nation is measured by the size of the treasury in his famous treatise The Wealth of Nations, a book considered to be the foundation of modern economic theory. Smith made a number of important criticisms of mercantilist doctrine. First, he demonstrated that trade, when freely initiated, benefits both parties. Second, he argued that specialization in production allows for economies of scale, which improves efficiency and growth. Finally, Smith argued that the collusive relationship between government and industry was harmful to the general population. While the mercantilist policies were designed to benefit the government and the commercial class, the doctrines of laissez-faire, or free markets, which originated with Smith, interpreted economic welfare in a far wider sense of encompassing the entire population.

spain, france, england nations

strong monarchial governments and were struggling for dominance and power in europe

acculturation

The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another. a process of cultural contact and exchange through which a person or group comes to adopt certain values and practices of a culture that is not originally their own, to a greater or lesser extent. The result is that the original culture of the person or group remains, but it is changed by this process. When the process is at its most extreme, assimilation occurs wherein the original culture is wholly abandoned and the new culture adopted in its place. However, other outcomes can also occur that fall along a spectrum from minor change to total change, and these include separation, integration, marginalization, and transmutation. The first known use of the term "acculturation" within the social sciences was by John Wesley Powell in a report for the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology in 1880. Powell later defined the term as the psychological changes that occur within a person due to cultural exchange that occurs as a result of extended contact between different cultures. Powell observed that, while they exchange cultural elements, each retains its own unique culture. Later, in the early 20th century, acculturation became a focus of American sociologists who used ethnography to study the lives of immigrants and the extent to which they integrated into U.S. society. W.I Thomas and Florian Znaniecki examined this process with Polish immigrants in Chicago in their 1918 study "The Polish Peasant in Europe and America." Others, including Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, focused their research and theories on the outcome of this process known as assimilation. While these early sociologists focused on the process of acculturation experienced by immigrants, and also by Black Americans within predominantly white society, sociologists today are more attuned to the two-way nature of cultural exchange and adoption that happens through the process of acculturation. Acculturation at Group and Individual Levels At the group level, acculturation entails the widespread adoption of the values, practices, forms of art, and technologies of another culture. These can range from the adoption of ideas, beliefs, and ideology to the large-scale inclusion of foods and styles of cuisines from other cultures. For example, the embrace of Mexican, Chinese, and Indian cuisines within the U.S. This includes the simultaneous adoption of mainstream American foods and meals by immigrant populations. Acculturation at the group level can also entail the cultural exchange of clothing and fashions, and of language. This happens when immigrant groups learn and adopt the language of their new home, or when certain phrases and words from a foreign language make their way into common usage. Sometimes, leaders within a culture make a conscious decision to adopt the technologies or practices of another for reasons associated with efficiency and progress. At the individual level, acculturation may involve all the same things that occur at the group level, but the motives and circumstances may differ. For example, people who travel to foreign lands where the culture differs from their own, and who spend extended periods of time there, are likely to engage in the process of acculturation, whether intentionally or not, in order to learn and experience new things, enjoy their stay, and reduce the social friction that can arise from cultural differences. Similarly, first-generation immigrants often consciously engage in the process of acculturation as they settle into their new community in order to succeed socially and economically. In fact, immigrants are often compelled by law to acculturate in many places, with requirements to learn the language and the laws of society, and in some cases, with new laws that govern dress and covering of the body. People who move between social classes and the separate and different spaces they inhabit also often experience acculturation on both voluntary and required basis. This is the case for many first-generation college students who suddenly find themselves among peers who have been socialized already to understand the norms and culture of higher education, or for students from poor and working-class families who find themselves surrounded by wealthy peers at well-funded private colleges and universities. How Acculturation Differs from Assimilation Though they are often used interchangeably, acculturation and assimilation are two different things. Assimilation can be an eventual outcome of acculturation, but it doesn't have to be. Also, assimilation is often a largely one-way process, rather than the two-way process of cultural exchange that is acculturation. Assimilation is the process by which a person or group adopts a new culture that virtually replaces their original culture, leaving only trace elements behind, at most. The word means to make similar, and at the end of the process, the person or group will be culturally indistinguishable from those culturally native to the society into which it has assimilated. Assimilation, as a process and an outcome, is common among immigrant populations that seek to blend in with the existing fabric of society. The process can be quick or gradual, unfolding over the years, depending on the context and circumstances. Consider, for example, how a third-generation Vietnamese American who grew up in Chicago differs culturally from a Vietnamese person living in rural Vietnam. Five Different Strategies and Outcomes of Acculturation Acculturation can take different forms and have different outcomes, depending on the strategy adopted by the people or groups involved in the exchange of culture. The strategy used will be determined by whether the person or group believes it is important to maintain their original culture, and how important it is to them to establish and maintain relationships with the greater community and society whose culture differs from their own. The four different combinations of answers to these questions lead to five different strategies and outcomes of acculturation. Assimilation. This strategy is used when little to no importance is placed on maintaining the original culture, and great importance is put on fitting in and developing relationships with the new culture. The outcome is that the person or group is, eventually, culturally indistinguishable from the culture into which they have assimilated. This type of acculturation is likely to occur in societies that are considered "melting pots" into which new members are absorbed. Separation. This strategy is used when little to no importance is placed on embracing the new culture, and high importance is placed on maintaining the original culture. The outcome is that the original culture is maintained while the new culture is rejected. This type of acculturation is likely to occur in culturally or racially segregated societies. Integration. This strategy is used when both maintaining the original culture and adapting to the new one are considered important. This is a common strategy of acculturation and can be observed among many immigrant communities and those with a high proportion of ethnic or racial minorities. Those who use this strategy might be thought of as bicultural and may be known to code-switch when moving between different cultural groups. This is the norm in what are considered multicultural societies. Marginalization. This strategy is used by those who place no importance on either maintaining their original culture or adopting the new one. The result is that the person or group is marginalized — pushed aside, overlooked, and forgotten by the rest of society. This can occur in societies where cultural exclusion is practiced, thus making it difficult or unappealing for a culturally different person to integrate. Transmutation. This strategy is used by those who place importance on both maintaining their original culture and on adopting the new culture — but rather than integrating two different cultures into their daily lives, those who do this create a third culture (a blend of the old and the new).

gold and silver

Gold and Silver Columbus' voyage of 1492was intended to discover a shorter all-water route to China and India than the route around Africa that was being opened up by the Portuguese, and the aim of both was to be able to by-pass the Muslim and Byzantine middle-men through which the spices of the East reached Western Europe. Although Columbus died still believing that he had opened up the Indies to Spain -- which is why Europeans called the native inhabitants of the Americas "Indians" -- most realized that a great land mass lay between them and the spices of the East, and also began to realize that there were sources of gold and silver there. The natives had amassed a great deal of golden treasure over the centuries, and the first flood of "new" gold into Spain and Europe came as a result of the conquistadores[Spanish for "conquerors] seizing this accumulation. With the conquest of Peru by Francisco Pizarro, new gold began to be mined; and, with the discovery of the silver veins of San Luis Potosi in Mexico, vast amounts of silver began to appear. The European explorers began to search primarily for gold, for the "Land of El Dorado," a fabled land where, after the king bathed each morning, his subjects would cover his body with gold dust until he shone like the sun. Since the time of the conquistadores, a series of new sources of gold strikes have been made -- bonanzas, from the Spanish word meaning "prosperity" -- Colorado, California, South Africa, the Canadian Klondike. Well over 95% of the gold in use today was mined since 1500. Gold is like anything else: the more there is of it, the less valuable it is. And so, as gold and silver arrived in Europe from the Americas, the price of everything began to rise steadily. Just to explain why that happened, consider that if a hundred people have one ounce of gold apiece, they all want to buy wheat, and there are only one hundred bushels of wheat for sale, the price of a bushel of wheat will be one ounce of gold. If those same people find a pirate treasure and divide it up so that each of them has two ounces of gold, but there is still only one hundred bushels of wheat for sale, the price of a bushel of wheat will be two ounces of gold. You can look at it another way. When the amount of gold (or any other medium of exchange) in circulation increases, the value of salaries, rents, and debts drops. There is a simple equation for all of this: Price = the amount of currency divided by the supply of goods The steady increase of gold and silver in Europe brought about what historians call The Price Revolution. People on fixed incomes were impoverished; it became more advantageous to owe money than to be solvent. Money lost value every day it stayed in one's pocket, so the only way to prosper was through trade. Nobles could no longer depend on their income from the rents paid by their tenants, and began to use their lands to raise sheep for wool and meat, or to produce other goods for sale. Land was no longer the basis of wealth, and the land-owners no longer the dominant economic class.

Triangular Trade

A three way system of trade during 1600-1800s Africa sent slaves to America, America sent Raw Materials to Europe, and Europe sent Guns and Rum to Africa The Transatlantic Slave Trade had three stages: STAGE 1 Slave ships from Britain left ports like London, Liverpool and Bristol for West Africa carrying goods such as cloth, guns, ironware and drink that had been made in Britain. Later, on the West African coast, these goods would be traded for men, women and children who had been captured by slave traders or bought from African chiefs. STAGE 2 African dealers kidnapped people from villages up to hundreds of miles inland. One of these people was Quobna Ottabah Cugoano who described in the autobiography how the slavers attacked with pistols and threatened to kill those who did not obey. They marched the captives to the coast where they would be traded for goods. The prisoners would be forced to march long distances, as Major Galan describes, with their hands tied behind their backs and their necks connected by wooden yokes. On the African coast, European traders bought enslaved peoples from travelling African dealers or nearby African chiefs. Families were separated. The traders held the enslaved Africans until a ship appeared, and then sold them to a European or African captain. It often took a long time for a captain to fill his ship. He rarely filled his ship in one spot. Instead he would spend three to four months sailing along the coast, looking for the fittest and cheapest slaves. Ships would sail up and down the coast filling their holds with enslaved Africans. On the brutal 'Middle Passage', enslaved Africans were densely packed onto ships that would carry them to the West Indies. There were many cases of violent resistance by Africans against slave ships and their crews. These included attacks from the shore by 'free' Africans against ships or longboats and many cases of shipboard revolt by slaves. STAGE 3 In the West Indies enslaved Africans would be sold to the highest bidder at slave auctions. Once they had been bought, enslaved Africans worked for nothing on plantations. They belonged to the plantation owner, like any other possession, and had no rights at all. The enslaved Africans were often punished very harshly. Enslaved Africans resisted against their enslavement in many ways, from revolution to silent, personal resistance. Some refused to be enslaved and took their own lives. Sometimes pregnant women preferred abortion to bringing a child into slavery. On the plantations, many enslaved Africans tried to slow down the pace of work by pretending to be ill, causing fires or 'accidentally' breaking tools. Whenever possible, enslaved Africans ran away. Some escaped to South America, England or North America. Also there were hundreds of slave revolts. Two thirds of the enslaved Africans, taken to the Americas, ended up on sugar plantations. Sugar was used to sweeten another crop harvested by enslaved Africans in the West Indies - coffee. With the money made from the sale of enslaved Africans, goods such as sugar, coffee and tobacco were bought and carried back to Britain for sale. The ships were loaded with produce from the plantations for the voyage home.

Ancient Greece

A civilization that lasted from the 8th/6th century BCE to 600 AD. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine Era. Because of conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean Basin and Europe, for which Classical Greek is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture. Location was where the present day country of Greece is. It is famous for types of columns in architecture. The acropolis and the Parthenon. First democratic form of government Greece is a country in southeastern Europe, known in Greek as Hellas or Ellada, and consisting of a mainland and an archipelago of islands. Ancient Greece is the birthplace of Western philosophy (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), literature (Homer and Hesiod), mathematics (Pythagoras and Euclid), history (Herodotus), drama (Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes), the Olympic Games, and democracy. The concept of an atomic universe was first posited in Greece through the work of Democritus and Leucippus. The process of today's scientific method was first introduced through the work of Thales of Miletus and those who followed him. The Latin alphabetalso comes from ancient Greece, having been introduced to the region during the Phoenician colonization in the 8th century BCE, and early work in physics and engineering was pioneered by Archimedes, of the Greek colony of Syracuse, among others. Mainland Greece is a large peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea (branching into the Ionian Sea in the west and the Aegean Sea in the east) which also comprises the islands known as the Cyclades and the Dodecanese (including Rhodes), the Ionian islands (including Corcyra), the isle of Crete, and the southern peninsula known as the Peloponnese. THE GREEKS BECAME SKILLED SEAFARING PEOPLE & TRADERS WHO BUILT SOME OF THE MOST IMPRESSIVE STRUCTURES IN ANTIQUITY. The geography of Greece greatly influenced the culture in that, with few natural resources and surrounded by water, the people eventually took to the sea for their livelihood. Mountains cover 80 percent of Greece and only small rivers run through a rocky landscape which, for the most part, provides little encouragement for agriculture. Consequently, the early ancient Greeks colonized neighboring islands and founded settlements along the coast of Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey). The Greeks became skilled seafaring people and traders who, possessing an abundance of raw materials for construction in stone, and great skill, built some of the most impressive structures in antiquity. Etymology of Hellas The designation Hellas derives from Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha who feature prominently in Ovid's tale of the Great Flood in his Metamorphoses. The mythical Deucalion (son of the fire-bringing titan Prometheus) was the savior of the human race from the Great Flood, in the same way Noah is presented in the biblical version or Utnapishtim in the Mesopotamian one. Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulate the land once the floodwaters have receded by casting stones which become people, the first being Hellen. Contrary to popular opinion, Hellas and Ellada have nothing to do with Helenof Troy from Homer's Iliad. Ovid, however, did not coin the designation. Thucydides writes, in Book I of his Histories: I am inclined to think that the very name was not as yet given to the whole country, and in fact did not exist at all before the time of Hellen, the son of Deucalion; the different tribes, of which the Pelasgian was the most widely spread, gave their own names to different districts. But when Hellen and his sons became powerful in Phthiotis, their aid was invoked by other cities, and those who associated with them gradually began to be called Hellenes, though a long time elapsed before the name was prevalent over the whole country. Of this, Homer affords the best evidence; for he, although he lived long after the Trojan War, nowhere uses this name collectively, but confines it to the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes; when speaking of the entire host, he calls them Danäans, or Argives, or Achaeans. Minoan Bull Leaping by Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA) Early History of Ancient Greece Ancient Greek history is most easily understood by dividing it into time periods. The region was already settled, and agriculture initiated, during the Paleolithic era as evidenced by finds at Petralona and Franchthi caves (two of the oldest human habitations in the world). The Neolithic Age (c. 6000 - c. 2900 BCE) is characterized by permanent settlements (primarily in northern Greece), domestication of animals, and the further development of agriculture. Archaeological finds in northern Greece (Thessaly, Macedonia, and Sesklo, among others) suggest a migration from Anatolia in that the ceramic cups and bowls and figures found there share qualities distinctive to Neolithic finds in Anatolia. These inland settlers were primarily farmers, as northern Greece was more conducive to agriculture than elsewhere in the region, and lived in one-room stone houses with a roof of timber and clay daubing. The Cycladic Civilization (c. 3200-1100 BCE) flourished in the islands of the Aegean Sea (including Delos, Naxos, and Paros) and provides the earliest evidence of continual human habitation in that region. During the Cycladic Period, houses and temples were built of finished stone and the people made their living through fishing and trade. This period is usually divided into three phases: Early Cycladic, Middle Cycladic, and Late Cycladic with a steady development in art and architecture. The latter two phases overlap and finally merge with the Minoan Civilization, and differences between the periods become indistinguishable. Cycladic Figurine c. 2400 BCE by Mary Harrsch (Photographed at the Getty Villa, Malibu) (CC BY-NC-SA) The Minoan Civilization (2700-1500 BCE) developed on the island of Crete, and rapidly became the dominant sea power in the region. The term 'Minoan' was coined by the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, who uncovered the Minoan palace of Knossos in 1900 CE and named the culture for the ancient Cretan king Minos. The name by which the people knew themselves is not known. The Minoan Civilization was thriving, as the Cycladic Civilization seems to have been, long before the accepted modern dates which mark its existence and probably earlier than 6000 BCE. The Minoans developed a writing system known as Linear A (which has not yet been deciphered) and made advances in shipbuilding, construction, ceramics, the arts and sciences, and warfare. King Minos was credited by ancient historians (Thucydides among them) as being the first person to establish a navy with which he colonized, or conquered, the Cyclades. Archaeological and geological evidence on Crete suggests this civilization fell due to an overuse of the land causing deforestation though, traditionally, it is accepted that they were conquered by the Mycenaeans. The eruption of the volcano on the nearby island of Thera (modern-day Santorini) between 1650 and 1550 BCE and the resulting tsunami is acknowledged as the final cause for the fall of the Minoans. The isle of Crete was deluged and the cities and villages destroyed. This event has been frequently cited as Plato's inspiration in creating his myth of Atlantis in his dialogues of the Critias and Timaeus. The Mycenaeans & Their Gods The Mycenaean Civilization (approximately 1900-1100 BCE) is commonly acknowledged as the beginning of Greek culture, even though we know almost nothing about the Mycenaeans save what can be determined through archaeological finds and through Homer's account of their war with Troy as recorded in the Iliad. They are credited with establishing the culture owing primarily to their architectural advances, their development of a writing system (known as Linear B, an early form of Greek descended from the Minoan Linear A), and the establishment, or enhancement of, religious rites. The Mycenaeans appear to have been greatly influenced by the Minoans of Crete in their worship of earth goddesses and sky gods, which, in time, become the classical Greek pantheon. Death Mask of Agamemnon by Xuan Che (CC BY) Greek mythology provided a solid paradigm of the creation of the universe, the world, and human beings. An early myth relates how, in the beginning, there was nothing but chaos in the form of unending waters. From this chaos came the goddess Eurynome who separated the water from the air and began her dance of creation with the serpent Ophion. From their dance, all of creation sprang and Eurynome was, originally, the Great Mother Goddess and Creator of All Things. By the time Hesiod and Homer were writing (8th century BCE), this story had changed into the more familiar myth concerning the titans, Zeus' war against them, and the birth of the Olympian Gods with Zeus as their chief. This shift indicates a movement from a matriarchal religion to a patriarchal paradigm. Whichever model was followed, however, the gods clearly interacted regularly with the humans who worshipped them and were a large part of daily life in ancient Greece. Prior to the coming of the Romans, the only road in mainland Greece that was not a cow path was the Sacred Way which ran between the city of Athens and the holy city of Eleusis, the birthplace of the Eleusinian Mysteries celebrating the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. Greater Propylaea of Eleusis by Carole Raddato (CC BY-SA) By 1100 BCE, around the time of the Bronze Age Collapse, the great Mycenaean cities of southwest Greece were abandoned and, some claim, their civilization destroyed by an invasion of Doric Greeks. Archaeological evidence is inconclusive as to what led to the fall of the Mycenaeans. As no written records of this period survive (or have yet to be unearthed) one may only speculate on causes. The tablets of Linear B script found thus far contain only lists of goods bartered in trade or kept in stock. It seems clear, however, that after what is known as the Greek Dark Ages (approximately 1100-800 BCE, so named because of the absence of written documentation) Greek colonization was ongoing in much of Asia Minor, and the islands surrounding mainland Greece and began to make significant cultural advances. Beginning in c. 585 BCE the first Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus, was engaged in what, today, would be recognized as scientific inquiry on the Asia Minor coast, and this region of Ionian colonies would make significant breakthroughs in Greek philosophy and mathematics. From the Archaic to the Classical Periods GREECE REACHED THE HEIGHTS IN ALMOST EVERY AREA OF HUMAN LEARNING DURING THE CLASSICAL PERIOD. The Archaic Period(800-500 BCE) is characterized by the introduction of republics instead of monarchies (which, in Athens, moved toward democratic rule) organized as a single city-state or polis, the institution of laws (Draco's reforms in Athens), the great Panathenaic Festival was established, distinctive Greek pottery and Greek sculpture were born, and the first coins minted on the island kingdom of Aegina. This, then, set the stage for the flourishing of the Classical Period of ancient Greece given as 500-400 BCE or, more precisely, as 480-323 BCE, from the Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis to the death of Alexander the Great. This was the Golden Age of Athens, when Pericles initiated the building of the Acropolis and spoke his famous eulogy for the men who died defending Greece at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE. Greece reached the heights in almost every area of human learning during this time and the great thinkers and artists of antiquity (Phidias, Plato, Aristophanes, to mention only three) flourished. Leonidasand his 300 Spartans fell at Thermopylae and, the same year (480 BCE), Themistocles won victory over the superior Persian naval fleet at Salamis leading to the final defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE. PARTNER PROMOTION Explore the Greek Cities in VR No special gear required, works on mobile and tablet! Athens, Olympia, Delphi, Corinth and Sounion restored to their former glory. EXPLORE NOW Democracy (literally Demos = people and Kratos = power, so power of the people) was established in Athens allowing all male citizens over the age of twenty a voice in the Greek government. The Pre-Socratic philosophers, following Thales' lead, initiated what would become the scientific method in exploring natural phenomena. Men like Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Democritus, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus abandoned the theistic model of the universe and strove to uncover the underlying, first cause of life and the universe. Their successors, among whom were Euclid and Archimedes, continued to advance Greek science and philosophical inquiry and further established mathematics as a serious discipline. The example of Socrates and the writings of Plato and Aristotle after him have influenced western culture and society for over two thousand years. This period also saw advances in architecture and art with a movement away from the ideal to the realistic. Famous works of Greek sculpture such as the Parthenon Marbles and Discobolos (the discus thrower) date from this time and epitomize the artist's interest in depicting human emotion, beauty, and accomplishment realistically, even if those qualities are presented in works featuring immortals. The Parthenon by Andrew Griffith (CC BY-NC-SA) All of these developments in culture were made possible by the ascent of Athens following the victory over the Persians in 480 BCE. The peace and prosperity which followed the Persian defeat provided the finances and stability for culture to flourish. Athens became the superpower of the day and, with the most powerful navy, was able to demand tribute from other city-states and enforce its wishes. Athens formed the Delian League, a defensive alliance whose stated purpose was to deter the Persians from further hostilities. The city-state of Sparta, however, doubted Athenian sincerity and formed their own association for protection against their enemies, the Peloponnesian League (so named for the Peloponnese region where Sparta and the others were located). The city-states which sided with Sparta increasingly perceived Athens as a bully and a tyrant, while those cities which sided with Athens viewed Sparta and its allies with growing distrust. The tension between these two parties eventually erupted in what has become known as the Peloponnesian Wars. The first conflict (c. 460-445 BCE) ended in a truce and continued prosperity for both parties while the second (431-404 BCE) left Athens in ruins and Sparta, the victor, bankrupt after her protracted war with Thebes. This time is generally referred to as the Late Classical Period (c. 400-330 BCE). The power vacuum left by the fall of these two cities was filled by Philip II of Macedon (382-336 BCE) after his victory over the Athenian forces and their allies at the Battle of Chaeroneain 338 BCE. Philip united the Greek city-states under Macedonian rule and, upon his assassination in 336 BCE, his son Alexanderassumed the throne. Alexander the Great & the Coming of Rome Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) carried on his father's plans for a full scale invasion of Persia in retaliation for their invasion of Greece in 480 BCE. As he had almost the whole of Greece under his command, a standing army of considerable size and strength, and a full treasury, Alexander did not need to bother with allies nor with consulting anyone regarding his plan for invasion and so led his army into Egypt, across Asia Minor, through Persia, and finally to India. Tutored in his youth by Plato's great student Aristotle, Alexander would spread the ideals of Greek civilization through his conquests and, in so doing, transmitted Greek art, philosophy, culture, and language to every region he came in contact with. Alexander the Great [Profile View] by Egisto Sani (CC BY-NC-SA) In 323 BCE Alexander died and his vast empire was divided between four of his generals. This initiated what has come to be known to historians as the Hellenistic Period (323-31 BCE) during which Greek thought and culture became dominant in the various regions under these generals' influence. After the wars of the Diadochi ('the successors' as Alexander's generals came to be known), Antigonus I established the Antigonid Dynasty in Greece which he then lost. It was regained by his grandson, Antigonus II Gonatus, by 276 BCE who ruled the country from his palace at Macedon. The Roman Republic became increasingly involved in the affairs of Greece during this time and, in 168 BCE, defeated Macedon at the Battle of Pydna. After this date, Greece steadily came under the influence of Rome. In 146 BCE, the region was designated a Protectorate of Rome and Romans began to emulate Greek fashion, philosophy and, to a certain extent, sensibilities. In 31 BCE OctavianCaesar annexed the country as a province of Rome following his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. Octavian became Augustus Caesar and Greece a part of the Roman Empire.

drugs

A great deal of attention is paid to the terrible death toll among the native inhabitants of the New World caused by the European's introduction of new diseases for which they had no immunity. It should also be noted that over half of the Europeans coming to the Americas died within a year of their arrival, usually from some fever, and that the death toll among Europeans in the interior of Africa was so great that it remained largely unexplored by them until well into the 19th century. The Europeans were quick to use native remedies for their ailments, and the bark of the chincona tree -- from which quinine was extracted -- was of great help to them. The medical establishment of Europe resisted the introduction of these new drugs, however, and it was not until the 1830's, for instance, that quinine was brought into general use. This lag has continued to be the case. It was only in 1952, for instance, that Western medical researchers recognized the value of Rauwolfia, a root that the inhabitants of India had chewed to relieve nervousness for centuries. The active substance was extracted from the root and sold as miltown, the first tranquilizer. Given this general resistance to "native remedies," the medicines and medical techniques of the new lands had relatively little effect on Europe. The importance of the drugs of the new worlds lay in another direction. We have noted that medieval Europeans displayed violent swings of emotions. Part of this may have been simply a difference in cultural norms, but it should be noted that the men and women of medieval Europe had relatively little personal control over their states of mind. Like most other parts of the world, the Europeans had an effective depressant in alcohol, but, unlike any other of the world's civilization, they did not have an alkaloid stimulant. These were quickly important from their native lands, and their use swiftly spread. The first was cocoa from the Aztecs, a rich source of caffeine, and Europeans began their long love affair with chocolate. Coming next were coffee, another source of caffeine, from the Near East, and tobacco, adding nicotine to the Europeans' personal stash of drugs. Finally tea from the Far East introduced another potent source of caffeine. The Europeans developed the custom of mixing caffeine with sugar, an import from India and the Near East, a practice that cut the bitterness of the drink and enhanced its effectiveness. At the same time, coca leaves from South America yielded cocaine, opium from Far Eastern poppies provided both opium itself and morphine, and hashish from the Near East offered a potent form of marijuana. The use of these narcotics and depressants was widespread until well into the 19th century. It's said that Coca-Cola started out as a medicinal concoction laced with cocaine, and was guaranteed to slow you down, but, when such patent medicines became illegal, the company substituted caffeine for cocaine and guaranteed that their drink would pep you up. In any event, the exploitation of lands beyond the sea gave Europeans a variety of potent stimulants and depressants, and they now had some control over their moods. Western culture has continued this practice, and few of us go through a day without a smoke, a coke, a cup of coffee, or a candy bar. It is difficult to imagine what people might be like if they did not have easy access to these New World drugs.

Crusades and impact

A series of holy wars from 1096-1270 AD undertaken by European Christians to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule. A long series of wars between Christians and Muslims in Southwest Asia a series of military expeditions in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries by Westrn European Christians to reclain control of the Holy Lands from the Muslims The impact of the Crusades may thus be summarised in general terms as: an increased presence of Christians in the Levant during the Middle Ages. the development of military orders. a polarisation of the East and West based on religious differences. the specific application of religious goals to warfare in the Levant, Iberian peninsula, and Baltic region, in particular. the increased role and prestige of the popes and the Catholic Church in secular affairs. the souring of relations between the West and the Byzantine Empire leading, ultimately, to the latter's destruction. an increase in the power of the royal houses of Europe. a stronger collective cultural identity in Europe. an increase in xenophobia and intolerance between Christians and Muslims, and between Christians and Jews, heretics and pagans. an increase in international trade and exchange of ideas and technology. an increase in the power of such Italian states as Venice, Genoa, and Pisa. the appropriation of many Christian relics to Europe. the use of a religious historical precedent to justify colonialism, warfare and terrorism. Middle East & Muslim World The immediate geopolitical results of the crusades was the recapture of Jerusalem on 15 July 1099 CE, but to ensure the Holy City stayed in Christian hands it was necessary that various western settlements were established in the Levant (collectively known as the Latin East, the Crusader States or Outremer). For their defence, a steady supply of new crusaders would be needed in the coming decades and military orders of professional knights were created there such as the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller. These, in turn, inspired the formation of chivalric orders like the Order of the Garter in England (founded 1348 CE) which advocated the benefits of crusading on their members. Despite the militarised presence in the Holy Land, the continued recruitment drive in Europe, and increased involvement of kings and emperors, it proved impossible to hold on to the gains of the First Crusade and more campaigns were required to recapture such cities as Edessa and Jerusalem itself after its fall again in 1187 CE. There would be eight official crusades and several other unofficial ones throughout the 12th and 13th centuries CE, which all met with more failure than success, and in 1291 CE the Crusader States were absorbed into the Mamluk Sultanate. TRAVEL BECAME MORE COMMON, INITIALLY IN THE FORM OF PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND & THERE DEVELOPED A THIRST TO READ ABOUT SUCH JOURNEYS WHICH WERE WIDELY PUBLISHED. The Muslim world had, prior to the crusades, already embarked onjihad - often translated as 'holy war' but meaning, more accurately, a 'striving' to both defend and expand Islam and Islamic territories. Despite the religious significance of Jerusalem to Muslims, the coastal Levant area was only of minor economic and political importance to the caliphates of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. The Muslim world was itself divided into various Muslim sects and beset by political rivalries and competition between cities and regions. The crusades did provide an opportunity for greater unity in order to face this new threat from the West, but it was not always an opportunity taken. Some rulers, most famously Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193 CE), did employ the propaganda of religious warfare to present themselves as the chosen leader of the Muslim world to help them gain supremacy within it. The Spread of The Crusades The crusader movement spread to Spain where, in the 11th-13th century CE, attacks were made against the Muslim Moors there, the so-called Reconquista (Reconquest). Prussia and the Baltic (the Northern Crusades), North Africa, and Poland, amongst many other places, would also witness crusading armies from the 12th up to the 15th century CE as the crusading ideal, despite the dubious military successes, continued to appeal to leaders, soldiers, and ordinary people in the West. Finally, the crusades as an idea would have reached just about everyone in Europe by the 14th century CE, and the majority of people would have sat through at least one sermon preaching their merits and heard the need for recruitment and material support. Indeed, very few people's pockets would have remained untouched by the state and church taxes which were regularly imposed to pay for the crusades. Map of the First Crusade Routes by University of Edinburgh School of Divinity (CC BY-NC-SA) The Catholic Church The success of the First Crusade and the image that popes directed the affairs of the whole Christian world helped the Papacy gain supremacy over the Hohenstaufen emperors. The Catholic Church had also created a new fast-track entry into heaven with the promise that crusaders would enjoy an immediate remission of their sins - military service and penance were intermixed so that crusading became an act of devotion. However, with each new failed campaign, papal prestige declined, although in Spain and north-east Europe the territorial successes did promote the Papacy. Another negative consequence for many was the Church's official sanction of the possibility to purchase indulgences. That is if one could not or did not want to go on a crusade in person, giving material aid to others who did so reaped the same spiritual benefits. This idea was extended by the Catholic Church to create a whole system of paid indulgences, a situation which contributed to the emergence of the Reformation of the 16th century CE. Byzantine Empire The crusades caused a rupture in western-Byzantine relations. First, there was the Byzantine's horror at unruly groups of warriors causing havoc in their territory. Outbreaks of fighting between crusaders and Byzantine forces were common, and the mistrust and suspicion of their intentions grew. It was a troublesome relationship that only got worse, with accusations of neither party trying very hard to defend the interests of the other. The situation culminated in the shocking sacking of Constantinople on 1204 CE during the Fourth Crusade, which also saw the appropriation of art and religious relics by European powers. The Empire became so debilitated it could offer little resistance to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE. Europe The power of the royal houses of Europe and the centralisation of government increased thanks to an increase in taxes, the acquisition of wealth in the Middle East, and the imposition of tariffs on trade. The death of many nobles during crusades and the fact that many mortgaged their land to the crown in order to pay for their campaigns and those of their followers also increased royal power. There was a decline in the system of feudalism, too, as many nobles sold their lands to fund their travels, freeing their serfs in the process. The Sack of Constantinople in 1204 CE by Palma Le Jeune (Public Domain) The conquest of the Muslim-held territories in southern Italy, Sicily, and the Iberian peninsula gave access to new knowledge, the so-called 'New Logic'. There was also a greater feeling of being 'European', that despite differences between states, the people of Europe did share a common identity and cultural heritage (although crusading would be incorporated into ideals of chivalry which widened the gulf between those who were and those who were not members of the knightly class). The other side of the cultural coinwas an increase in xenophobia. Religious intolerance manifested itself in many ways, but most brutally in the pogroms against the Jews (notably in northern France and the Rhineland in 1096-1097 CE) and violent attacks on pagans, schismatics and heretics across Europe. TRADE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST GREATLY INCREASED. MORE EXOTIC GOODS ENTERED EUROPE THAN EVER BEFORE, SUCH AS SPICES. Trade between East and West greatly increased. More exotic goods entered Europe than ever before, such as spices (especially pepper and cinnamon), sugar, dates, pistachio nuts, watermelons, and lemons. Cotton cloth, Persian carpets, and eastern clothing came, too. The Italian states of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa grew rich through their control of the Middle East and Byzantine trade routes, which was in addition to the money they raked in from transporting crusader armies and their supplies. This was happening anyway, but the crusades probably accelerated the process of international trade across the Mediterranean. Travel became more common, initially in the form of pilgrimage to the Holy Land and there also developed a thirst to read about such journeys which were widely published. The age of exploration had begun and would lead to the discovery of the New World where the concept of a crusade against non-believers was once more applied. Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of the Aztecs, claimed his followers were milites Christi or 'Knights of Christ' waging a guerra santa or 'Holy War'. Into the Modern Era The crusades cast a very long shadow indeed, with works of art, literature and even wars endlessly recalling the imagery, ideals, successes and disasters of the holy wars into the 21st century CE. There was a process of hero-worship, even in medieval times, of such figures as Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted who were praised not only for their military skills but, above all, for their chivalry. Following the Reformation, the opposite happened and the crusades were brushed under the historical carpet as a brutal and undesirable aspect of our past that was best forgotten. Horses from the Hippodrome of Constantinople by Tteske (CC BY) The 19th century CE saw a return of interest in the West with such novels as Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman (1825 CE). With the Allied occupation of Palestine in the First World War in the 20th century CE, the ghosts of the Crusaders came back to haunt the present in the form of propaganda, rhetoric, and cartoons. By the Second World War, the very term 'crusade' was, conversely, stripped of its religious meaning and applied to the campaigns against Nazi Germany. General Eisenhower, the U.S. commander of the allied forces, even gave his 1948 CE account of the campaign the title Crusade in Europe.

background of inter caetera

Before Christopher Columbus received support for his voyage from Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, he had first approached King John II of Portugal. The king's scholars and navigators reviewed Columbus's documentation, determined that his calculations grossly underestimated the diameter of the Earth and thus the length of the voyage, and recommended against subsidizing the expedition. Upon Columbus's return from his first voyage to the Americas, his first landing was made in the Portuguese Azores; a subsequent storm drove his ship to Lisbon on 4 March 1493. Hearing of Columbus's discoveries, the Portuguese king informed him that he believed the voyage to be in violation of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas. The treaty had been ratified with the 1481 papal bull Aeterni regis, which confirmed previous bulls of 1452 (Dum diversas), 1455 (Romanus Pontifex), and 1456 (Inter caetera),[2]recognizing Portuguese territorial claims along the West African coast. It was the King's understanding that the terms of the treaty acknowledged Portuguese claims to all territory south of the Canaries (which had been ceded to Spain).[4] Columbus's arrival in supposedly Asiatic lands in the western Atlantic Ocean in 1492 threatened the unstable relations between Portugal and Spain. With word that King John was preparing a fleet to sail to the west, the King and Queen of Spain initiated diplomatic discussions over the rights to possess and govern the newly found lands.[5] Spanish and Portuguese delegates met and debated from April to November 1493, without reaching an agreement. Columbus was still in Lisbon when he sent a report of his success to the Spanish monarchs. On 11 April, the Spanish ambassador conveyed the news to Pope Alexander VI, a Spaniard native of Valencia, and urged him to issue a new bull favorable to Spain.[6] At the time, Pope Alexander, as ruler of the Papal States, was embroiled in a territorial dispute with Ferdinand's first cousin, Ferdinand I, King of Naples, hence he was amicable to any requests of Isabella and Ferdinand, to the extent that they could write to Columbus saying that if he thought it necessary, one of the bulls would be modified. They were at Barcelona, in close touch with Rome. The camera apostolica became almost an extension of the Spanish Court, which secured a rapid succession of bulls virtually liquidating Portuguese claims.[7] The Pope issued edicts dated 3 and 4 May 1493. The third superseded the first two. A final edict, Dudum siquidem of 26 September 1493, supplemented the Inter caetera.[2] The first bull, Inter caetera, dated 3 May, recognized Spain's claim to any discovered lands not already held by a Christian prince, and protected Portugal's previous rights. Both parties found this too vague. The second bull, Eximiae devotionis, also dated 3 May, granted to the kings of Castile and León and their successors the same privileges in the newly discovered land that had been granted to the kings of Portugal in the regions of Africa, and Guinea.[8] The third bull, also entitled Inter Caetera, dated 4 May, exhorts the Spanish monarchs to spread the faith west from a line drawn "... one hundred leagues towards the west and south from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde". Diffie notes that it has been suggested that this change may have been prompted by the Portuguese ambassador.[4] The Inter caetera and the following Treaty of Tordesillas defined and delineated a zone of Spanish rights exclusive of Portugal. In relation to other states the agreement was legally ineffective (res inter alios acta). Spain's attempts to persuade other European powers on the legal validity of the Inter caetera were never successful.[2]

Thomas Jefferson

Wrote the Declaration of Independence 3rd prep of united states Thomas Jefferson was a Founding Father of the United States who wrote the Declaration of Independence. As U.S. president, he completed the Louisiana Purchase. Thomas Jefferson was the primary draftsman of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the nation's first secretary of state and the second vice president (under John Adams). As the third president of the United States, Jefferson stabilized the U.S. economy and defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War. He was responsible for doubling the size of the United States by successfully brokering the Louisiana Purchase. He also founded the University of Virginia. The beginning of Jefferson's professional life coincided with great changes in Great Britain's 13 colonies in America. The conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763 left Great Britain in dire financial straits; to raise revenue, the Crown levied a host of new taxes on its American colonies. In particular, the Stamp Act of 1765, imposing a tax on printed and paper goods, outraged the colonists, giving rise to the American revolutionary slogan, "No taxation without representation." Eight years later, on December 16, 1773, colonists protesting a British tea tax dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in what is known as the Boston Tea Party. In April 1775, American militiamen clashed with British soldiers at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles in what developed into the Revolutionary War. Jefferson was one of the earliest and most fervent supporters of the cause of American independence from Great Britain. He was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1768 and joined its radical bloc, led by Patrick Henry and George Washington. In 1774, Jefferson penned his first major political work, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which established his reputation as one of the most eloquent advocates of the American cause. A year later, in 1775, Jefferson attended the Second Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army and appointed Jefferson's fellow Virginian, George Washington, as its commander-in-chief. However, the Congress' most significant work fell to Jefferson himself. Declaration of Independence In June 1776, the Congress appointed a five-man committee (Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence. The committee then chose Jefferson to author the declaration's first draft, selecting him for what Adams called his "happy talent for composition and singular felicity of expression." Over the next 17 days, Jefferson drafted one of the most beautiful and powerful testaments to liberty and equality in world history. The document opened with a preamble stating the natural rights of all human beings and then continued on to enumerate specific grievances against King George III that absolved the American colonies of any allegiance to the British Crown. Although the version of the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4, 1776, had undergone a series of revisions from Jefferson's original draft, its immortal words remain essentially his own: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." After authoring the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson returned to Virginia, where, from 1776 to 1779, he served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. There he sought to revise Virginia's laws to fit the American ideals he had outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson successfully abolished the doctrine of entail, which dictated that only a property owner's heirs could inherit his land, and the doctrine of primogeniture, which required that in the absence of a will a property owner's oldest son inherited his entire estate.

continents and oceans

N. America, S. America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica Indian, Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific

Machiavelli

Renaissance writer; formerly a politician, wrote The Prince, a work on ethics and government, describing how rulers maintain power by methods that ignore right or wrong; accepted the philosophy that "the end justifies the means."

What was the goal and purpose of the Encomienda system and why didn't it work?

The goal was to enslave Native Americans and the purpose was to use the slaves as a labor source. It didn't work because the Native Americans knew the land and could escape easily. they also were not immune to the diseases and died.

calendars & lunar cycle

There are "Man made" lunar calendars that some scientists place as old as 32,000 years. Some recent archeological findings are from the Ice Age where hunters carved notches and gouged holes into sticks, reindeer bones and the tusks of mammoths, depicting the days between each phase of the Moon. These artifacts are dated between 25,000 and 10,000 B.C. There are also surviving astronomical records inscribed on oracle bones dating back to the Shang dynasty of the fourteenth century B.C. that reveal a Chinese calendar, with intercalation of lunar months. The Sun, Moon, planets, and stars have provided us a reference for measuring the passage of time throughout history. All cultures before recorded history charted the heavenly skies to make some sort of sense out of their environment. In Egypt, the paths of the stars were recorded as early as 6,000 years before Christ. The wisest of the Egyptians were the Hermetic philosophers, who possessed a profound knowledge of the sky. They relied upon the predictable motion of these bodies through the sky to determine the seasons, months, and years. People began a preoccupation with measuring and recording the passage of time. There was a need for planning and for divination and prognostication; to maintain these cycles meant that records needed to be kept and observatories needed to be built to precisely measure these cycles. They erected various calendars to provide a source of order and cultural identity and as a need to organize their time more efficiently. As far back as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa also made primitive clocks in order to divide their time more precisely. Of primary importance to the Egyptians was the time when the Nile river began its annual flood tide. This was carefully noted so they knew when to plant and harvest. All of their activities, whether for work, rest or play were in harmony with the flow of "Mother Nature," the changing of seasons, the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon and the phases the Moon passed through in a month. There was a time for everything under the Heavens! The seasons, tides, eclipses, and phases of the Moon were known to be in direct correlation to the movement of the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Clocks and Calendars traditionally held a sacred status among diversified cultures and provided the basis for maintaining the cycles of religious and civil events, as well as for agricultural and hunting purposes. These early calendars are based on the Moon's cycles.

Raw Materials

Unprocessed natural products used in production https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bSLYw_HYdU During the colonial era, Britain and its colonies engaged in a "triangular trade," shipping natural resources, goods, and people across the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to enrich the mother country. Trade with Europeans led to far-reaching consequences among Native American communities, including warfare, cultural change, and disease. Although the British government attempted to control colonial trade through measures like the Navigation Acts, it only sporadically enforced trade laws. The Atlantic highway Which is easier to get to: a town that's 10 miles away on the other side of a mountain range, or a city that's 3000 miles away on the other side of an ocean? Today, there's no question that the nearby town would be easier, but before the widespread adoption of cars and railroads, a sea voyage was a much easier prospect than a journey over treacherous land. In the colonial era, the Atlantic Ocean served as a highway between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, tying together a network of people, raw materials, finished goods, merchants, and sailors that brought wealth to colonial empires. Map of the Atlantic Ocean. Map of the Atlantic Ocean, c. 1765. Image credit: New York Public Library Generating wealth for the mother country was first and foremost among the reasons for European colonization in the Americas. During this era, the economic theory of mercantilism suggested that a nation's power relied on a favorable balance of trade: that is, exporting more than it imported. Establishing colonies promoted mercantilist goals in two ways: first, the colonies ensured the mother country had a cheap supply of raw materials (timber, sugar, tobacco, furs, just to name a few), and second, the colonies served as a captive market for finished goods (furniture, guns, metal implements). In other words, colonies existed to sell things to the mother country and to buy things from it, and the government made its profit by taxing and imposing customs duties on trade. Mercantilism led to the emergence of what's been called the "triangular trade": a system of exchange in which Europe supplied Africa and the Americas with finished goods, the Americas supplied Europe and Africa with raw materials, and Africa supplied the Americas with enslaved laborers. In theory, a ship could make its way from one continent to another laden with cargo that would be prized in the next port: buying enslaved laborers on the coast of Africa, sailing to Barbados to sell enslaved people and buy sugar, sailing to England to sell sugar and buy guns, and then sailing to the coast of Africa to sell guns and buy more enslaved people. Although this generalization demonstrates how each continent supplied the others with the goods or labor they lacked, the reality was a bit more complex: few ships would have completed the full triangle, and ships might also make more than one stop in the colonies—to exchange food from New England and enslaved people from the sugar islands, for instance. Map depicting the triangular trade, showing the imports and exports of each region. The North American British colonies sent raw materials like rice, tobacco, and lumber to Europe. Europe sent manufactured goods and luxuries to North America. Europe also sent guns, cloth, iron, and beer to Africa in exchange fro gold, ivory, spices and hardwood. The primary export from Africa to North America and the West Indies was enslaved people to work on colonial plantations and farms. There was also intercolonial trade between the West Indies and the North American British colonies. The English colonies in North America sent fish and lumber to the West Indies in exchange for enslaved people and sugar. Goods and people flowed from Europe, Africa, and North America in the system of transatlantic trade. The British colonies in North America specialized in producing or obtaining commodities that Europeans valued: the islands of the Caribbean produced sugar, Carolina produced rice and indigo, the Chesapeake produced tobacco, and the Middle colonies produced foodstuffs like grain. With shorter growing seasons, the New England colonies could not produce cash crops, but instead chopped down their abundant forests to build ships for fishing and for carrying cargo across the Atlantic. The northern forests were also home to beavers, whose furs were prized in Europe to make hats and fancy clothing. This entire Atlantic economy depended on the unpaid toil and unparalleled human misery of enslaved laborers, who worked on plantations growing cash crops. Unable to compel a sufficient number of Europeans (who refused to accept brutal working conditions) or Native Americans (who escaped captivity or died from European-borne diseases) to work on New World plantations, Europeans purchased enslaved laborers from slave traders on the coast of Africa. After a grueling Middle Passage by boat in which about one-third of captives died, most enslaved laborers arrived in the Caribbean to work on the sugar islands, like Barbados and Jamaica. Some of those who survived the harsh conditions growing and processing sugar would be sold north to Virginia or Carolina, where they worked growing tobacco or rice. Although few enslaved people worked in the New England colonies, those colonies propped up the colonial system of slavery by sailing Middle Passage ships and selling provisions to enslavers. European trade and Native Americans The bustling Atlantic economy also affected the lives of Native Americans—even those who never directly interacted with Europeans. Native Americans prized the guns and metal tools (knives, hoes, and kettles) that Europeans provided, as well as alcohol and glass beads that served in religious ceremonies. European traders prized the animal skins that Native American hunters provided: beaver furs in the North and deerskins in the South. Furs were especially convenient New World commodities because native communities did all the work of hunting and processing the pelts. Print showing Europeans and Native Americans trading furs. Print depicting Native Americans and Europeans trading furs. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Native Americans groups competed with each other for access to European trading partners, seeking to block their enemies from obtaining guns and other valuable commodities from the English, French, or Dutch. But European colonists discovered that they, too, had to pick a side: trading with the Hurons, for example, instantly made them the enemies of the powerful Iroquois, and Native Americans demanded military assistance from their trading partners. The bottomless European demand for beaver furs drove Native Americans to hunt them near to extinction; conflict between native groups increased as they encroached on each others' hunting territories. But the most destructive force of all was European disease, which devastated Native American communities and fueled a never-ending cycle of mourning wars, raids aimed at taking captives who would replace members of tribes who had died. In the 1700s, as warfare became more brutal, both Europeans and Native Americans enriched themselves by capturing and selling their native enemies as slaves bound for the West Indies. Trade and empire To benefit from the mercantilist system, Britain had to ensure that the spoils of empire came to its own coffers. In 1651, Parliament passed the first of the Navigation Acts, which aimed to control the terms of trade between Britain and its colonies. Among other limitations on colonial trade and manufacturing, the Navigation Acts specified that "enumerated" goods (the most valuable colonial commodities, like sugar and tobacco) had to be transported on British ships and sold in British ports. That way, the British crown could reap the customs duties on the imported goods, and British merchants and shipbuilders could profit from the business. As British subjects, American merchants and shipbuilders benefited from these laws too. The Navigation Acts, however, were only sporadically enforced. At times, the British government attempted to institute tighter control over its North American colonies. King James II, for example, converted proprietary colonies into royal colonies, increased duties on enumerated goods, and established a vice-admiralty court in Boston to enforce the Navigation Acts. But frequent changes in the British government led to changes in the colonial relationship. When the Catholic King James II was overthrown in 1689 in favor of Protestant monarchs William and Mary, the new king and queen relaxed or eliminated many of James's coercive measures. Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, trade laws—and the extent to which they were enforced—fluctuated as new kings and new prime ministers took power in British government. Between the 1720s and the 1760s, there was an extended period of "salutary neglect," in which British officials overlooked colonists' violations of the Navigation Acts. But that came to an end in the 1760s, when King George III attempted to reassert control over colonial trade. The colonists rebelled, ultimately starting the American Revolution.

Medieval Art

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4zQnNLRW3w Subjects are religious and figures look flat and stiff with little emotion. A kind of art in which subjects are religious, figures look flat and stiff, important figures are large, subjects are clothed with little emotion, and it is flat and two dimensional with a single color background. Art during the Middle Ages saw many changes up to the emergence of the early Renaissance period. Early art subjects were initially restricted to the production of Pietistic painting (religious art or Christian art) in the form of illuminated manuscripts, mosaics and fresco paintings in churches. There were no portrait paintings in the art of the Middle Ages. The colors were generally somewhat muted. The subject of Medieval architecture is also covered in this section. The following links provide facts and interesting information about Medieval Art and Architecture and the famous artists of the Middle ages: Medieval Art Types of Medieval ArtByzantine ArtRomanesque ArtGothic ArtIlluminated ManuscriptsEarly Christian ArtMeaning of Colors in Christian Art Medieval ArtistsMedieval Women ArtistsBayeux TapestryBayeux Tapestry ScenesMeaning of Flowers in Christian ArtMeaning of Trees in Christian ArtMedieval Literature Famous Artists DonatelloGiottoLeon Battista AlbertiCimabueFilippo BrunelleschiFra AngelicoLorenzo GhibertiHildegard of Bingen Art and Famous Artists of the Middle Ages Medieval ArchitectureMedieval Architecture styles were called Romanesque and the later style of Architecture was known as the French Style, Perpendicular or more commonly as Gothic architecture. The following dates clarify the different styles of Architecture of the Middle Ages: Romanesque Architecture - 1066 to 1200 - Norman or Romanesque architecture Gothic Architecture - 1200 to 1300 - Early English Gothic Architecture ( also called Lancet Gothic architecture ) Gothic Architecture - 1300 to 1400 - Decorated style of Gothic Architecture featuring Gargoyles Perpendicular Gothic Architecture - 1400 to 1500 - Perpendicular style of Gothic Architecture Medieval - Gothic and Romanesque Architecture Medieval ArchitectureMedieval Architecture Glossary of TermsMedieval Castle ArchitectureMedieval ArchitectsGargoyles Romanesque ArchitectureCharacteristics of Romanesque ArchitectureGothic ArchitectureHistory of Gothic ArchitectureGothic Arch Gothic and Romanesque Architecture History - Christian Art and Religious iconographyChristian art and religious iconography began, about two centuries after the death of Jesus Christ. Christian art and religious iconography was originally based on the classical art styles and imagery used by the Ancient Greeks and the Ancient Romans. In the period encompassing Medieval art iconography began to be standardised and to relate more closely to the texts found in the Bible. Medieval Art History - Byzantine ArtThe capitol of the Roman Empire was Byzantium which was renamed as Constantinople. The Roman Empire was spit into two sections - the Eastern and Western part of the Roman Empire. The Western part of the Roman Empire disintegrated but the Eastern, or Byzantium Empire, stayed intact. Early Medieval Art reflect the differences between the development of the Catholic religion in the west and the Byzantium Empire of the east. Byzantine Art was the name given to the style of art used in very early years of this era or period. This period was also known as the Dark Ages ( 410 AD - 1066 AD ). The Dark Ages were followed by the Medieval times of the Middle Ages (1066 - 1485) and changes which saw the emergence of the early Renaissance Art. To appreciate the full extent of the changes in Medieval Art and the Early Renaissance it is helpful to understand its fore-runner - Byzantium Art and its effects on art during the Medieval times. Early Art in what was the Western Empire - Romanesque Art The Western Empire (Europe) was dominated by warring factions and their quest for conquest and power . Early Medieval Art was initially restricted to the production of Pietistic painting (religious Christian art) in the form of illuminated manuscripts, mosaics and fresco paintings in churches. There were no portrait paintings. The colors were generally muted. Gothic Art - Advances and StylesThe Later Middle Ages saw the emergence of Gothic Art and major advances of art in Medieval Times. During this period artists broke away from the influences of the Byzantium and Romanesque art style. It developed into Gothic highly visual art. The artists and painters were founders of the movement towards greater realism which culminated in the Renaissance art style. Advances of Art - the Artists The advances of art during these times was due to the changes in more liberal religious beliefs and the efforts and the pioneering art styles developed by the artists, sculptors and painters of the period of the Middle Ages. The most important and famous artists and sculptors of the Middle Ages included Donatello, Giotto, Leon Battista Alberti, Cimabue, Filippo Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico and Lorenzo Ghiberti. A short biography and timeline of these artists can be accessed from the above links. Advances of Art - the Women Artists The advances of art in relation to women artists was due to the changes in more liberal religious beliefs and the efforts and the pioneering art styles developed by the female artists, illuminators, sculptors and painters. Many women took religious orders during this period and were allowed to work on such projects as creating the most beautiful illuminated manuscripts. Different Types of Medieval ArtMedieval art increased from the type depicted in Pietistic painting (religious paintings) in the form displayed in illuminated manuscripts, mosaics and fresco paintings in churches. Medieval art included the following art by type: Illuminated manuscript Metalwork especially bronze art Silversmith and Goldsmith and new forms of jewelry Painting Fresco Panel painting Embroidery and tapestry art such as the Bayeux Tapestry Ceramic art Mosaic Tessera Sculpture Engraving Stained Glass art Heraldry

Francisco Pizarro

(1478-1541) Pizarro explored much of the west coast of South America. In 1532 he conquered the great Incan Empire of Peru and killed the last Incan Emperor, Atahualpa. He took over the Incan capital of Cuzco and established the city of Lima. He also gained huge amounts of gold and silver.

The Renaissance

Artists Nicolaus Copernicus Galileo Galilei Niccolo Machiavelli Thomas Moore Printing Press The Reformation Martin Luther Elizabethan Age Queen Elizabeth William Shakespeare

Ancient Civilizations

Neolithic Period agricultural revolution Mesopotamia Tigris & Euphrates Fertile Crescent calendars & lunar cycle Ancient Mesoamerica Ancient Near East Ancient China Ancient Greece Roman Empire & Decline

Roman Empire & Decline

The Roman Empire, at its height (c. 117 CE), was the most extensive political and social structure in western civilization. By 285 CE the empirehad grown too vast to be ruled from the central government at Rome and so was divided by Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305 CE) into a Western and an Eastern Empire. The RomanEmpire began when Augustus Caesar (r. 27 BCE-14 CE) became the first emperor of Rome and ended, in the west, when the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus (r. 475-476 CE), was deposed by the Germanic King Odoacer (r. 476-493 CE). In the east, it continued as the Byzantine Empire until the death of Constantine XI (r. 1449-1453 CE) and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE. The influence of the Roman Empire on western civilization was profound in its lasting contributions to virtually every aspect of western culture. The Early Dynasties Following the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, Gaius Octavian Thurinus, Julius Caesar's nephew and heir, became the first emperor of Rome and took the name Augustus Caesar. Although Julius Caesar is often regarded as the first emperor of Rome, this is incorrect; he never held the title `Emperor' but, rather, `Dictator', a title the Senate could not help but grant him, as Caesar held supreme military and political power at the time. In contrast, the Senate willingly granted Augustus the title of emperor, lavishing praise and power on him because he had destroyed Rome's enemies and brought much-needed stability. AUGUSTUS: "I FOUND ROME A CITY OF CLAY BUT LEFT IT A CITY OF MARBLE." Augustus ruled the empire from 31 BCE until 14 CE when he died. In that time, as he said himself, he "found Rome a city of clay but left it a city of marble." Augustus reformed the laws of the city and, by extension, the empire's, secured Rome's borders, initiated vast building projects (carried out largely by his faithful general Agrippa(l. 63-12 BCE), who built the first Pantheon), and secured the empire a lasting name as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, political and cultural powers in history. The Pax Romana (Roman Peace), also known as the Pax Augusta, which he initiated, was a time of peace and prosperity hitherto unknown and would last over 200 years. Following Augustus' death, power passed to his heir, Tiberius (r. 14-37 CE), who continued many of the emperor's policies but lacked the strength of character and vision which so defined Augustus. This trend would continue, more or less steadily, with the emperors who followed: Caligula (r. 37-41 CE), Claudius (r. 41-54 CE), and Nero (r. 54-68 CE). These first five rulers of the empire are referred to as the Julio-Claudian Dynasty for the two family names they descended from (either by birth or through adoption), Julius and Claudius. Although Caligula has become notorious for his depravity and apparent insanity, his early rule was commendable as was that of his successor, Claudius, who expanded Rome's power and territory in Britain; less so was that of Nero. Caligula and Claudius were both assassinated in office (Caligula by his Praetorian Guard and Claudius, apparently, by his wife). Nero's suicide ended the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and initiated the period of social unrest known as The Year of the Four Emperors. These four rulers were Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. Following Nero's suicide in 68 CE, Galba assumed rule (69 CE) and almost instantly proved unfit for the responsibility. He was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. Otho succeeded him swiftly on the very day of his death, and ancient records indicate he was expected to make a good emperor. General Vitellius, however, sought power for himself and so initiated the brief civil war which ended in Otho's suicide and Vitellius' ascent to the throne. Vitellius proved no more fit to rule than Galba had been, as he almost instantly engaged in luxurious entertainments and feasts at the expense of his duties. The legions declared for General Vespasian as emperor and marched on Rome. Vitellius was murdered by Vespasian's men, and Vespasian (r. 69-79 CE) took power exactly one year from the day Galba had first ascended to the throne. Vespasian founded the Flavian Dynasty which was characterized by massive building projects, economic prosperity, and expansion of the empire. Vespasian reign was prosperous as evidenced by his building projects which included initial construction of the Flavian Amphitheatre (the famous Coliseum of Rome) which his son Titus(r. 79-81 CE) would complete. Titus' early reign saw the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE which buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Roman Emperor Domitian, Louvre by Mary Harrsch (Photographed at the Musée de Louvre) (CC BY-NC-SA) Ancient sources are universal in their praise for his handling of this disaster as well as the great fire of Rome in 80 CE. Titus died of a fever in 81 CE and was succeeded by his brother Domitian (r. 81-96 CE). Domitian expanded and secured the boundaries of Rome, repaired the damage to the city caused by the great fire, continued the building projects initiated by his brother, and improved the economy of the empire. Even so, his autocratic methods and policies made him unpopular with the Roman Senate, and he was assassinated in 96 CE. The Five Good Emperors Domitian's successor was his advisor Nerva who founded the Nervan-Antonin Dynasty which ruled Rome 96-192 CE. This period is marked by increased prosperity owing to the rulers known as The Five Good Emperors of Rome. Between 96 and 180 CE, five exceptional men ruled in sequence and brought the Roman Empire to its height: Nerva (r. 96-98 CE) Trajan (r. 98-117 CE) Hadrian (r. 117-138 CE) Antoninus Pius (r. 138-161 CE) Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180 CE) Under their leadership, the Roman Empire grew stronger, more stable, and expanded in size and scope. Lucius Verus and Commodus are the last two of the Nervan-Antonin Dynasty. Verus was co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius until his death in 169 CE and seems to have been fairly ineffective. Commodus (r. 180-192 CE), Aurelius' son and successor, was one of the most disgraceful emperors Rome ever saw and is universally depicted as indulging himself and his whims at the expense of the empire. He was strangled by his wrestling partner in his bath in 192 CE, ending the Nervan-Antonin Dynasty and raising the prefect Pertinax (who most likely engineered Commodus' assassination) to power. Pompeii and Mt. Vesuivus by mchen007 (Copyright) The Severan Dynasty Pertinax governed for only three months before he was assassinated. He was followed, in rapid succession, by four others in the period known as The Year of the Five Emperors, which culminated in the rise of Septimus Severus to power. Severus (r. 193-211 CE), founded the Severan Dynasty, defeated the Parthians, and expanded the empire. His campaigns in Africa and Britain were extensive and costly and would contribute to Rome's later financial difficulties. He was succeeded by his sons Caracalla and Geta, until Caracalla had his brother murdered. Roman Beach Attack by The Creative Assembly (Copyright) Caracalla ruled until 217 CE, when he was assassinated by his bodyguard. It was under Caracalla's reign that Roman citizenship was expanded to include all free men within the empire. This lawwas said to have been enacted as a means of raising tax revenue, simply because, after its passage, there were more people the central government could tax. The Severan Dynasty continued, largely under the guidance and manipulation of Julia Maesa (referred to as `empress'), until the assassination of Alexander Severus (r. 222-235 CE) in 235 CE which plunged the empire into the chaos known as The Crisis of the Third Century (lasting from 235-284 CE). PARTNER PROMOTION Explore the Roman Provinces in VR No special gear required, works on mobile and tablet! See the spread of the Roman Empire with these architectural wonders in provincial territories. EXPLORE NOW Two Empires: East & West This period, also known as The Imperial Crisis, was characterized by constant civil war, as various military leaders fought for control of the empire. The crisis has been further noted by historians for widespread social unrest, economic instability (fostered, in part, by the devaluation of Roman currency by the Severans), and, finally, the dissolution of the empire which broke into three separate regions. The empire was reunited by Aurelian (270-275 CE) whose policies were further developed and improved upon by Diocletian who established the Tetrarchy (the rule of four) to maintain order throughout the empire. THE IMPERIAL CRISIS WAS CHARACTERIZED BY CONSTANT CIVIL WAR, AS VARIOUS MILITARY LEADERS FOUGHT FOR CONTROL OF THE EMPIRE. Even so, the empire was still so vast that Diocletian divided it in half in c.285 CE to facilitate more efficient administration by elevating one of his officers, Maximian (r. 286-305 CE) to the position of co-emperor. In so doing, he created the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire). Since a leading cause of the Imperial Crisis was a lack of clarity in succession, Diocletian decreed that successors must be chosen and approved from the outset of an individual's rule. Two of these successors were the generals Maxentius and Constantine. Diocletian voluntarily retired from rule in 305 CE, and the tetrarchy dissolved as rival regions of the empire vied with each other for dominance. Following Diocletian's death in 311 CE, Maxentius and Constantine plunged the empire again into civil war. Constantine & Christianity In 312 CE Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and became sole emperor of both the Western and Eastern Empires (ruling from 306-337 CE but holding supreme power 324-307 CE). Believing that Jesus Christ was responsible for his victory, Constantine initiated a series of laws such as the Edict of Milan (313 CE) which mandated religious tolerance throughout the empire and, specifically, tolerance for the faith which came to known as Christianity. The Colossus of Constantine by Dana Murray (CC BY-NC-SA) In the same way that earlier Roman emperors had claimed a special relationship with a deity to augment their authority and standing (Caracalla with Serapis, for example, or Diocletian with Jupiter), Constantine chose the figure of Jesus Christ. At the First Council of Nicea (325 CE), he presided over the gathering to codify the faith and decide on important issues such as the divinity of Jesus and which manuscripts would be collected to form the book known today as The Bible. He stabilized the empire, revalued the currency, and reformed the military, as well as founding the city he called New Rome on the site of the former city of Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul) which came to be known as Constantinople. He is known as Constantine the Great owing to later Christian writers who saw him as a mighty champion of their faith but, as has been noted by many historians, the honorific could as easily be attributed to his religious, cultural, and political reforms, as well as his skill in battle and his large-scale building projects. After his death, his sons inherited the empire and, fairly quickly, embarked on a series of conflicts with each other which threatened to undo all that Constantine had accomplished. His three sons, Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans divided the Roman Empire between them but soon fell to fighting over which of them deserved more. In these conflicts, Constantine II and Constans were killed. Constantius II died later after naming his cousin Julian his successor and heir. Emperor Julian ruled for only two years (361-363 CE) and, in that time, tried to return Rome to her former glory through a series of reforms aimed at increasing efficiency in government. As a Neo-Platonic philosopher, Julian rejected Christianity and blamed the faith, and Constantine's advocacy for it, for the decline of the empire. While officially proclaiming a policy of religious tolerance, Julian systematically removed Christians from influential government positions, banned the teaching and spread of the religion, and barred Christians from military service. His death, while on campaign against the Persians, ended the dynasty Constantine had begun. He was the last pagan emperor of Rome and came to be known as `Julian the Apostate' for his opposition to Christianity. Byzantine Empire c. 460 CE by Tataryn77 (CC BY-SA) After the brief rule of Jovian, who re-established Christianity as the dominant faith of the empire and repealed Julian's various edicts, the responsibility of emperor fell to Theodosius I. Theodosius I (r. 379-395 CE) took Constantine's and Jovian's religious reforms to their natural ends, outlawed pagan worship throughout the empire, closed the schools and universities, and converted pagan temples into Christian churches after proclaiming Christianity Rome's state religion in 380 CE. THE UNITY OF SOCIAL DUTIES & RELIGIOUS BELIEF WHICH PAGANISM PROVIDED WAS SEVERED BY THE INSTITUTION OF CHRISTIANITY. It was during this time that Plato's famous Academy was closed by Theodosius' decree. Many of his reforms were unpopular with both the Roman aristocracy and the common people who held to the traditional values of pagan practice. The unity of social duties and religious belief which paganism provided was severed by the institution of a religion which removed the gods from the earth and human society and proclaimed only one God who ruled from the heavens. This new god, unlike the gods of old, had no special interest in Rome - he was the god of all people - and this distanced the religion of Rome from the state of Rome. Previously, Roman religious belief was state-sponsored and the rituals and festivals went to enhancing the status of the government. Theodosius I devoted so much effort to promoting Christianity that he seems to have neglected other duties as emperor and would be the last to rule both Eastern and Western Empires. The Fall of the Roman Empire From 376-382 CE, Rome fought a series of battles against invading Goths known today as the Gothic Wars. At the Battle of Adrianople, 9 August 378 CE, the Roman Emperor Valens (r. 364-378 CE) was defeated, and historians mark this event as pivotal in the decline of the Western Roman Empire. Various theories have been suggested as to the cause of the empire's fall but, even today, there is no universal agreement on what those specific factors were. Edward Gibbon has famously argued in his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that Christianity played a pivotal role, in that the new religion undermined the social mores of the empire which paganism provided. The theory that Christianity was a root cause in the empire's fall was debated long before Gibbon, however, as the theologian Orosius (l. c. 5th century CE) argued Christianity's innocence in Rome's decline as early as 418 CE. Orosius claimed it was primarily paganism itself and pagan practices which brought about the fall of Rome. Other contributing factors to Rome's fall include: Political instability due to size of empire The self-interest of the two halves of the empire Invasion of barbarian tribes Government corruption Mercenary armies Over-reliance on slave labor Massive unemployment and inflation The ungovernable vastness of the empire, even divided in two, made it difficult to manage. The Eastern Empire flourished while the Western Empire struggled and neither gave much thought to helping the other. Eastern and Western Rome saw each other more as competitors than teammates and worked primarily in their own self-interest. The growing strength of the Germanic tribes and their constant incursions into Rome could have been dealt with more effectively if not for government corruption, especially among provincial governors, and fair treatment of the Goths by the Romans overall. The Roman military, manned largely with barbarian mercenaries who had no ethnic ties to Rome, could no longer safeguard the borders as efficiently as they once had nor could the government as easily collect taxes in the provinces. Further, the debasement of the currency, begun under the Severan Dynasty, had steadily encouraged inflation and slave labor, which was widespread, deprived lower-class citizens of jobs so unemployment levels soared. The arrival of the Visigoths in the empire in the third century CE, fleeing from the invading Huns, and their subsequent rebellions has also been cited a contributing factor in the decline. Invasions of the Roman Empire by MapMaster (CC BY-SA) The Western Roman Empire officially ended 4 September 476 CE, when Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the Germanic King Odoacer (though some historians date the end as 480 CE with the death of Julius Nepos). The Eastern Roman Empire continued on as the Byzantine Empire until 1453 CE, and though known early on as simply `the Roman Empire', it did not much resemble that entity at all. The Western Roman Empire would become re-invented later as The Holy Roman Empire (962-1806 CE), but that construct, also, was far removed from the Roman Empire of antiquity and was an `empire' in name only. Legacy of the Roman Empire The inventions and innovations which were generated by the Roman Empire profoundly altered the lives of the ancient people and continue to be used in cultures around the world today. Advancements in the construction of roads and buildings, indoor plumbing, aqueducts, and even fast-drying cement were either invented or improved upon by the Romans. The calendar used in the West derives from the one created by Julius Caesar, and the names of the days of the week (in the romance languages) and months of the year also come from Rome. Even the practice of returning some purchase one finds one does not want comes from Rome whose laws made it legal for a consumer to bring back some defective or unwanted merchandise to the seller. Apartment complexes (known as `insula), public toilets, locks and keys, newspapers, even socks all were developed by the Romans as were shoes, a postal system (modeled after the Persians), cosmetics, the magnifying glass, and the concept of satire in literature. During the time of the empire, significant developments were also advanced in the fields of medicine, law, religion, government, and warfare. The Romans were adept at borrowing from, and improving upon, those inventions or concepts they found among the indigenous populace of the regions they conquered. It is therefore difficult to say what is an `original' Roman invention and what is an innovation on a pre-existing concept, technique, or tool. It can safely be said, however, that the Roman Empire left an enduring legacy which continues to affect the way in which people live in the present day. West fell b/c of disease, corruption (25/26 emperors killed in 50 yrs.) invasion by Germanic tribe (Visigoths)

Transatlantic slave trade

Trading of slaves from Africa to the Americas 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. Transatlantic slave trade, segment of the global slave trade that transported between 10 million and 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century. It was the second of three stages of the so-called triangular trade, in which arms, textiles, and wine were shipped from Europe to Africa, slaves from Africa to the Americas, and sugar and coffee from the Americas to Europe.

nations who had part in western expansion (getting to new world)

age of exploration nations of spain, france, england and the dutch

land features

hills, mountains, canyons, oceans, volcanoes, valley

European Exploration

voyages to new territories by European navigators in the 15th century, Christopher Columbus Gold, Land, & Raw Materials Missionaries Inter Caetera Encomienda system Conquistadors & Impact Hernan Cortezs Francisco Pizarro Ferdinand Magellan Columbian Exchange Transatlantic Slave Trade The Middle Passage Triangle Trade Mercantilism Raw Materials Manufactured Goods

Neolithic Period

New Stone Age (following the mesolithic) group of hunters learned about agriculture collected crops and domesticated wild animals produced grains, fruits and wegitables from seeds made plows out of antlers stop and wood cultivated used stone to grind cereals and grains In the Middle East, the sedentary agriculture was based on barley, wheat, and pigs.

William Shakespeare

English dramatist and poet; considered one of the greatest writers in the English Language English poet and dramatist considered one of the greatest English writers (1564-1616) William Shakespeare, Shakespeare also spelled Shakspere, byname Bard of Avon or Swan of Avon, (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England—died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon), Englishpoet, dramatist, and actor often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.

Ancient China

Isolated by mountains and the Gobi desert to the north, Believed in dynastic cycle and mandate of Heaven. Local lords controlled their religion but owed military service. Experienced a Golden age = advancements in science, math, and technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFq0mq-KtaE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ-yjGDrRM8 Ancient China produced what has become the oldest extant culture in the world. The name 'China' comes from the Sanskrit Cina (derived from the name of the Chinese Qin Dynasty, pronounced 'Chin') which was translated as 'Cin' by the Persians and seems to have become popularized through trade along the Silk Road from China to the rest of the world. The Romans and the Greeks knew the country as 'Seres', "the land where silk comes from". The name 'China' does not appear in print in the west until 1516 CE in Barbosa's journals narrating his travels in the east (though the Europeans had long known of China through trade via the Silk Road). Marco Polo, the famous explorer who familiarized China to Europe in the 13th century CE, referred to the land as 'Cathay. In Mandarin Chinese, the country is known as 'Zhongguo' meaning "central state" or "middle empire". Prehistory Well before the advent of recognizable civilization in the region, the land was occupied by hominids. Peking Man, a skull fossil discovered in 1927 CE near Beijing, lived in the area between 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, and Yuanmou Man, whose remains were found in Yuanmou in 1965 CE, inhabited the land 1.7 million years ago. Evidence uncovered with these finds shows that these early inhabitants knew how to fashion stone tools and use fire. While it is commonly accepted that human beings originated in Africa and then migrated to other points around the globe, China's paleoanthropologists "support the theory of 'regional evolution' of the origin of man" (China.org) which claims an independent basis for the birth of human beings. "The Shu Ape, a primate weighing only 100 to 150 grams and being similar to a mouse in size, lived [in China] in the Middle Eocene Epoch 4.5 to 4 million years ago. Its discovery posed a great challenge to the theory of African origin of the human race" (China.org). This challenge is considered plausible due to genetic links between the Shu Ape fossil and both advanced and lower primates, standing, then, as a 'missing link' in the evolutionary process. However one interprets this data (the Chinese conclusions have been disputed by the international community), the solid evidence provided by other finds substantiates a very ancient lineage of hominids and human beings in China and a high level of sophistication in early culture. One example of this is Banpo Village, near Xi'an, discovered in 1953 CE. Banpo is a Neolithicvillage which was inhabited between 4500 and 3750 BCE and comprises 45 houses with floors sunk into the ground for greater stability. A trench encircling the village provided both protection from attack and drainage (while also helping to fence in domestic animals) while man-made caves dug underground were used to store food. The design of the village, and the artifacts discovered there (such as pottery and tools), argue for a very advanced culture at the time it was constructed. Banpo Village, Xi'an, China by Ian Armstrong (CC BY-SA) It has generally been accepted that the Chinese 'Cradle of Civilization' is the Yellow River Valley which gave rise to villages sometime around 5000 BCE. While this has been disputed, and arguments have been made for the more widespread development of communities, there is no doubt that the Henan province, in the Yellow River Valley, was the site of many early villages and farming communities. In 2001 CE, archaeologists uncovered two skeletons "buried in a collapsed house, which was covered with a thick layer of silt deposits from the Yellow River. In the layer of deposits, archaeologists found more than 20 skeletons, an altar, a square, pottery, and stone and jade utensils" (Chinapage.org). This site was only one of many prehistoric villages in the area. The First Dynasties From these small villages and farming communities grew centralized government; the first of which was the prehistoric Xia Dynasty (c. 2070-1600 BCE). The Xia Dynasty was considered, for many years, more myth than fact until excavations in the 1960s and 1970s CE uncovered sites which argued strongly for its existence. Bronze works and tombs clearly point to an evolutionary period of development between disparate Stone Age villages and a recognizable cohesive civilization. The dynasty was founded by Yu the Great who worked relentlessly for 13 years to control the flooding of the Yellow River which routinely destroyed the farmer's crops. He was so focused on his work that it was said he did not return home once in all those years, even though he seems to have passed by his house on at least three occasions, and this dedication inspired others to follow him. WRITING DEVELOPED UNDER THE SHANG DYNASTY AS WELL AS BRONZE METALLURGY, ARCHITECTURE, & RELIGION. After he had controlled the flooding, Yu conquered the Sanmiao tribes and was named successor (by the then-ruler, Shun), reigning until his death. Yu established the hereditary system of succession and thereby the concept of dynasty which has become most familiar. The ruling class and the elite lived in urban clusters while the peasant population, which supported the elite's lifestyle, remained largely agrarian, living in rural areas. Yu's son, Qi, ruled after him and power remained in the hands of the family until the last Xia ruler, Jie, was overthrown by Tang who established the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Tang was from the kingdom of Shang. The dates popularly assigned to him (1675-1646 BCE) do not in any way correspond to the known events in which he took part and must be considered erroneous. What is known is that he was the ruler, or at least a very important personage, in the kingdom of Shang who, around 1600 BCE, led a revolt against Jie and defeated his forces at the Battle of Mingtiao. The extravagance of the Xia court and the resultant burden on the populace is thought to have led to this uprising. Tang then assumed leadership of the land, lowered taxes, suspended the grandiose building projects begun by Jie (which were draining the kingdom of resources) and ruled with such wisdom and efficiency that art and culture were allowed to flourish. Writing developed under the Shang Dynasty as well as bronze metallurgy, architecture, and religion. King Tang of Shang by Ma Lin (Public Domain) Prior to the Shang, the people worshipped many gods with one supreme god, Shangti, as head of the pantheon (the same pattern found in other cultures). Shangti was considered 'the great ancestor' who presided over victory in war, agriculture, the weather, and good government. Because he was so remote and so busy, however, the people seem to have required more immediate intercessors for their needs and so the practice of ancestor worship began. When someone died, it was thought, they attained divine powers and could be called upon for assistance in times of need (similar to the Roman belief in the parentes). This practice led to highly sophisticated rituals dedicated to appeasing the spirits of the ancestors which eventually included ornate burials in grand tombs filled with all one would need to enjoy a comfortable afterlife. The king, in addition to his secular duties, served as chief officiate and mediator between the living and the dead and his rule was considered ordained by divine law. Although the famous Mandate of Heaven was developed by the later Zhou Dynasty, the idea of linking a just ruler with divine will has its roots in the beliefs fostered by the Shang. The Zhou Dynasty Around the year 1046 BCE, King Wu (r. 1046-1043 BCE), of the province of Zhou, rebelled against King Zhou of Shang and defeated his forces at the Battle of Muye, establishing the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046- 256 BCE). 1046-771 BCE marks the Western Zhou Period while 771-226 BCE marks the Eastern Zhou Period. Wu rebelled against the ruling Shang after the king of Shang killed his older brother unjustly. The Mandate of Heaven was invoked by Wu and his family to legitimize the revolt as he felt the Shang were no longer acting in the interests of the people and so had forfeited the mandate between the monarchy and the god of law, order, and justice, Shangti. The Mandate of Heaven was thus defined as the gods' blessing on a just ruler and rule by divine mandate. When the government no longer served the will of the gods, that government would be overthrown. Further, it was stipulated that there could be only one legitimate ruler of China and that his rule should be legitimized by his proper conduct as a steward of the lands entrusted him by heaven. Rule could be passed from father to son but only if the child possessed the necessary virtue to rule. This mandate would later be often manipulated by various rulers entrusting succession to unworthy progeny. Bronze Zhou Cooking Vessel by Editor at Large (CC BY-SA) Under the Zhou, culture flourished and civilization spread. Writing was codified and iron metallurgy became increasingly sophisticated. The greatest and best-known Chinese philosophers and poets, Confucius, Mencius, Mo Ti (Mot Zu), Lao-Tzu, Tao Chien, and the military strategist Sun-Tzu (if he existed as depicted), all come from the Zhou period in China and the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought. The chariot, which was introduced to the land under the Shang, became more fully developed by the Zhou. It should be noted that these periods and dynasties did not begin nor end as neatly as they seem to in history books and the Zhou Dynasty shared many qualities with the Shang (including language and religion). While historians find it necessary, for clarity's sake, to break events into periods, the Zhou Dynasty remained extant through the following recognized periods known as The Spring and Autumn Period and The Warring States Period. The Spring & Autumn Period & The Warring States During the Spring and Autumn Period (772-476 BCE and so called from the Spring and Autumn Annals, the official chronicle of the state at the time and an early source mentioning General Sun-Tzu), the Zhou government became decentralized in their move to the new capital at Luoyang, marking the end of the 'Western Zhou' period and the beginning of 'Eastern Zhou'. This is the period most noted for advances in philosophy, poetry, and the arts and saw the rise of Confucian, Taoist, and Mohist thought. At the same time, however, the different states were breaking away from central rule by Luoyang and proclaiming themselves sovereign. This, then, led to the so-called Warring States Period (476-221 BCE) in which seven states fought with each other for control. The seven states were Chu, Han, Qi, Qin, Wei, Yan, and Zhao, all of whom considered themselves sovereign but none of whom felt confident in claiming the Mandate of Heaven still held by the Zhou of Luoyang. All seven of the states used the same tactics and observed the same rules of conduct in battle and so none could gain the advantage over the others. Chinese Warring States, 3rd century BCE by Philg88 (CC BY-SA) This situation was exploited by the pacifist philosopher Mo Ti, a skilled engineer, who made it his mission to provide each state with equal knowledge of fortifications and siege ladders in hopes of neutralizing any one state's advantage and so ending the war. His efforts were unsuccessful however and, between 262 and 260 BCE, the state of Qin gained supremacy over Zhao, finally defeating them at The Battle of Changping. A Qin statesman by the name of Shang Yang (died 338 BCE), a great believer in efficiency and law, had recast the Qin understanding of warfare to focus on victory at any cost. Whether Sun-Tzu or Shang Yang is to be credited with the reformation of military protocol and strategy in China depends on one's acceptance of Sun-Tzu's historicity. Whether Sun-Tzu existed as people claim, however, it is very probable that Shang Yang was acquainted with the famous work, The Art of War, which bears Sun-Tzu's name as author. YING ZHENG EMERGED FROM THE WARRING STATES CONFLICT SUPREME IN 221 BCE, SUBDUING & UNIFYING THE OTHER SIX STATES & PROCLAIMING HIMSELF SHI HUANGDI. Prior to these reforms, Chinese warfare was considered a nobleman's game of skill with very set rules dictated by courtesy and the perceived will of heaven. One did not attack the weak or the unprepared and one was expected to delay engagement until an opponent had mobilized and formed ranks on the field. Shang advocated total war in pursuit of victory and counseled taking the enemies' forces by whatever means lay at hand. Shang's principles were known in Qin and made use of at Changping (where over 450,000 captured Zhao soldiers were executed after the battle) giving the Qin the advantage they had been waiting for. Still, they did not make further effective use of these tactics until the rise of Ying Zheng, King of Qin. Utilizing Shang's directives, and with an army of considerable size using iron weapons and driving chariots, Ying Zheng emerged from the Warring States conflict supreme in 221 BCE, subduing and unifying the other six states under his rule and proclaiming himself Shi Huangdi -`First Emperor' - of China. The Qin Dynasty Shi Huangdi thus established the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), also known as the Imperial Era in China. He ordered the destruction of the walled fortifications which had separated the different states and commissioned the building of a great wall along the northern border of his kingdom. Though little remains today of Shi Huangdi's original wall, The Great Wall of China was begun under his rule. It stretched for over 5,000 kilometres (3,000 miles) across hill and plain, from the boundaries of Korea in the east to the troublesome Ordos Desert in the west. It was an enormous logistical undertaking, though for much of its course it incorporated lengths of earlier walls built by the separate Chinese kingdoms to defend their northern frontiers in the fourth and third centuries. (Scarre and Fagan, 382). Shi Huangdi also strengthened the infrastructure through road building which helped to increase trade through the ease of travel. Five trunk roads led from the imperial capital at Xianyang, each provided with police forces and posting stations. Most of these roads were of rammed-earth construction and were 15 metres (50 feet) wide. The longest ran southwest over 7,500 kilometres (4,500 miles) to the frontier region of Yunnan. So precipitous was the countryside that sections of the road had to be built out from vertical cliff faces on projecting timber galleries. (Scarre and Fagan, 382). Shi Huangdi also expanded the boundaries of his empire, built the Grand Canal in the south, redistributed land and, initially, was a fair and just ruler. Shi Huangdi by Dennis Jarvis (CC BY-SA) While he made great strides in building projects and military campaigns, his rule became increasingly characterized by a heavy hand in domestic policy. Claiming the Mandate from Heaven, he suppressed all philosophies save the Legalism which had been developed by Shang Yang and, heeding the counsel of his chief advisor, Li Siu, he ordered the destruction of any history or philosophy books which did not correspond to Legalism, his family line, the state of Qin, or himself. Since books were then written on strips of bamboo fastened with swivel pins, and a volume might be of some weight, the scholars who sought to evade the order were put to many difficulties. A number of them were detected; tradition says that many of them were sent to labor on the Great Wall, and that four hundred and sixty were put to death. Nevertheless some of the literati memorized the complete works of Confucius and passed them on by word of mouth to equal memories. (Durant, 697). This act, along with Shi Huangdi's suppression of general freedoms, including freedom of speech, made him progressively more unpopular. The ancestor worship of the past and the land of the dead began to interest the emperor more than his realm of the living and Shi Huangdi became increasingly engrossed in what this other world consisted of and how he might avoid traveling there. He seems to have developed an obsession with death, became increasingly paranoid regarding his personal safety, and ardently sought after immortality. The Terracotta Army Panorama by Bernd Thaller (CC BY-NC-SA) His desire to provide for himself an afterlife commensurate with his present one led him to commission a palace built for his tomb and an army of over 8,000 terracotta warriors created to serve him in eternity. This ceramic army, buried with him, also included terracotta chariots, cavalry, a commander in chief, and assorted birds and animals. He is said to have died while on a quest for an elixir of immortality and Li Siu, hoping to gain control of the government, kept his death a secret until he could alter his will to name his pliable son, Hu-Hai, as heir. This plan proved untenable, however, as the young prince showed himself to be quite unstable, executing many, and initiating a widespread rebellion in the land. Shortly after Shi Huangdi' s death, the Qin Dynasty quickly collapsed through the intrigue and ineptitude of people like Hu-Hai, Li Siu, and another advisor, Zhao Gao, and the Han Dynasty began with the accession of Liu-Bang. The Chu-Han Contention With the fall of the Qin Dynasty, China was plunged into chaos. Two generals emerged among the forces which rebelled against the Qin: Liu-Bang of Hanzhong and General Xiang-Yu of the state of Chu, who fought for control of the government. Xiang-Yu, who had proven himself the most formidable opponent of the Qin, awarded Liu-Bang the title of 'King of the Han' in recognition of Liu-Bang's decisive defeat of the Qin forces at their capital of Xianyang. Chu-Han Contention Map by SY (CC BY-SA) The two former allies quickly became antagonists, however, in the power struggle known as the Chu-Han contention until Xiang-Yu negotiated the Treaty of Hong Canal and brought a temporary peace. Xiang-Yu suggested dividing China under the rule of the Chu in the east and the Han in the west, but Liu-Bang wanted a united China under Han rule and, breaking the treaty, resumed hostilities. At the Battle of Gaixia in 202 BCE, Liu-Bang's great general, Han-Xin, trapped and defeated the forces of Chu under Xiang-Yu and Liu-Bang was proclaimed emperor (known to posterity as Emperor Gaozu of Han). Xiang-Yu committed suicide but his family was allowed to live and even serve in government positions. The new emperor Gaozu treated all of his former adversaries with respect and united the land under his rule. He pushed back the nomadic Xiongnu tribes, who had been making incursions into China, and made peace with the other states which had risen in rebellion against the failing Qin Dynasty. The Han Dynasty (which derives its name from Liu-Bang's home in Hanzhong province) would rule China, with a brief interruption, for the next 400 years, from 206 BCE to 220 CE. The Han Dynasty The resultant peace initiated by Gaozu brought the stability necessary for culture to again thrive and grow. Trade with the west began during this time and arts and technology increased in sophistication. The Han are considered the first dynasty to write their history down but, as Shi Huangdi destroyed so many of the written records of those who came before him, this claim is often disputed. There is no doubt, however, that great advances were made under the Han in every area of culture. GAOZU EMBRACED CONFUCIANISM & MADE IT THE EXCLUSIVE PHILOSOPHY OF THE GOVERNMENT, SETTING A PATTERN WHICH WOULD CONTINUE ON TO THE PRESENT DAY. The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine, China's earliest written record on medicine was codified during the Han Dynasty. Gunpowder, which the Chinese had already invented, became more refined. Paper was invented at this time and writing became more sophisticated. Gaozu embraced Confucianism and made it the exclusive philosophy of the government, setting a pattern which would continue on to the present day. Even so, unlike Shi Huangdi, he practiced tolerance for all other philosophies and, as a result, literature and education flourished under his reign. He reduced taxes and disbanded his army who, nevertheless, rallied without delay when called upon. After his death in 195 BCE, the crown prince Liu Ying succeeded him and continued his policies. These programmes maintained stability and culture enabling the greatest of the Han emperors, Wu Ti (also known as Han Wu the Great, 141- 87 BCE), to embark on his enterprises of expansion, public works, and cultural initiatives. He sent his emissary Zhang Qian to the west in 138 BCE which resulted in the official opening of the Silk Road in 130 BCE. Confucianism was further incorporated as the official doctrine of the government and Wu Ti established schools throughout the empire to foster literacy and teach Confucian precepts. He also reformed transportation, roads, and trade and decreed many other public projects, employing millions as state workers in these undertakings. After Wu Ti, his successors, more or less, maintained his vision for China and enjoyed equal success. Han Dynasty Farm Model by Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA) Increase in wealth led to the rise of large estates and general prosperity but, for the peasants who worked the land, life became increasingly difficult. In 9 CE, the acting regent, Wang Mang, usurped control of the government claiming the Mandate of Heaven for himself and declaring an end to the Han Dynasty. Wang Mang founded the Xin Dynasty (9-23 CE) on a platform of extensive land reform and redistribution of wealth. He initially had enormous support from the peasant population and was opposed by the landowners. His programs, however, were poorly conceived and executed resulting in widespread unemployment and resentment. Uprisings, and extensive flooding of the Yellow River, further destabilized Wang Mang's rule and he was assassinated by an angry mob of the peasants on whose behalf he had ostensibly seized the government and initiated his reforms. The Fall of Han & Rise of The Xin Dynasty The rise of the Xin Dynasty ended the period known as Western Han and its demise led to the establishment of the Eastern Han period. Emperor Guang-Wu returned the lands to the wealthy estate owners and restored order in the land, maintaining the policies of the earlier Western Han rulers. Guang-Wu, in reclaiming lands lost under the Xin Dynasty, was forced to spend much of his time putting down rebellions and re-establishing Chinese rule in the regions of modern-day Korea and Vietnam. The Trung Sisters Rebellion of 39 CE, led by two sisters, required "ten odd thousands of men" (according to the official state record of Han) and four years to put down. Even so, the emperor consolidated his rule and even expanded his boundaries, providing stability which gave rise to an increase in trade and prosperity. By the time of Emperor Zhang (75-88 CE), China was so prosperous that it was partners in trade with all the major nations of the day and continued in this way after his death. The Romans under Marcus Aurelius, in 166 CE, considered Chinese silk more precious than gold and paid China whatever price was asked. Disputes between the landed gentry and the peasants, however, continued to cause problems for the government as exemplified in the Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion (142 CE) and the Yellow Turban Rebellion (184 CE). While the Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion began as a religious movement, it involved a large number of the peasant class at odds with the Confucian ideals of the government and the elite. Both of these revolts were in response to governmental neglect of the people which worsened as the late Han Dynasty became increasingly corrupt and ineffective. The leaders of both rebellions claimed that the Han had forfeited the Mandate of Heaven and should abdicate. The power of the government to control the people began to disintegrate until full-scale revolt erupted throughout the country as the Yellow Turban Rebellion gained momentum. Han generals were sent to put the rebellion down but, as soon as one enclave was crushed, another would spring up. The revolt was finally put down by the general Cao Cao (d. 220 CE). Cao Cao and his former friend and ally Yuan-Shao (d. 202 CE) then fought each other for control of the land with Cao Cao emerging victorious in the north. Cao attempted a complete unification of China by invading the south but was defeated at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 CE, leaving China divided into three separate kingdoms - Cao Wei, Eastern Wu, and Shu Han - each of which claimed the Mandate of Heaven. Cao Cao, Battle of Red Cliffs by Shizhao (CC BY-SA) The Han Dynasty was now a memory and other, shorter-lived dynasties (such as the Wei and Jin, the Wu Hu, and the Sui) assumed control of the government in turn and initiated their own platforms from roughly 208-618 CE. The Sui Dynasty (589-618 CE) finally succeeded in reuniting China in 589 CE. The importance of the Sui Dynasty is in its implementation of highly efficient bureaucracy which streamlined the operation of government and led to greater ease in maintaining the empire. Under the Emperor Wen, and then his son, Yang, the Grand Canal was completed, the Great Wall was enlarged and portions rebuilt, the army was increased to the largest recorded in the world at that time, and coinage was standardized across the realm. Literature flourished and it is thought that the famous Legend of Hua Mulan, about a young girl who takes her father's place in the army, was composed, or at least set down, at this time (the Wei Dynasty has also been cited as the era of the poem's composition). Unfortunately, both Wen and Yang were not content with domestic stability and organized massive expeditions against the Korean peninsula. Wen had already bankrupted the treasury through his building projects and military campaigns and Yang followed his father's example and failed equally in his attempts at military conquest. Yang was assassinated in 618 BCE which then sparked the uprising of Li-Yuan who took control of the government and called himself Emperor Gao-Tzu of Tang. The Tang Dynasty The Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) is considered the 'golden age' of Chinese civilization. Gao-Tzu prudently maintained and improved upon the bureaucracy initiated by the Sui Dynasty while dispensing with extravagant military operations and building projects. With minor modifications, the bureaucratic policies of the Tang Dynasty are still in use in Chinese government in the modern day. BY THE TIME OF THE RULE OF EMPEROR XUANZONG (712-756 CE) CHINA WAS THE LARGEST, MOST POPULOUS, & MOST PROSPEROUS COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Despite his efficient rule, Gao-Tzu was deposed by his son, Li-Shimin, in 626 CE. Having assassinated his father, Li-Shimin then killed his brothers and others of the noble house and assumed the title Emperor Taizong. After the bloody coup, however, Taizong decreed that Buddhisttemples be built at the sites of the battles and that the fallen should be memorialized. Continuing, and building upon, the concepts of ancestor worship and the Mandate of Heaven, Taizong claimed divine will in his actions and intimated that those he had killed were now his counselors in the afterlife. As he proved to be a remarkably efficient ruler, as well as a skilled military strategist and warrior, his coup went unchallenged and he set about the task of governing his vast empire. Taizong followed his father's precepts in keeping much of what was good from the Sui Dynasty and improving upon it. This can be seen especially in Taizong's legal code which drew heavily on Sui concepts but expanded them for specificity of crime and punishment. He ignored his father's model of foreign policy, however, and embarked on a series of successful military campaigns which extended and secured his empire and also served to spread his legal code and Chinese culture. Taizong was succeeded by his son Gaozong (r. 649-683 CE) whose wife, Wu Zetian, would become China's first - and only - female monarch. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 690-704 CE) initiated a number of policies which improved the living conditions in China and strengthened the position of the emperor. She also made ample use of a secret police force and highly efficient channels of communication to stay always one step ahead of her enemies, both foreign and domestic. Glazed Tang Dynasty Camel by James Blake Wiener (CC BY-NC-SA) Trade flourished within the empire and, along the Silk Road, with the West. Rome having now fallen, the Byzantine Empire became a prime buyer of Chinese silk. By the time of the rule of Emperor Xuanzong (712-756 CE) China was the largest, most populous, and most prosperous country in the world. Owing to the large population, armies of many thousands of men could be conscripted into service and military campaigns against Turkish nomads or domestic rebels were swift and successful. Art, technology, and science all flourished under the Tang Dynasty (although the high point in the sciences is considered to be the later Sung Dynasty of 960-1234 CE) and some of the most impressive pieces of Chinese sculpture and silverwork come from this period. The Fall of Tang & Rise of the Song Dynasty Still, the central government was not universally admired and regional uprisings were a regular concern. The most important of these was the An Shi Rebellion (also known as the An Lushan Rebellion) of 755 CE. General An Lushan, a favorite of the imperial court, recoiled against what he saw as excessive extravagance in government. With a force of over 100,000 troops, he rebelled and declared himself the new emperor by the precepts of the Mandate of Heaven. Although his revolt was put down by 763 CE, the underlying causes of the insurrection and further military actions continued to plaguethe government through 779 CE. The most apparent consequence of An Lushan's rebellion was a dramatic reduction in the population of China. It has been estimated that close to 36 million people died as a direct result of the rebellion, either in battle, in reprisals, or through disease and lack of resources. Trade suffered, taxes went uncollected, and the government, which had fled Chang'an when the revolt began, was ineffective in maintaining any kind of significant presence. The Tang Dynasty continued to suffer from domestic revolts and, after the Huang Chao Rebellion (874-884 CE) never recovered. The country broke apart into the period known as The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 CE), with each regime claiming for itself legitimacy, until the rise of the Song Dynasty (aka Sung). Chinese Students Taking Civil Service Exams by Yu Ren, Wu Yue (Public Domain) With the Song, China became stable once again and institutions, laws, and customs were further codified and integrated into the culture. Neo-Confucianism became the most popular philosophy of the country, influencing these laws and customs, and shaping the culture of China recognizable in the modern day. Still, in spite of advances in every area of civilization and culture, the age-old strife between wealthy landowners and the peasants who worked that land continued throughout the following centuries. Periodic peasant revolts were crushed as quickly as possible, but no remedies for the people's grievances were ever offered, and each military action continued to deal with the symptom of the problem instead of the problem itself. In 1949 CE, Mao Tse Tung led the people's revolution in China, toppling the government and instituting the People's Republic of China on the premise that, finally, everyone would be equally affluent. RELATED CONTENT BOOKS CITE THIS WORK LICENSE EDITORIAL REVIEWThis article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. REMOVE ADSADVERTISEMENT

World Biomes

The combination of temperature and rainfall patterns determines biome in a region What's a Biome? Here we see two different biomes—deserts on the left and grasslands on the right. But both are land environments. Images by Bob Protus and Bkell. To make sense of complexity, humans often need to categorize, or group, things. We have food groups, sexes, eye colors, ages, and movie genres, to name a few. We categorize all types of things, whether they are ideas or objects, and whether they are small or large. One of the largest things that we try to categorize may be the types of environments found on Earth. The natural world is more varied than we can imagine, and one way to try to make this variation easier to handle is to put different environment types into groups. We can divide our surroundings many ways—by how much water there is, by how warm it is, or by the types of plants or animals we find there. Depending on what characteristics we choose to describe an environment, the groupings we end up selecting may be different. Usually we group the different natural areas on Earth into categories based on plant and animal life and how they are able to survive in that part of the world. Making groups based on living organisms can be very complicated. We already know of over 1.7 million species of organism, and there are likely over 17 million that exist. But again, by grouping organisms with similar adaptations together, we can see through some of the complexity and have a chance to better understand the living Earth. This biome map shows both land (terrestrial) and water (aquatic) based habitat types. Click for more detail. A biome is a type of environment that is defined by the types of organisms that live there. We can also think of these as life zones ("bio" means life). Dividing land up in this way lets us talk about areas that are similar, even if they're on different continents. But depending on whom you talk to, the way we divide up the world into separate biomes differs. Biome vs. Biome Biome categories can be broad or narrow. When we say forest, you may picture a cool, quiet area with pine trees, where bears, deer, and rabbits wander around. Or instead, you might imagine a wet, dark, and noisy rainforest, where you can see monkeys, parrots, and big cats. These are all types of forests, but some people split them into different forest-type biomes. Click to see more detail. According to some people, all forest types belong in one group - the forest biome. But others think that temperate forests (seasonally cold) with pine trees, are very different from tropical rainforests, with dense, leafy canopy and lots of rain. This difference of opinion means that the number of biomes can range anywhere from 5 to 20 biomes. How Different is Different? Temperate forests get a winter season, often with snow. Tropical rain forests are too warm to get snow. Image by Böhringer. If we take a closer look at these temperate and rain forests, we see that they differ quite a bit in the amount of rain they get and in their temperatures. Tropical rainforests are warm and don't experience a winter season. But temperate forests have a defined winter, with snow and temperatures below zero. With those cold temperatures, the plants and animals in temperate rainforests have to have adaptations to deal with cold weather. Do those groups seem different enough to you to be in a separate biome? Don't worry, there is no right or wrong answer. This method of categorizing is one of convenience, and sometimes it just depends on why you're dividing the groups. Biomes of the World In order to give you a small taste of the huge diversity of the types of environments out there, we divide the world up into only nine biomes. Just remember that these groups could also be divided into nearly 20 biomes. That means that within each of these biomes there is a range of temperature and weather conditions, and we also find some organisms that are adapted to only part of the biome and others that are adapted to the full range of conditions within the boundaries we are defining. Tropical rainforest. Image by WorldWideHappyMedia Tropical Rainforest You probably picture tropical rainforest as a jungle, where it stays warm all year. There are too many animals to count and the huge numbers of trees keep their leaves year-round. Many of these forests get so much rain that there isn't even much of a dry season - more like a rainy season and a rainier season. Temperate forest. Image by Umberto Salvagnin. Temperate Forest This is the kind of forest where there are four relatively distinct seasons. Many of the trees shed their leaves in the fall and become inactive through the cold winter. In these forests, you find deer, woodpeckers, and bears, some of which hibernate through the winter. A desert with sand dunes. Image by Jon Sullivan. Desert Deserts make up the hottest biome, but can also get cold temperatures in winter. Such temperature swings make this an extreme environment, where many animals have to burrow underground to find more stable temperatures in order to survive. Plants and animals here must be able to withstand long periods without water. Tundra in Greenland. Image by Hannes Grobe. Tundra Tundra is flat and cold with low plants like grass and moss that only grow during the short summer. A thick layer of ice lies just below the shallow soil (permafrost) all year around, and trees cannot penetrate it to anchor their roots. Many birds visit the tundra in the summer to nest, but most escape the winter by migrating to warmer areas. Mice and other small mammals stay active during the winter in protected tunnels under the snow. Boreal forest of Alaska. Image by L.B. Brubaker. Taiga (Boreal Forest) Taiga is the largest land (terrestrial) biome in the world. It is made up of mainly conical-shaped evergreen trees with needle-like leaves. These trees are called conifers because their seeds are clumped into cones. The taiga has long, cold winters when most mammals hibernate and birds migrate, or leave the area because the winters are too cold for them to stay. Animals like weasels, grouse and rabbits that do not migrate or hibernate grow dense feathers or fur and turn white to match the snow. Grasslands. Image by Tony Hisgett Grassland Sometimes called plains or prairie, grasslands are almost entirely short to tall grasses with no trees. This land type gets just enough rain to help grasses, flowers, and herbs grow, but stays dry enough that fires are frequent and trees cannot survive. Here we find large mammals that often travel together in huge herds. Savanna in Tanzania. Image by Nevit Dilmen. Savanna These tree-studded grasslands receive enough seasonal rainfall so that trees can grow in open groups or singly throughout. The animals living here have long legs for escaping predators and usually are seen in herds. A combination of fire and grazing animals are important for maintaining the savannah. Lakes are usually freshwater, like this lake in Pakistan. Image by Joonasl. Freshwater This water biome is named for the low concentration of salt found in the water. This includes most ponds, streams, lakes, and rivers. Because salt is important to body function, the plants and animals here have many adaptations that help them save salt. Marine environments have salt water, like this tidepool in Portugal. Image by Alvesgaspar. Marine This water biome is the largest biome in the world, as it includes the five major oceans that cover 70% of the Earth. Marine water has high levels of salt, so animals and plants living here have adaptations that help them get rid of salt or take on water.

Francis Bacon

What did Francis Bacon contribute to the foundation of scientific thought? Baconestablished the "Empirical Method". He believed most truth had already been discovered but required explanation. ... the sweeping of change in the scientific view of the universe that occurred in the 16th centuries.

Martin Luther

a German monk who became one of the most famous critics of the Roman Catholic Chruch. In 1517, he wrote 95 theses, or statements of belief attacking the church practices. German theologian who led the Reformation German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant traditions, mainly Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Anglican Communion, the Anabaptists, and the Antitrinitarians. He is one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity.

Tropic of Cancer

a line of latitude about 23 degrees North of the equator The Tropic of Cancer, which is also referred to as the Northern Tropic, is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun to its maximum extent.

importance of age of exploration

disocvery of colonizing the new world but there were also better maps and charts new accurate navigational instriuments I increased knowldge great welath new and diff foods and items not known in europe it became a place freee if poverty and persecution -new better life explorers found proof that Asia could be reached by sea and that the earth was round-ships and sailors would not sail off the edge of a flat earth and disappear forever into. nothingness

what did fresh establish during age of exploration?

permanent settlements of Montreal and New Orleans, taking control of 2 major gateways into heart of North America-st Louis river canadaand Great Lakes and missile river

Magna Carta

a document constituting a fundamental guarantee of rights and privileges. the royal charter of political rights given to rebellious English barons by King John in 1215 (1215) a charter of liberties (freedoms) that King John "Lackland" of Englad was forced to sign; it made the king obey the same laws as the citizens of his kingdom The year of Magna Carta, 1215, when an English ruler was first subjected to the law, has resonated down the ages as a landmark in Britain's constitutional history. Indeed, in a BBC History Magazine poll, its anniversary was voted the most suitable date on which the nation should celebrate Britishness. The Charter itself still lives. Its most fundamental chapters remain on the Statute Book of the UK as barriers to arbitrary rule. They condemn the denial, sale and delay of justice, and forbid imprisonment and dispossession save by lawful judgement of one's peers (social equals), or the law of the land. The Charter was negotiated at Runnymede between 10 and 15 June 1215, with King John riding down each day from Windsor, and the barons encamped in their tents across the meadows beside the Thames. On 15 June, John, tricky to the end, refused more concessions and simply sealed the Charter - "take it or leave it" - thereby cleverly keeping the names of the 25 barons who were to enforce its terms out of the document, this because they had still to be chosen. John hoped the Charter would become no more than a toothless symbol of his generosity to the kingdom; the barons hoped that its terms would be rigorously enforced and indeed extended. The result was civil war. By September, John had got the pope to quash the Charter. That month, the opposition barons deposed John and offered the throne to Louis, eldest son of King Philip II of France. He came to England in May 1216 and by the time of John's death in October controlled more than half the kingdom. In the north Alexander II of Scotland had gained Carlisle, and was making good his claims to Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland. In Wales, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, ruler of Gwynedd, had swept through the south and taken the royal bases of Cardigan and Carmarthen. Yet John's dynasty survived, and with it, paradoxically, the Charter. Its implantation into English political life was the work of the minority government of John's son, Henry III, who was only nine on his accession. Magna Carta was also a British document. Both Alexander and Llywelyn had been with the rebels from the start, and both benefited from the Charter's terms, terms which acknowledged "the law of Wales" and invoked for the Welsh, as for Alexander, the principle of judgement by peers. Ultimately, as Wales and Scotland became part of a United Kingdom, their peoples too were embraced by the Charter's protections. The Charter, however, was no panacea. Since the clause setting up the 25 barons was left out from post-1215 versions of the document, it had no constitutional means of enforcement. It said nothing about how the king's ministers were to be chosen, patronage distributed and policy decided, major holes which defined the political battleground of the later middle ages. Yet the Charter made a profound difference. It clamped down on various sources of revenue. Henceforth the "relief" or inheritance tax paid by an earl or baron was to be £100, not the thousands of pounds sometimes demanded by John. It facilitated the spread of the common law and made justice less open to bargaining or bribery. It gave the gentry concessions they could exploit to make the running of local government more acceptable. Above all it asserted a fundamental principle: the king was subject to the law, the law Magna Carta had made. As a result arbitrary rule became more difficult and resistance to it more legitimate. When the king became a sitting duck In 1214 John's long planned campaign to recover his continental empire had ended in disaster with his allies decisively defeated at Bouvines. John returned to England a sitting duck, his treasure spent. Suspicious and untrustworthy, a womaniser and a murderer, he was loathed by many of his barons. His huge financial exactions over several years had antagonised the wider political community. By early 1215 a large group of barons, many from the North, where his rule had seemed particularly severe, were in league, and were demanding reform. They were abetted by Scotland's King Alexander and Llywelyn of Wales. John played for time and summoned a council to meet at Oxford towards the end of April. Instead the barons met in arms at Stamford in Lincolnshire, from where on 5 May they renounced their allegiance to the king, the beginning of civil war. The war was transformed within a fortnight by the Londoners letting the baronial rebels into the city - its walls and wealth protected the baronial cause, and made any quick royalist victory impossible. Yet baronial victory too could not be quick. John retained his castles, many commanded by ruthless military experts. Shrewd use of patronage meant he also retained the loyalty of some of the greatest barons. So the result towards the end of May was a truce and the start of the negotiations which ended with the Charter at Runnymede. The Charter was the product of the way John and his predecessors has ruled since the Norman Conquest. It also reflected the nature of early 13th-century English society, in part through its omissions. Take the place of women in the Charter. They certainly appeared, for important clauses secured for baronial widows their dowers and inheritances and protected them from forced re-marriage by the king. The clause reflected that baronial women did have property rights: they could inherit land; they received as dower a portion (usually a third) of their husbands' lands on his death. The clause had a real effect and the 13th century was graced by large numbers of baronesses who spent years as widows controlling extensive lands. Yet the Charter did nothing to alter the inequalities between men and women. Women only inherited in default of brothers. They virtually never held office, and, for all their influence behind the scenes, played virtually no public part in politics. No women featured in the list of those who had counselled John to concede the Charter. The clauses in the Charter itself were designed not to liberate women, but to protect their male children from having their mothers' property carried off by second husbands. Peasants oppressed - no change there then Even less privileged were the peasants. They made up perhaps 75 per cent of the population, half of them "villeins" which meant they were legally unfree. Peasants featured in the Charter - the stipulation that sheriffs should not force men and villages to work on bridges dealt specifically with their predicament. So did the clause which laid down that fines imposed on villeins were to be reasonable and assessed by men of their neighbourhood. To no one, John promised in one of the most famous clauses, would he sell, deny or delay justice. But there lay the rub, for it was the law itself which made half of the peasantry unfree, leaving them excluded from the king's courts and at their lords' mercy in anything concerning the terms on which they held their lands. The Charter did nothing to alter this. Indeed, the protection it did afford peasants was exclusively against the oppressions of royal agents. They were protected from the king so that they could be exploited all the better by their lords. Against its meagre concern for women and peasants, the Charter catered abundantly for the great players. It gave freedom to the Church (holding over a quarter of England's land), and re-iterated John's promise that bishops and abbots could be elected free from royal interference, thus dealing with a major grievance. The church was to play a key part in publicising John's charter and in supporting the later versions of Henry III. London as we have seen, was the great baronial base. Its population early in the 13th century was perhaps as high as 40,000, making it Britain's largest city. The Charter protected the privileges of all the kingdom's cities and boroughs but London's alone were mentioned by name, and it received an additional promise that it should be free from arbitrary taxation. Most striking of all was the Charter's treatment of the knights. In the 1200s there were about 5,000 of them in England's counties, the backbone of local government. One contemporary chronicler, Ralph of Coggeshall, averred that all the barons who remained loyal to John were deserted by their knights, an exaggeration but it shows the flow of the tide. The charter laid down that the king's judges hearing assizes in the counties were to sit with four knights of each county, elected in the county court, a testimony both to the self-confidence of the knights and their determination to control the workings of justice in the localities. Another clause empowered 12 knights in each county, again elected in the county court, to investigate and abolish the evil practices of the king's local officials. The zeal with which the knights went about their work was a major factor in John's decision to abandon the Charter. Above all, the Charter met the grievances of the earls and barons. There were around a dozen earls in the early 13th century, and 100 to 200 barons. Tiny numbers, but they controlled a large part of the country's wealth, and had mostly been in rebellion. Not surprisingly, they stamped their mark on the Charter's early clauses, making it very much a baronial document. Thus chapter two, as we have seen, fixed the relief of earls and barons at £100. Chapter four protected baronial lands from exploitation by the king when they were in his hands during the minority of an heir. Chapter 14 vested the power to consent to taxation in the hands of a largely baronial assembly. Indeed, only the greater barons, lay and ecclesiastical, were to receive individual letters of summons to it. The implication was that the earls and barons, commanding the allegiances of their tenants, could answer for the realm. The Charter thus reflected the structures of power in English society. It was also the product of ideas. The king should govern lawfully for the good of his people. He should only punish individuals having obtained a judgement of their peers. A king who defied these principles could be regarded as a tyrant, and might be restrained or even deposed. By 1215 such concepts had a long pedigree and were commonplace amongst John's opponents. They were sharpened and refined by the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, an internationally famous academic, who played a key role in brokering the 1215 settlement, and in supporting the Charter thereafter. It was these ideas, enshrined in the Charter, which formed its essential legacy, a legacy first for England, and ultimately for the United Kingdom as a whole.

Battle of Hastings

the decisive battle in which William the Conqueror (duke of Normandy) defeated the Saxons under Harold II (1066) and thus left England open for the Norman Conquest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW4RKp23Z4M On October 14, 1066, at the Battle of Hastings in England, King Harold II (c.1022-66) of England was defeated by the Norman forces of William the Conqueror (c.1028-87). By the end of the bloody, all-day battle, Harold was dead and his forces were destroyed. He was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, as the battle changed the course of history and established the Normans as the rulers of England, which in turn brought about a significant cultural transformation. William the Conqueror: Background William was the son of Robert I, duke of Normandy, and his mistress Herleva (also called Arlette), a tanner's daughter from Falaise. The duke, who had no other sons, designated William his heir, and with his death in 1035 William became duke of Normandy. Did you know? William, an Old French name composed of Germanic elements ("wil," meaning desire, and "helm," meaning protection), was introduced to England by William the Conqueror and quickly became extremely popular. By the 13th century, it was the most common given name among English men. William was of Viking origin. Though he spoke a dialect of French and grew up in Normandy, a fiefdom loyal to the French kingdom, he and other Normans descended from Scandinavian invaders. One of William's relatives, Rollo, pillaged northern France with fellow Viking raiders in the late ninth and early 10th centuries, eventually accepting his own territory (Normandy, named for the Norsemen who controlled it) in exchange for peace. Just over two weeks before the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, William had invaded England, claiming his right to the English throne. In 1051, William is believed to have visited England and met with his cousin Edward the Confessor, the childless English king. According to Norman historians, Edward promised to make William his heir. On his deathbed, however, Edward granted the kingdom to Harold Godwineson (or Godwinson), head of the leading noble family in England and more powerful than the king himself. In January 1066, King Edward died, and Harold Godwineson was proclaimed King Harold II. William immediately disputed his claim. Battle of Hastings: October 14, 1066 On September 28, 1066, William landed in England at Pevensey, on Britain's southeast coast, with thousands of troops and cavalry. Seizing Pevensey, he then marched to Hastings, where he paused to organize his forces. On October 13, Harold arrived near Hastings with his army, and the next day, October 14, William led his forces out to battle, which ended in a decisive victory against Harold's men. Harold was killed-shot in the eye with an arrow, according to legend-and his forces were destroyed Battle of Hastings: Aftermath After his victory at the Battle of Hastings, William marched on London and received the city's submission. On Christmas Day of 1066, he was crowned the first Norman king of England, in Westminster Abbey, and the Anglo-Saxon phase of English history came to an end. French became the language of the king's court and gradually blended with the Anglo-Saxon tongue to give birth to modern English. (Illiterate like most nobles of his time, William spoke no English when he ascended the throne and failed to master it despite his efforts. Thanks to the Norman invasion, French was spoken in England's courts for centuries and completely transformed the English language, infusing it with new words.) William I proved an effective king of England, and the "Domesday Book," a great census of the lands and people of England, was among his notable achievements.

Renaissance

"rebirth"; following the Middle Ages, a movement that centered on the revival of interest in the classical learning of Greece and Rome Renaissance, (French: "Rebirth") period in European civilization immediately following the Middle Ages and conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge of interest in Classical scholarship and values. The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents, the substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaicsystem of astronomy, the decline of the feudal system and the growth of commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially powerful innovations as paper, printing, the mariner's com

Hernan Cortes

(1495 - 1547) Cortes was one of the first Conquistadors. He was responsible for conquering the Aztec Empire and claiming Mexico for Spain. In 1519 he took a fleet of ships from Cuba to the Yucatan Peninsula. There he heard of the rich Empire of the Aztecs. In search of treasure Cortes made his way inland to the great Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. He then proceeded to conquer the Aztecs and kill the Aztec Emperor Montezuma.

United States biomes

1. Tundra Biome Alpine tundra in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Evergreen trees cannot survive the harsh winters of tundra, with severe, ice-laden winds, frozen soil (permafrost) and intense UV radiation. This biome dominated by thick-rooted perennials and prostrate shrubs. 2. Coniferous Forest Biome Timberline in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, showing the striking transition (ecotone) between the alpine tundra and coniferous forest biomes. Engelmann spruce at timberline become dwarfed and windswept by the ice-laden winds. The zone of timberline trees is called "krummholz," a German word meaning "crooked wood." Trees cannot survive in the frozen soil (permafrost) of the tundra. Instead this region is dominated by thick-rooted perennials and prostrate, deciduous shrubs. The coniferous forest biome includes many different forest communities. Left: The red fir forest in the Sierra Nevada of California is dominated by the red fir (Abies magnifica var. magnifica). Right: The western slopes of the Sierra Nevada also include forests of white fir (Abies concolor) and giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). 3. Prairie Biome Vast herds of bison once grazed the North American prairie, from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River. By the end of the 1800s, these magnificent animals were pushed to the brink of extinction by buffalo hunters. Today they survive in preserves such as the National Bison Range in Montana. During the glacial periods, rich topsoils from northern latitudes were deposited here. Perennial grasses are well-adapted to this arid region, with hot, dry summers, hard, sun-baked soils and periodic grassland fires. 4. Deciduous Forest Biome Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is a beautiful tree native to the deciduous forest biome of the eastern United States. It is readily identified by its large three-lobed leaves. Sassafras oil is obtained from the roots and is used in carbonated beverages, teas, medicines and perfumes. 5. Desert Biome The North American desert biome includes several different vegetation types or plant communities. Left: A saguaro woodland (Carnegiea gigantea) in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona. Right: A Joshua tree woodland (Yucca brevifolia) in the Mojave Desert of California. These plant communities are dominated by drought resistant trees and shrubs and numerous species of cacti with spine-covered succulent stems containing water storage tissue. Shadscale scrub, a California plant community dominated by low-growing species of saltbush, including Atriplex confertifolia and A. hymenelytra. This vegetation type is sometimes called a C-4 community because some of the dominant members exhibit C-4 photosynthesis. Plants with C-4 photosynthesis are photosynthetically efficient even during the hot summer months when many C-3 species become dormant. See C-4 Photosynthesis In The Purslane FamilyStem Adaptations Of The Cactus Family (Cactaceae) 6. Tropical Rain Forest Biome The tropical rain forest contains tall trees draped with epiphytes and vines. In the left photo a large sea heart vine (Entada gigas) connects the limbs of two adjacent trees. In Costa Rica, this vine is known as escalera de mono or "monkey ladder," and actual forms arboreal thoroughfares for monkeys high in the rain forest canopy. Along the edge of the forest where there is abundant sunlight, the sea heart vines completely cover their support trees (center). The right photo shows how the rain forest is rapidly being cut down to provide more agricultural land. Unfortunately, the soil is poor and only supports crops for a few years. The aerial roots of strangler figs are a conspicuous element of tropical rain forests. Left: Ficus citrifolia in the U.S. Virgin Islands (Island of St. John). Right: Ficus cotinifolia in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. In both photographs, the host tree has been shaded out and killed by the strangler fig. 7. Urban Sprawl Aerial view of San Diego on the approach to the International Airport (Lindbergh Field). This dense mass of congested buildings and concrete is a good example of an urbanized human community. During the last three decades of the 20th century, numerous grassy hillsides in coastal San Diego County were converted into high density housing tracts. Some of these grassland habitats on thick clay soils contained an abundance of rare and endangered wildflowers (red arrow), such as the striking chocolate lily (Fritillaria biflora).

Thomas Moore

1516 wrote Utopia about an imaginary land inhabited by a peace-loving people, an ideal place. In Utopia, greed, corruption, war, and crime had been weeded out. The son of a Roman Catholic wine merchant, Moore graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1799 and then studied law in London. His major poetic work, Irish Melodies (1807-34), earned him an income of £500 annually for a quarter of a century. It contained such titles as "The Last Rose of Summer" and "Oft in the Stilly Night." The Melodies, a group of 130 poems set to the music of Moore and of Sir John Stevenson and performed for London's aristocracy, aroused sympathy and support for the Irish nationalists, among whom Moore was a popular hero. "Bendemeer's Stream," an excerpt taken from Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh (1817); from a 1911 recording, soprano solo with orchestra accompaniment performed by Elizabeth Spencer.University of California, Santa Barbara Lalla Rookh (1817), a narrative poem set (on Byron's advice) in an atmosphere of Oriental splendour, gave Moore a reputation among his contemporaries rivaling that of Byron and Sir Walter Scott. It was perhaps the most translated poem of its time, and it earned what was till then the highest price paid by an English publisher for a poem (£3,000). Moore's many satirical works, such as The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), portray the politics and manners of the Regency period. In 1824 Moore became a participant in one of the most celebrated episodes of the Romantic period. He was the recipient of Byron's memoirs, but he and the publisher John Murray burned them, presumably to protect Byron. Moore later brought out the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1830), in which he included a life of the poet. Moore's lifelong espousal of the Catholic cause led him to produce such brilliant works as his parody of agrarian insurgency, The Memoirs of Captain Rock (1824), and his courageous biography of the revolutionary leader of the 1798 rebellion, The Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1831).

Nicolaus Copernicus

A Polish astronomer who proved that the Ptolemaic system was inaccurate, he proposed the theory that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system. In Copernicus' lifetime, most believed that Earth held its place at the center of the universe. The sun, the stars, and all of the planets revolved around it. One of the glaring mathematical problems with this model was that the planets, on occasion, would travel backward across the sky over several nights of observation. Astronomers called this retrograde motion. To account for it, the current model, based on the Greek astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy's view, incorporated a number of circles within circles — epicycles — inside of a planet's path. Some planets required as many as seven circles, creating a cumbersome model many felt was too complicated to have naturally occurred. In 1514, Copernicus distributed a handwritten book to his friends that set out his view of the universe. In it, he proposed that the center of the universe was not Earth, but that the sun lay near it. He also suggested that Earth's rotation accounted for the rise and setting of the sun, the movement of the stars, and that the cycle of seasons was caused by Earth's revolutions around it. Finally, he (correctly) proposed that Earth's motion through space caused the retrograde motion of the planets across the night sky (planets sometimes move in the same directions as stars, slowly across the sky from night to night, but sometimes they move in the opposite, or retrograde, direction). Advertisement Copernicus finished the first manuscript of his book, "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres") in 1532. In it, Copernicus established that the planets orbited the sun rather than the Earth. He laid out his model of the solar system and the path of the planets. He didn't publish the book, however, until 1543, just two months before he died. He diplomatically dedicated the book to Pope Paul III. The church did not immediately condemn the book as heretical, perhaps because the printer added a note that said even though the book's theory was unusual, if it helped astronomers with their calculations, it didn't matter if it wasn't really true, according to Famous Scientists. It probably also helped that the subject was so difficult that only highly educated people could understand it. The Church did eventually ban the book in 1616. The Catholic Church wasn't the only Christian faith to reject Copernicus' idea.

Conquistadors & Impact

After Columbus brought news of the new world to Europe many people went to the new world in search of land and riches. The Spanish Conquistadors were some of the first men to travel to the new world. They got their name from being both conquerors and explorers. They were mostly in search of gold and treasure. Here are few of the most famous Spanish Vasco Nunez de Balboa (1475-1519) In 1511 Balboa founded the first European settlement in South America, the city of Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien. Later he would gather together Spanish soldiers (including Francisco Pizarro) and make his way across the Isthmus of Panama. He became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. Juan Ponce de Leon (1474 - 1521) Ponce de Leon sailed with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. He stayed in Santo Domingo and soon became governor of Puerto Rico. In 1513, exploring the Caribbean, searching for gold and the legendary Fountain of Youth, he landed on Florida and claimed it for Spain. He died in Cuba from wounds received while fighting Native Americans. Report AdHernando de Soto (1497? - 1542) Hernando de Soto's first expedition was to Nicaragua with Francisco de Cordoba. Later he traveled to Peru as part of Pizarro's expedition to conquer the Incas. In 1539 de Soto gained command of his own expedition. He was given the right to conquer Florida by the King of Spain. He explored much of Florida and then made his way inland into North America. He was the first European to have crossed west of the Mississippi River. He died in 1542 and was buried near the Mississippi. Interesting FactsThe Conquistadors often fought each other. It was Francisco Pizarro who arrested and framed Balboa for treason. Balboa was wrongly beheaded as a result. Then Pizarro was killed by one of Cortes' captains while in Peru in order to steal his gold and treasures. Hernando de Soto sided against Francisco de Cordoba and Cordoba was killed.Many of the Conquistadors came from the same area. Pizarro, Cortes, and de Soto all were born in Extremadura, Spain.Tribes hostile to the Aztecs helped Cortes in conquering the Aztec Empire.Many Native Americans died because of diseases brought by the Conquistadors and the Europeans. Diseases such as smallpox, typhus, measles, influenza, and diphtheria are estimated to have killed over 90% of the Native Americans within the first 130 years of the arrival of Europeans.

Pueblos

American southwest known for villages from sheer faces of cliffs and rocks known for adobes, mud-brick buildings. that housed their living and meeting quarters chose their own cheifs one of oldest representative government of the world

Medieval Ages

Another name for the Middle Ages. Papal Power Feudalism Rise of Islam Battle of Hastings & impact Crusades & impact Magna Carta The Plague Medieval Art & Religion

Thomas Paine

Author of Common Sense American Revolutionary leader and pamphleteer (born in England) who supported the American colonist's fight for independence and supported the French Revolution (1737-1809) Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet "Common Sense" in 1775 and it was published in January of 1776. The main impact of this pamphlet was to help cause the American colonists to decide to fight for independence.

Galileo

Galileo's experiments The Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, taught that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, a belief still held in Galileo's lifetime. But Galileo wasn't convinced. Experimenting with balls of different sizes and weights, he rolled them down ramps with various inclinations. His experiments revealed that all of the balls boasted the same acceleration independent of their mass. He also demonstrated that objects thrown in the air travel along a parabola. At the same time, Galileo worked with pendulums. In his life, accurate timekeeping was virtually nonexistent. Galileo observed, however, that the steady motion of a pendulum could improve this. In 1602, he determined that the time it takes a pendulum to swing back and forth does not depend on the arc of the swing. Near the end of his lifetime, Galileo designed the first pendulum clock. Galileo's telescope Galileo is often incorrectly credited with the creation of a telescope. (Hans Lippershey applied for the first patent in 1608, but others may have beaten him to the actual invention.) Instead, he significantly improved upon them. In 1609, he first learned of the existence of the spyglass, which excited him. He began to experiment with telescope-making, going so far as to grind and polish his own lenses. His telescope allowed him to see with a magnification of eight or nine times. In comparison, spyglasses of the day only provided a magnification of three. Advertisement It wasn't long before Galileo turned his telescope to the heavens. He was the first to see craters on the moon, he discovered sunspots, and he tracked the phases of Venus. The rings of Saturn puzzled him, appearing as lobes and vanishing when they were edge-on — but he saw them, which was more than can be said of his contemporaries.

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator who discovered the New World in the service of Spain while looking for a route to China (1451-1506) He mistakenly discovered the Americas in 1492 while searching for a faster route to India. Christopher Columbus, Italian Cristoforo Colombo, Spanish Cristóbal Colón, (born between August 26 and October 31?, 1451, Genoa [Italy]—died May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain), master navigator and admiralwhose four transatlantic voyages (1492-93, 1493-96, 1498-1500, and 1502-04) opened the way for European exploration, exploitation, and colonization of the Americas. He has long been called the "discoverer" of the New World, although Vikings such as Leif Eriksson had visited North Americafive centuries earlier. Columbus made his transatlantic voyages under the sponsorship of Ferdinand II and Isabella I, the Catholic Monarchs of Aragon, Castile, and Leon in Spain. He was at first full of hope and ambition, an ambition partly gratified by his title "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," awarded to him in April 1492, and by the grants enrolled in the Book of Privileges (a record of his titles and claims). However, he died a disappointed man.

Line that divided the worlds lands between Spain and Portugal Papal bull given by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 that gave Spain claim to colonize the Americas and Portugal claim to Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8URb1_WUs4 nter caetera ('Among other [works]') was a papal bull issued by Pope Alexander VI on the 4 May (quarto nonas maii) 1493, which granted to the Catholic MonarchsFerdinand and Isabella (as sovereigns of Castile) all lands to the "west and south" of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde islands.[1] It remains unclear to the present whether the pope was issuing a "donation" of sovereignty or a feudalinfeodation or investiture. Differing interpretations have been argued since the bull was issued, with some arguing that it was only meant to transform the possession and occupation of land into lawful sovereignty. Others, including the Spanish crown and the conquistadors, interpreted it in the widest possible sense, deducing that it gave Spain full political sovereignty.[2]

Line that divided the worlds lands between Spain and Portugal Papal bull given by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 that gave Spain claim to colonize the Americas and Portugal claim to Africa nter caetera ('Among other [works]') was a papal bull issued by Pope Alexander VI on the 4 May (quarto nonas maii) 1493, which granted to the Catholic MonarchsFerdinand and Isabella (as sovereigns of Castile) all lands to the "west and south" of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde islands.[1] It remains unclear to the present whether the pope was issuing a "donation" of sovereignty or a feudalinfeodation or investiture. Differing interpretations have been argued since the bull was issued, with some arguing that it was only meant to transform the possession and occupation of land into lawful sovereignty. Others, including the Spanish crown and the conquistadors, interpreted it in the widest possible sense, deducing that it gave Spain full political sovereignty.[2]

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese explorer who found a sea route to the Spice Island by sailing around the American continent. His crew was the first to circumnavigate the world. Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese Fernão de Magalhães, Spanish Fernando de Magallanes or Hernando de Magallanes, (born 1480, Sabrosa or Porto?, Portugal—died April 27, 1521, Mactan, Philippines), Portuguese navigator and explorer who sailed under the flags of both Portugal (1505-13) and Spain (1519-21). From Spain he sailed around South America, discovering the Strait of Magellan, and across the Pacific. Though he was killed in the Philippines, one of his ships continued westward to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of Earth. The voyage was successfully terminated by the Basque navigator Juan Sebastián del Cano.

Benjamin Franklin

Printer, author, inventor, diplomat, statesman, and Founding Father. One of the few Americans who was highly respected in Europe, primarily due to his discoveries in the field of electricity. Scientist and Inventor In the 1740s, Franklin expanded into science and entrepreneurship. His 1743 pamphlet "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge" underscored his interests and served as the founding document of the American Philosophical Society, the first scientific society in the colonies. By 1748, the 42-year-old Franklin had become one of the richest men in Pennsylvania, and he became a soldier in the Pennsylvania militia. He turned his printing business over to a partner to give himself more time to conduct scientific experiments. He moved into a new house in 1748. Inventions Franklin was a prolific inventor and scientist who was responsible for the following inventions: Franklin stove: Franklin's first invention, created around 1740, provided more heat with less fuel. Bifocals: Anyone tired of switching between two pairs of glasses understands why Franklin developed bifocals that could be used for both distance and reading. Armonica: Franklin's inventions took on a musical bent when, in 1761, he commenced development on the armonica, a musical instrument composed of spinning glass bowls on a shaft. Both Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed music for the strange instrument. Rocking chair Flexible catheter American penny Franklin also discovered the Gulf Stream after his return trip across the Atlantic Ocean from London in 1775. He began to speculate about why the westbound trip always took longer, and his measurements of ocean temperatures led to his discovery of the existence of the Gulf Stream. This knowledge served to cut two weeks off the previous sailing time from Europe to North America. Franklin even devised a new "scheme" for the alphabet that proposed to eliminate the letters C, J, Q, W, X and Y as redundant.

Conneticut River Valley

The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New Englandregion of the United States, flowing roughly southward for 406 miles (653 km) through four states. It rises at the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island Sound.[4] Its watershed encompasses five U.S. states and one Canadian province, 11,260 square miles (29,200 km2) via 148 tributaries, 38 of which are major rivers.[5] It produces 70% of Long Island Sound's fresh water, discharging at 19,600 cubic feet (560 m3) per second.[5][6] The Connecticut River Valley is home to some of the northeastern United States' most productive farmland, as well as a metropolitan region of approximately two million people surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut.[7]

the middle passage

The Middle Passage refers to the part of the trade where Africans, densely packed onto ships, were transported across the Atlantic to the West Indies. The voyage took three to four months and, during this time, the enslaved people mostly lay chained in rows on the floor of the hold or on shelves that ran around the inside of the ships' hulls. The shelves were under a metre high and often the enslaved Africans could not sit up. There could be up to more than six hundred enslaved people on each ship. Captives from different nations were mixed together, so it was more difficult for them to talk and plan rebellions. Women and children were held separately. The following description is from 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano': At last, when the ship we were in, had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see how they managed the vessel. ...The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome....The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died -- thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. Hear the Extract A large amount of evidence remains: letters, diaries, memoirs, captain's logbooks, shipping company records and testimony before British Parliamentary investigations, all give a picture of life on board. For example, when asked if the slaves had 'room to turn themselves or lie easy', a Dr Thomas Trotter replied: "By no means. The slaves that are out of irons are laid spoonways"... and closely locked to one another. It is the duty of the first mate to see them stowed in this manner every morning....and when the ship had much motion at sea.... they were often miserably bruised against the deck or against each other....I have seen the breasts heaving...with all those laborious and anxious efforts for life.....". However, during a Parliamentary investigation, a witness for the slave trade, Robert Norris, described how 'delightful' the slave ships were. The enslaved people, he suggested, had sufficient room, sufficient air, and sufficient provisions. When upon deck, they made merry and amused themselves with dancing... In short, the voyage from Africa to the West Indies was one of the happiest periods of their life! To hear an extract from Mr Norris's speech In reality, it was a system that brutalized both the sailors and the enslaved people. The captain had total authority over those aboard the ship and was answerable to nobody. Captives usually outnumbered the crew by ten to one, so they were flogged or put in thumb screws if there was any sign of rebellion. Despite this, resistance was common. The European crews made sure that the captives were fed and forced them to exercise. On all ships, the death toll was high. Between 1680 and 1688, 23 out of every 100 people taken aboard the ships of the Royal African Company died in transit. When disease began to spread, the dying were sometimes thrown overboard. In November 1781, around 470 slaves were crammed aboard the slave ship Zong. During the voyage to Jamaica, many got sick. Seven crew and sixty Africans died. Captain Luke Collingwood ordered the sick enslaved Africans, 133 in total, thrown overboard (one survived). When the Zong arrived back in England, its owners claimed for the value of the slaves from their insurers. They argued that they had little water and the sick Africans posed a threat to the remaining cargo and crew. In 1783, the owners won their case. This case did much to show the horrors of the trade and sway public opinion against it. The death toll amongst sailors was also appallingly high (20%). Sometimes the crew would be harshly treated on purpose during the 'middle passage'. Fewer hands were required on the third leg and wages could be saved if the sailors jumped ship in the West Indies. It was not uncommon to see injured sailors living rough in the Caribbean and North American ports. A law (The Dolben Act) was passed in 1788, which fixed the number of enslaved people in proportion to the ship's size but conditions were still appalling. Research by Wadstrom (published in 1794) calculated that a man was given a space of 6 feet by 1 foot 4 inches; a woman 5 feet by 1 foot 4 inches and girls 4 feet 6 inches by 1 foot. In his speech, made to the House of Commons in 1789, William Wilberforce quoted evidence showing that not less than 12½ percent of enslaved people perished in the passage and another 4½ percent died on shore, before the day of sale. He also described the conditions on the ships for the enslaved people.

Elizabethan Age

The period of the rule of Queen Elizabeth I in England, from 1558 to 1603. A golden age of English history when Elizabeth I was queen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBaGCQl1E70 The First Playhouses and First Playwrights In 1576, James Burbage, an actor and theatre-builder, built the first successful English playhouse in London on land he had leased in Shoreditch. It was simply called The Theatre and was supported by young playwrights from Cambridge and Oxford Universities. These young men became known as the University Wits and included Thomas Kyd, Robert Green, John Lyly, Thomas Nash and George Peele. The play The Spanish Tragedy, written by Kyd, was the template for the gory "tragedy of blood," plays that became wildly popular. Another theatre called The Curtain had to be built to accommodate the overflow audiences. The technical name for such as theatre was an easer. Burbage also had a house in Blackfriars which had a roof. Because of this, it was used for plays during the winter. Burbage's son Richard was an even more famous actor and performed just about every major role in William Shakespeare's plays. He was lauded for his roles in the tragedies. The only thing that stopped the plays was the plague, and the theatres were dark from June, 1592 to April, 1594. The Audience and Actors Elizabethan theatre itself was notoriously raucous. People, most of whom stood throughout the play, talked back to the actors as if they were real people. Hints of this can be discerned even in Shakespeare's plays. It is true that adolescent boy actors played female roles, and the performances were held in the afternoon because there was no artificial light. There was also no scenery to speak of, and the costumes let the audience know the social status of the characters. Because sumptuary laws restricted what a person could wear according to their class, actors were licensed to wear clothing above their station. Shakespeare More and more theatres grew up around London and eventually attracted Shakespeare, who wrote some of the greatest plays in world literature. His plays continue to cast a shadow over all other plays of the era and quite possibly all other plays that came after his. But Shakespeare was not the first great playwright of the Elizabethan age. That would be Christopher Marlowe. Many scholars believe that Marlowe might have rivalled Shakespeare had he not been murdered when he was 29 years old in a fight over a tavern bill in 1593. He was the first to change the conventions of the early Elizabethan plays with his tales of overreachers like the title character of Tamburlaine the Great, Dr. Faustus and Barabas in The Jew of Malta, men whose will to power provided the engines for the plays. Marlowe used blank, or unrhymed verse in a new, dynamic way that changed the very psychology of dramaturgy. In the meantime, Peele and Lyly were writing light comedies and fantasies such as Endymion. These plays were performed at court, which were not only patrons but protected the companies from the wrath of the Puritans, who found theatre sinful. One of the companies who performed at court, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, had Shakespeare as a member. This company became the King's Men under the patronage of James I. The Globe Theatre The Puritan reaction against the stage was such that the players had to set up theatres outside the London city limits on the south side of the Thames, but attending plays remained popular among non-Puritans. The most famous of these theatres, which became the Lord Chamberlain's Men home, was the Globe Theatre. It was established in 1599 and was actually a new iteration of The Theatre, which Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert had moved and reassembled. In between the closing of The Theatre and the opening of The Globe, the Chamberlain's Men performed at The Curtain. The Globe premiered some of Shakespeare's greatest plays, including Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear. It's very design influenced the design of other theatres, but unfortunately The Globe was destroyed in a fire during a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, which was his final play and of such inferior quality that some scholars don't believe it was written by him at all. The Globe was rebuilt in 1614 and remained standing until 1644 when it was demolished to make room for housing. The Armada Historians believe that the flowering of Elizabethan drama was due in part to the burst of patriotic confidence and national identity that erupted after England's victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588. This was a fleet of ships assembled by Philip II of Spain to conquer England. The conquest failed through a combination of hubris, bad weather, English ingenuity and some help from the Dutch. It might not be a coincidence that Shakespeare began to contribute in earnest to Elizabethan dramaturgy around 1588, when he was 24, though he'd arrived in London from his home in Stratford on Avon around 1585 to seek work as an actor. As a playwright, he gave Marlowe's blank verse more range, flexibility and subtlety. He responded to the patriotic mood of the country with his History plays. Besides these plays, of course, were his magnificent comedies and tragedies. Late Elizabethan Drama Ben Jonson was a friend of Shakespeare and considered his chief rival after the death of Marlowe. However, Jonson followed the strict classical form that was a hallmark of ancient Latin drama. His plays include Vulpine, or the Fox and The Alchemist. Other dramatists of the late Elizabethan period, which continued after her death, included John Webster, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Richard Burbage also acted in the plays of Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher as well as Shakespeare. By 1600, three years before Elizabeth died, the robustness of Elizabethan drama began to fade. After Shakespeare's retirement after 1612 and his death in 1616, Elizabethan drama was no more.

food

We have said that most of the population of medieval Europe went to bed hungry and that their diet was unbalanced and boring at best. The new plants that were introduced from the New World changed that situation. A medieval peasant could expect to harvest about 600 pounds of wheat from an acre of land. It took a long time for the Europeans to get used to these new plants, but when that same acre of land was planted in potatoes -- native to South America -- the peasant could plan on harvesting 50,000 pounds of food. It was even harder for the Europeans to get adjusted to corn -- eating it made many of them sick, and they weren't accustomed to planting row crops in their fields -- but they could harvest 1800 pounds of corn on the acre that had given them only 600 pounds of wheat. Some Europeans, such as the Italians, eventually became used to corn, but it was used primarily as food for chicken, geese and other fowl, and for pigs. If the introduction of potatoes produced a caloric revolution, the acceptance of corn brought about a protein revolution. Since the land of Europe could now produce more food, the relative price of food began to drop. The productive capacity of the land had caught up with the population, and the average European could now eat more. The Europeans, in turn, introduced corn into Africa and sweet potatoes in China, where these new foods also changed conditions dramatically He could also eat better, since a number of lesser food crops arrived from the New World that made possible a more varied diet. The French imported tomatoes, which they called "apples of love," and used them for ornamental purposes in their flower gardens. They thought that they were poisonous, which, in fact, many of the early varieties were. In time, however, the poison-producing capacities of the tomato were bred out, and the tomato became one of the most popular additions to European cuisine. There were many other food plants brought back to Europe -- particularly many varieties of squash, beans, pumpkins, peppers -- that introduced a welcome variety, as well as a wide range of vitamins, into the European diet. The health of the average European began to improve, and his height, weight, and strength increased. As this occurred, his resistance to disease grew.

agricultural revolution

a change in the way food Wass produced enclosed feilds- made farm work more effecinet crop rotation- increased crop production more food produced per. animal new machinery- more food and less workers workers. became available to work. in. factories extra food could feed urban populations Jethro Tull invented seed. drill to. plant crops in straight lines, using land and seed more effectively The time when human beings first domesticated plants and animals and no longer relied entirely on hunting and gathering

how did English become masters of the sea

age of exploration defeat of spain'smighty armada in 1558 Spain lost its power and infleiucne in Europe france and England carried on their rivalry.....leading to eventual British control in Asia

Industrial Revolution

change win the way things were. made factories-making products domestic- making products A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods.

Columbian Exchange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLijVYVDKlc An exchange of goods, ideas and skills from the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa) to the New World (North and South America) and vice versa. The exchange of goods and ideas between Native Americans and Europeans Christopher Columbus introduced horses, sugar plants, and disease to the New World, while facilitating the introduction of New World commodities like sugar, tobacco, chocolate, and potatoes to the Old World. The process by which commodities, people, and diseases crossed the Atlantic is known as the Columbian Exchange. The changes in agriculture significantly altered global populations. The most significant immediate impact of the Columbian exchange was the cultural exchanges and the transfer of people (both free and enslaved) between continents.

Native/North Americans

life was centered on finding. and growing food farmers and hunters grew crops-maize/corn, potatoes., squash, pumpkins and beans hunted deer, bears, buffalo did not domesticate anything except for dogs fishing was important for trade

Encomienda system

system in Spanish America that gave settlers the right to tax local Indians or to demand their labor in exchange for protecting them and teaching them skills. A system whereby the Spanish crown granted the conquerors the right to forcibly employ groups of Indians; it was a disguised form of slavery. It gave settlers the right to tax local Native Americans or to make them work. In exchange, these settlers were supposed to protect the Native American people and convert them to Christianity

Black Death

the epidemic form of bubonic plague experienced during the Middle Ages when it killed nearly half the people of western Europe 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. A deadly plague that swept through Europe between 1347 and 1351 Even before the "death ships" pulled into port at Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors about a "Great Pestilence" that was carving a deadly path across the trade routes of the Near and Far East. Indeed, in the early 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt. WATCH: How the Black Death Spread So Widely The plague is thought to have originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was likely spread by trading ships, though recent research has indicated the pathogen responsible for the Black Death may have existed in Europe as early as 3000 B.C. READ MORE: See all pandemic coverage here. Symptoms of the Black Plague Europeans were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. "In men and women alike," the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, "at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits...waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils." Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms—fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains—and then, in short order, death. The Bubonic Plague attacks the lymphatic system, causing swelling in the lymph nodes. If untreated, the infection can spread to the blood or lungs. How Did The Black Death Spread? The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: "the mere touching of the clothes," wrote Boccaccio, "appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher." The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning. Did you know? Many scholars think that the nursery rhyme "Ring around the Rosy" was written about the symptoms of the Black Death. Understanding the Black Death Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersina pestis. (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century.) They know that the bacillus travels from person to person through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. Both of these pests could be found almost everywhere in medieval Europe, but they were particularly at home aboard ships of all kinds—which is how the deadly plague made its way through one European port city after another. WATCH: How Rats and Fleas Spread the Black Death Not long after it struck Messina, the Black Death spread to the port of Marseilles in France and the port of Tunis in North Africa. Then it reached Rome and Florence, two cities at the center of an elaborate web of trade routes. By the middle of 1348, the Black Death had struck Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London. Today, this grim sequence of events is terrifying but comprehensible. In the middle of the 14th century, however, there seemed to be no rational explanation for it. No one knew exactly how the Black Death was transmitted from one patient to another, and no one knew how to prevent or treat it. According to one doctor, for example, "instantaneous death occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick man strikes the healthy person standing near and looking at the sick." How Do You Treat the Black Death? Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or vinegar. Meanwhile, in a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors refused to see patients; priests refused to administer last rites; and shopkeepers closed their stores. Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape the disease: It affected cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens as well as people. In fact, so many sheep died that one of the consequences of the Black Death was a European wool shortage. And many people, desperate to save themselves, even abandoned their sick and dying loved ones. "Thus doing," Boccaccio wrote, "each thought to secure immunity for himself." Black Plague: God's Punishment? Because they did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black Death was a kind of divine punishment—retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness. By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God's forgiveness. Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers—so, for example, many thousands of Jews were massacred in 1348 and 1349. (Thousands more fled to the sparsely populated regions of Eastern Europe, where they could be relatively safe from the rampaging mobs in the cities.) WATCH: The Grisly Business of Black Death Burials Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty of the Black Death epidemic by lashing out at their neighbors; others coped by turning inward and fretting about the condition of their own souls. Flagellants Some upper-class men joined processions of flagellants that traveled from town to town and engaged in public displays of penance and punishment: They would beat themselves and one another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople looked on. For 33 1/2 days, the flagellants repeated this ritual three times a day. Then they would move on to the next town and begin the process over again. Though the flagellant movement did provide some comfort to people who felt powerless in the face of inexplicable tragedy, it soon began to worry the Pope, whose authority the flagellants had begun to usurp. In the face of this papal resistance, the movement disintegrated. READ MORE: Social Distancing and Quarantine Were Used in Medieval Times to Fight the Black Death How Did The Black Death End? The plague never really ended and it returned with a vengeance years later. But officials in the Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa were able to slow its spread by keeping arriving sailors in isolation until it was clear they were not carrying the disease—creating social distancing that relied on isolation to slow the spread of the disease. The sailors were initially held on their ships for 30 days (a trentino), a period that was later increased to 40 days, or a quarantine—the origin of the term "quarantine" and a practice still used today.

Longitiude

the numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian Longitude is the measurement east or west of the prime meridian. Longitude is measured by imaginary lines that run around the Earth vertically (up and down) and meet at the North and South Poles. These lines are known as meridians. Each meridian measures one arcdegree of longitude. The distance around the Earth measures 360 degrees.The meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, is internationally accepted as the line of 0 degrees longitude, or prime meridian. The antimeridian is halfway around the world, at 180 degrees. It is the basis for the International Date Line.Half of the world, the Eastern Hemisphere, is measured in degrees east of the prime meridian. The other half, the Western Hemisphere, in degrees west of the prime meridian.Degrees of longitude are divided into 60 minutes. Each minute of longitude can be further divided into 60 seconds. For example, the longitude of Paris, France, is 2° 29' E (2 degrees, 29 minutes east). The longitude for Brasilia, Brazil, is 47° 55' W (47 degrees, 55 minutes west).A degree of longitude is about 111 kilometers (69 miles) at its widest. The widest areas of longitude are near the Equator, where the Earth bulges out. Because of the Earth's curvature, the actual distance of a degrees, minutes, and seconds of longitude depends on its distance from the Equator. The greater the distance, the shorter the length between meridians. All meridians meet at the North and South Poles.Longitude is related to latitude, the measurement of distance north or south of the Equator. Lines of latitude are called parallels. Maps are often marked with parallels and meridians, creating a grid. The point in the grid where parallels and meridians intersect is called a coordinate. Coordinates can be used to locate any point on Earth.Knowing the exact coordinates of a site (degrees, minutes, and seconds of longitude and latitude) is valuable for military, engineering, and rescue operations. Coordinates can give military leaders the location of weapons or enemy troops. Coordinates help engineers plan the best spot for a building, bridge, well, or other structure. Coordinates help airplane pilots land planes or drop aid packages in specific locations.

Age of Enlightenment

the time period in the 1700s during which many Europeans began to break away from tradition and rethink political and social norms Francis Bacon Isaac Newton John Locke Benjamin Franklin Thomas Jefferson Thomas Paine Adam Smith

Issac Newton

British scientist who defined the laws of motion, discovered gravity, experimented with optics, invented differential calculus and wrote "Principia" Isaac Newton's Discoveries Newton made discoveries in optics, motion and mathematics. Newton theorized that white light was a composite of all colors of the spectrum, and that light was composed of particles. His momentous book on physics, Principia, contains information on nearly all of the essential concepts of physics except energy, ultimately helping him to explain the laws of motion and the theory of gravity. Along with mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Newton is credited for developing essential theories of calculus. Isaac Newton Inventions Newton's first major public scientific achievement was designing and constructing a reflecting telescope in 1668. As a professor at Cambridge, Newton was required to deliver an annual course of lectures and chose optics as his initial topic. He used his telescope to study optics and help prove his theory of light and color. The Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope in 1671, and the organization's interest encouraged Newton to publish his notes on light, optics and color in 1672. These notes were later published as part of Newton's Opticks: Or, A treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. Sir Isaac Newton contemplates the force of gravity, as the famous story goes, on seeing an apple fall in his orchard, circa 1665. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images The Apple Myth Between 1665 and 1667, Newton returned home from Trinity College to pursue his private study, as school was closed due to the Great Plague. Legend has it that, at this time, Newton experienced his famous inspiration of gravity with the falling apple. According to this common myth, Newton was sitting under an apple tree when a fruit fell and hit him on the head, inspiring him to suddenly come up with the theory of gravity. While there is no evidence that the apple actually hit Newton on the head, he did see an apple fall from a tree, leading him to wonder why it fell straight down and not at an angle. Consequently, he began exploring the theories of motion and gravity. It was during this 18-month hiatus as a student that Newton conceived many of his most important insights—including the method of infinitesimal calculus, the foundations for his theory of light and color, and the laws of planetary motion—that eventually led to the publication of his physics book Principia and his theory of gravity. 'Principia' and Newton's 3 Laws of Motion In 1687, following 18 months of intense and effectively nonstop work, Newton published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), most often known as Principia. Principia is said to be the single most influential book on physics and possibly all of science. Its publication immediately raised Newton to international prominence. Principia offers an exact quantitative description of bodies in motion, with three basic but important laws of motion: First Law A stationary body will stay stationary unless an external force is applied to it. Second Law Force is equal to mass times acceleration, and a change in motion (i.e., change in speed) is proportional to the force applied. Third Law For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton and the Theory of Gravity Newton's three basic laws of motion outlined in Principia helped him arrive at his theory of gravity. Newton's law of universal gravitation states that two objects attract each other with a force of gravitational attraction that's proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. These laws helped explain not only elliptical planetary orbits but nearly every other motion in the universe: how the planets are kept in orbit by the pull of the sun's gravity; how the moon revolves around Earth and the moons of Jupiter revolve around it; and how comets revolve in elliptical orbits around the sun. They also allowed him to calculate the mass of each planet, calculate the flattening of the Earth at the poles and the bulge at the equator, and how the gravitational pull of the sun and moon create the Earth's tides. In Newton's account, gravity kept the universe balanced, made it work, and brought heaven and Earth together in one great equation.

Ancient Mesoamerica

7000 BCE - 2000 BCE The Archaic Period in Mesoamerica during which hunter-gatherer culture moved toward agriculture. c. 2700 BCE Corn is first cultivated in Mesoamerica. c. 1200 BCE - c. 400 BCE The Olmec civilization flourishes in Mesoamerica. 1200 BCE - 300 BCE The Olmec Period which saw the rise of the Olmec culture's work in stone, first major cities appear. c. 1200 BCE The Olmec civilization springs from the grouping of ancient villages along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. c. 1200 BCE San Lorenzo becomes the great ceremonial centre of the Olmec civilization. 950 BCE - 1400 BCE Evidence of the surgical procedure of trephination found in Mesoamerica. c. 900 BCE The centre of San Lorenzo is detroyed and monuments are defaced. La Venta becomes the Olmec capital. 500 BCE - 900 CE The Zapotec Civilization flourishes in Mesoamerica. c. 500 BCE Cuicuilco is at its peak in the Valley of Mexico and constructs a large circular temple pyramid. 500 BCE - 450 BCE Monte Alban becomes the capital of the Zapotec in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico. c. 300 BCE - 400 BCE La Venta is destroyed, monuments are defaced and the Olmec civilizationends. c. 300 BCE First recorded settlement at Tikal. c. 50 BCE - c. 100 CE Cuicuilco in the Valley of Mexico is destroyed by a volcanic eruption. c. 100 CE The Pyramid of the Sun is built at Teotihuacan. 250 CE - 950 CE The Classic Maya Period which saw the height of the Maya Civilization in cities such as Chichen Itza, Palenque, Tikal, Copan and Uxmal. c. 300 CE - 550 CE The city of Teotihuacan dominates Mesoamerica. 426 CE - 437 CE Reign of the first named Copan ruler K'inich Yax K'uk Mo. c. 600 CE Teotihuacan is deliberately destroyed by fire and abandoned. c. 700 CE Xochicalco in the highlands of central Mexico is founded. c. 800 CE The Pyramid of the Niches is completed at El Tajin. c. 900 CE - c. 1150 CE The Toltec civilization flourishes in Mesoamerica. c. 900 CE Xochicalco in the highlands of central Mexico is abandoned. 900 CE - 1100 CE El Tajin flourishes in northern Veracruz. 935 CE - 947 CE Ce Acatl Topiltzin the legendary leader of the Toltecs was born. 1100 CE - 1200 CE The Valley of Mexico is first settled by migrating tribes (Chichimecs, Tepanecs, Mexica and Acolhua). c. 1150 CE The Toltec capital of Tollan is systematically destroyed. 1156 CE - 1168 CE The remaining Toltecs led by Huemac flee Tollan and re-settle at Chapultepec on the west banks of Lake Texcoco. c. 1200 CE Tulum prospers as a trading centre under the influence of Mayapan. 1345 CE Traditional date for the founding of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan on Lake Texcoco. c. 1345 CE - 1521 CE The Aztec civilization flourishes in Mesoamerica. 1350 CE - 1522 CE The Tarascan civilization flourishes in Mesoamerica. 1418 CE Texcoco is temporarily conquered by Mexica and Tepanec forces. 1428 CE The Triple Alliance is formed between Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan. 1431 CE Netzahualcoyotl officially becomes tlatoani or leader of Texcoco. 1469 CE - 1481 CE Axayacatl reigns as leader of the Aztec Empire. 1486 CE - 1502 CE Ahuitzotl reigns as leader of the Aztec Empire. 1502 CE - 1520 CE Motecuhzoma II reigns as leader of the Aztec Empire. c. 1520 CE Ixtlilxochitl, with the support of Cortés, becomes king of Texcoco. 13 Aug 1521 CE The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan falls into the hands of spanish forces led by Cortes.

Printing Press

A mechanical device for transferring text or graphics from a woodblock or type to paper using ink. Presses using movable type first appeared in Europe in about 1450. 15th century invention which revolutionized the ability to print information which in turn affected the speed of the spread of information itself. By 1452, with the aid of borrowed money, Gutenberg began his famous Bible project. Two hundred copies of the two-volume Gutenberg Bible were printed, a small number of which were printed on vellum. The expensive and beautiful Bibles were completed and sold at the 1455 Frankfurt Book Fair, and cost the equivalent of three years' pay for the average clerk. Roughly fifty of all Gutenberg Bibles survive today. In spite of Gutenberg's efforts to keep his technique a secret, the printing press spread rapidly. Before 1500 some 2500 European cities had acquired presses. German masters held an early leadership, but the Italians soon challenged their preeminence. The Venetian printer Aldus Manutius published works, notably editions of the classics. The immediate effect of the printing press was to multiply the output and cut the costs of books. It thus made information available to a much larger segment of the population who were, of course, eager for information of any variety. Libraries could now store greater quantities of information at much lower cost. Printing also facilitated the dissemination and preservation of knowledge in standardized form -- this was most important in the advance of science, technology and scholarship. The printing press certainly initiated an "information revolution" on par with the Internet today. Printing could and did spread new ideas quickly and with greater impact. Printing stimulated the literacy of lay people and eventually came to have a deep and lasting impact on their private lives. Although most of the earliest books dealt with religious subjects, students, businessmen, and upper and middle class people bought books on all subjects. Printers responded with moralizing, medical, practical and travel manuals. Printing provided a superior basis for scholarship and prevented the further corruption of texts through hand copying. By giving all scholars the same text to work from, it made progress in critical scholarship and science faster and more reliable.

Mesopotamia

A region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that developed the first urban societies. In the Bronze Age this area included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires, In the Iron Age, it was ruled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdblRch6m3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=738TsxvJm8A FERTILE SOIL

Northwest Passage

A water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through northern Canada and along the northern coast of Alaska. Sought by navigators since the 16th century.

Industrial Materials

Been conditioned by humans or machines. Can be a material that is natural or made by people. Less dramatic than the influx of gold and silver, but perhaps more important in the long run were the raw materials extracted from the new lands. The most important single industry in medieval Europe was the manufacture of cloth, and the manufacturers were always looking for colorful dyes that would not fade or wash out. They found them in the New World. Brazil is named after a tree in the Near East, the bark of which produced a good red dye; and the islands off the Carolina coast in North America were found to be a good source of a rich and relatively permanent blue dye called indigo. Europe was almost deforested, and was quick to import American wood. Most North American colonists were expected to unload their belongings from their ship and then fill it with shingles for its return voyage. Tall oaks and pines allowed the Europeans to build larger ships, and they were quick to extract barrels of pitch and turpentine from the pines and spruces of the New World. American furs were popular for both clothing and the making of felt. All of the colonial powers anxiously sought for deposits of salt, and most were able to find them. This list could be extended greatly, but the point should be obvious. European manufacture had been woefully short of industrial materials. The resources of the New World gave it the supplies it needed to produce the surplus necessary to begin a profitable trade with the other parts of the world, parts that Europe had not be able to conquer as it had the Americas.

John Locke

English philosopher who advocated the idea of a "social contract" in which government powers are derived from the consent of the governed and in which the government serves the people; also said people have natural rights to life, liberty and property. The "Two Treatises of Government" (1690) offered political theories developed and refined by Locke during his years at Shaftesbury's side. Rejecting the divine right of kings, Locke said that societies form governments by mutual (and, in later generations, tacit) agreement. Thus, when a king loses the consent of the governed, a society may remove him—an approach quoted almost verbatim in Thomas Jefferson's 1776 Declaration of Independence. Locke also developed a definition of property as the product of a person's labor that would be foundational for both Adam Smith's capitalism and Karl Marx's socialism. Locke famously wrote that man has three natural rights: life, liberty and property. In his "Thoughts Concerning Education" (1693), Locke argued for a broadened syllabus and better treatment of students—ideas that were an enormous influence on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel "Emile" (1762). In three "Letters Concerning Toleration" (1689-92), Locke suggested that governments should respect freedom of religion except when the dissenting belief was a threat to public order. Atheists (whose oaths could not be trusted) and Catholics (who owed allegiance to an external ruler) were thus excluded from his scheme. Even within its limitations, Locke's toleration did not argue that all (Protestant) beliefs were equally good or true, but simply that governments were not in a position to decide which one was correct.

Tropic of Capricorn

a line of latitude about 23 degrees South of the equator The Tropic of Cancer is the most northern latitude on the Earth where the sun can appear directly overhead. The Tropic of Capricorn is the most southern latitude on the Earth where the sun can appear directly overhead. ... And the Tropic of Capricorn is at approximately 23.4 degrees south of the Equator.Apr 12, 2015

Prime Meridian

a planet's meridian adopted as the zero of longitude. The meridian, designated at 0° longitude, which passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England. The prime meridian is the line of 0 longitude, the starting point for measuring distance both east and west around the Earth. The prime meridian is arbitrary, meaning it could be chosen to be anywhere. Any line of longitude (a meridian) can serve as the 0 longitude line. However, there is an international agreement that the meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, is considered the official prime meridian.Governments did not always agree that the Greenwich meridian was the prime meridian, making navigation over long distances very difficult. Different countries published maps and charts with longitude based on the meridian passing through their capital city. France would publish maps with 0 longitude running through Paris. Cartographers in China would publish maps with 0 longitude running through Beijing. Even different parts of the same country published materials based on local meridians.Finally, at an international convention called by U.S. President Chester Arthur in 1884, representatives from 25 countries agreed to pick a single, standard meridian. They chose the meridian passing through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. The Greenwich Meridian became the international standard for the prime meridian.UTC The prime meridian also sets Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC never changes for daylight savings or anything else. Just as the prime meridian is the standard for longitude, UTC is the standard for time. All countries and regions measure their time zones according to UTC. There are 24 time zones in the world. If an event happens at 11:00 a.m. in Houston, Texas, it would be reported at 12 p.m. in Orlando, Florida; 4:00 p.m. in Morocco; 9:00 p.m. in Kolkata, India; and 6:00 a.m. in Honolulu, Hawaii. The event happened at 4:00 p.m. UTC.The prime meridian also helps establish the International Date Line. The Earth's longitude measures 360, so the halfway point from the prime meridian is the 180 longitude line. The meridian at 180 longitude is commonly known as the International Date Line. As you pass the International Date Line, you either add a day (going west) or subtract a day (going east.) Hemispheres The prime meridian and the International Date Line create a circle that divides the Earth into the eastern and western hemispheres. This is similar to the way the Equatorserves as the 0 latitude line and divides the Earth into the northern and southern hemispheres. The eastern hemisphere is east of the prime meridian and west of the International Date Line. Most of Earths landmasses, including all of Asia and Australia, and most of Africa, are part of the eastern hemisphere. The western hemisphere is west of the prime meridian and east of the International Date Line. The Americas, the western part of the British Isles (including Ireland and Wales), and the northwestern part of Africa are landmasses in the western hemisphere.

Latitude

distance north or south of the Equator, measured in degrees Latitude is the measurement of distance north or south of the Equator. It is measured with 180 imaginary lines that form circles around the Earth east-west, parallel to the Equator. These lines are known as parallels. A circle of latitude is an imaginary ring linking all points sharing a parallel.The Equator is the line of 0 degrees latitude. Each parallel measures one degree north or south of the Equator, with 90 degrees north of the Equator and 90 degrees south of the Equator. The latitude of the North Pole is 90 degrees N, and the latitude of the South Pole is 90 degrees S. Like the poles, some circles of latitude are named. The Tropic of Cancer, for instance, is 23 degrees 26 minutes 21 seconds N—23° 26' 21'' N. Its twin, the Tropic of Capricorn, is 23° 26' 21'' S. The tropics are important geographic locations that mark the northernmost and southernmost latitudes where the sun can be seen directly overhead during a solstice.One degree of latitude, called an arcdegree, covers about 111 kilometers (69 miles). Because of the Earth's curvature, the farther the circles are from the Equator, the smaller they are. At the North and South Poles, arcdegrees are simply points.Degrees of latitude are divided into 60 minutes. To be even more precise, those minutes are divided into 60 seconds. One minute of latitude covers about 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) and one second of latitude covers about 32 meters (105 feet).For example, the latitude for Cairo, Egypt, in degrees and minutes would be written as 29° 52' N, because the city is 29 degrees, 52 minutes north of the Equator. The latitude for Cape Town, South Africa, would be 33° 56' S, because the city is 33 degrees, 56 minutes south of the Equator. Using seconds of latitude, global positioning system (GPS) devices can pinpoint schools, houses, even rooms in either of these towns.Similar to latitude, the corresponding measurement of distance around the Earth is called longitude. The imaginary lines of latitude and longitude intersect each other, forming a grid that covers the Earth. The points of latitude and longitude are called coordinates, and can be used together to locate any point on Earth.

Papal Power

power of the pope Very powerful before the Reformation, but power declined greatly as people started to question their beliefs Pope Gregory VII tried to expand political power of pope Papal supremacy is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that the pope, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ and as pastor of the entire Christian Church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered—that, in brief, "the Pope enjoys, by divine ... https://youtu.be/MDU0S-e6sfw

Reformation

A movement for religious reform a 16th century movement for religious reform, leading to the founding of Christian churches that rejected the pope's authority A religious movement of the 16th century that began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the creation of Protestant churches. n England, the Reformation began with Henry VIII's quest for a male heir. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could remarry, the English king declared in 1534 that he alone should be the final authority in matters relating to the English church. Henry dissolved England's monasteries to confiscate their wealth and worked to place the Bible in the hands of the people. Beginning in 1536, every parish was required to have a copy. After Henry's death, England tilted toward Calvinist-infused Protestantism during Edward VI's six-year reign and then endured five years of reactionary Catholicism under Mary I. In 1559 Elizabeth I took the throne and, during her 44-year reign, cast the Church of England as a "middle way" between Calvinism and Catholicism, with vernacular worship and a revised Book of Common Prayer. The Counter-Reformation The Catholic Church was slow to respond systematically to the theological and publicity innovations of Luther and the other reformers. The Council of Trent, which met off and on from 1545 through 1563, articulated the Church's answer to the problems that triggered the Reformation and to the reformers themselves. The Catholic Church of the Counter-Reformation era grew more spiritual, more literate and more educated. New religious orders, notably the Jesuits, combined rigorous spirituality with a globally minded intellectualism, while mystics such as Teresa of Avila injected new passion into the older orders. Inquisitions, both in Spain and in Rome, were reorganized to fight the threat of Protestant heresy. The Reformation's Legacy Along with the religious consequences of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation came deep and lasting political changes. Northern Europe's new religious and political freedoms came at a great cost, with decades of rebellions, wars and bloody persecutions. The Thirty Years' War alone may have cost Germany 40 percent of its population. But the Reformation's positive repercussions can be seen in the intellectual and cultural flourishing it inspired on all sides of the schism—in the strengthened universities of Europe, the Lutheran church music of J.S. Bach, the baroque altarpieces of Pieter Paul Rubens and even the capitalism of Dutch Calvinist merchants.

Regions in Massachusetts

Massachusetts is characterized by a jagged indented coast from Rhode Island around Cape Cod. The land rises upward to the west with stony upland pastures in the central part of Massachusetts and gentle hill country in the west. Though the state is only about 190 miles long, from east to west, it is comprised of six specific land regions; the Coastal Lowlands, the Eastern New England Upland, the Connecticut Valley Lowland, the Western New England Lowland, the Berkshire Valley, and the Taconic Mountains. Coastal Lowland: The Coastal lowlands start in the east at the Atlantic Ocean and include the Elizabeth Islands, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Islands. The landscape is characterized by rounded hills, swamps, small lakes and ponds, and short, shallow streams and rivers. Yesterday's Island Eastern New England Upland: Further to the west, lies the Eastern New England Upland area of Massachusetts. This area spreads westward from the Coastal Lowlands forty to sixty miles, rising to about 1,000 feet above sea level and, then, gradually sloping downward in the west to meet the Connecticut Valley Lowland. The Eastern New England Upland actually extends from Maine to New Jersey and is considered an extended part of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Connecticut Valley Lowland: The Connecticut Valley Lowland is a long, narrow land area that extends from northern Massachusetts to southern Connecticut. The Connecticut River runs through this area providing fertile soil for farming. In Massachusetts the Connecticut Valley Lowland is about 20 miles wide. Western New England Upland: This land area runs from Vermont through Massachusetts down into Connecticut and is an extension of the Green Mountains of Vermont. The land in this area rises in elevation from the Connecticut Valley to heights of over 2,000 feet above sea level. Twenty to thirty miles wide in Massachusetts, the Western New England Upland is home to the Berkshire Hills and Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts at 3,487 feet above sea level. Berkshire Valley: To the west of the Western New England Upland and the Berkshire Hills lies the Berkshire Valley. This narrow valley, less than ten miles wide, runs between the Berkshire Hills to the east and the Taconic Mountains to the west. The valley is covered with green meadowlands. Taconic Mountains: On the extreme western border of Massachusetts lie the Taconic Mountains. Less than six miles wide, this narrow band of hills stretches from northwestern Massachusetts to the south rising upward to Mt. Everett 2,602 feet above sea level.

Berkshire

Originally from England noted for pork quality, tenderness and marbling. The Berkshires(locally /ˈbɜːrkʃɪərz, -ʃərz/) are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that extend south into western Massachusetts; the portion extending further south into northwestern Connecticut is grouped with the Connecticut portion of the Taconic Mountains and referred to as either the Northwest Hills or Litchfield Hills.[1] Also referred to as the Berkshire Hills, Berkshire Mountains, and Berkshire Plateau, the region enjoys a vibrant tourism industry based on music, arts, and recreation. Geologically, the mountains are a range of the Appalachian Mountains. The Berkshires were named among the 12 Last Great Places by The Nature Conservancy.[2][3]

Adam Smith

Scottish economist who wrote the Wealth of Nations a precursor to modern Capitalism. Adam Smith was an 18th-century Scottish economist, philosopher, and author who is considered the father of modern economics. Smith argued against mercantilism and was a major proponent of laissez-faire economic policies. In his first book, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," Smith proposed the idea of an invisible hand—the tendency of free markets to regulate themselves by means of competition, supply and demand, and self-interest.1 Smith is also known for creating the concept of gross domestic product (GDP) and for his theory of compensating wage differentials. 2 According to this theory, dangerous or undesirable jobs tend to pay higher wages as a way of attracting workers to these positions.3 Smith's most notable contribution to the field of economics was his 1776 book, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." Adam Smith was an 18th-century Scottish economist, philosopher, and author, and is considered the father of modern economics. Smith is most famous for his 1776 book, "The Wealth of Nations." Smith's ideas-the importance of free markets, assembly-line production methods, and gross domestic product (GDP)-formed the basis for theories of classical economics. The Wealth of Nations Smith published his most important work, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (shortened to "The Wealth of Nations") in 1776 after returning from France and retiring to his birthplace of Kirkcaldy, Scotland.5 In "The Wealth of Nations," Smith popularized many of the ideas that form the basis for classical economics. Other economists built on Smith's work to solidify classical economic theory, the dominant school of economic thought through the Great Depression. Smith's ideas are evident in the work of David Ricardo and Karl Marx in the nineteenth century and John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman in the twentieth century.6 Smith's work discusses the evolution of human society from a hunter stage without property rights or fixed residences to nomadic agriculture with shifting residences. The next stage is a feudal society where laws and property rights are established to protect privileged classes. Finally, there is modern society, characterized by laissez-faire or free markets where new institutions are established to conduct market transactions.7 The Philosophy of Free Markets The philosophy of free markets emphasizes minimizing the role of government intervention and taxation in the free markets. Although Smith advocated for a limited government, he did see the government as responsible for the education and defense sectors of a country.8 1 From Smith comes the idea of the "invisible hand" that guides the forces of supply and demand in an economy. Every person, by looking out for themselves, inadvertently helps to create the best outcome for all. By selling products that people want to buy, a hypothetical butcher, brewer, and baker in this economy hope to make money. If they are effective in meeting the needs of their customers, they will enjoy financial rewards, and while they are engaging in enterprise for the purpose of earning money, they are also providing products that people want. Smith argued that this kind of system creates wealth for the butcher, brewer, and baker, in addition to creating wealth for the entire nation.9 A wealthy nation is one that is populated with citizens working productively to better themselves and address their financial needs. In this kind of economy, according to Smith, a man would invest his wealth in the enterprise most likely to help him earn the highest return for a given risk level. The invisible-hand theory is often presented in terms of a natural phenomenon that guides free markets and capitalism in the direction of efficiency, through supply and demand and competition for scarce resources, rather than as something that results in the well-being of individuals. For Smith, an institutional framework is necessary to steer humans toward productive pursuits that are beneficial to society. This framework consists of institutions like a justice system designed to protect and promote free and fair competition. However, there must be competition undergirding this framework. For Smith, competition is the 'desire that comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us, until we go into the grave.'10 Assembly-Line Production Method The ideas promoted by the "The Wealth of Nations" generated international attention and were a motivating factor in the evolution from land-based wealth to wealth created by assembly-line production methods made possible by the division of labor. Smith used the example of the labor required to make a pin to illustrate the effectiveness of this method. If one person were to undertake the 18 steps required to complete the tasks, they could only make a handful of pins per week. However, if the 18 tasks were completed in assembly-line fashion by 10 individuals, production would jump to thousands of pins per week. Smith argues that the division of labor and resulting specialization produces prosperity.11 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) The ideas in "The Wealth of Nations," provided the genesis for the concept of gross domestic product (GDP) and transformed the importing and exporting business. Prior to the publication of the "The Wealth of Nations," countries declared their wealth based on the value of their gold and silver deposits. However, Smith was highly critical of mercantilism; he argued that countries should be evaluated based on their levels of production and commerce. This concept was the basis for the creation of the GDP metric for measuring a nation's prosperity. At the time that "The Wealth of Nations" was published, many countries were hesitant to trade with other countries. Smith argued that a free exchange should be created because both countries are better off from the exchange.12 As a result of this shift in attitudes toward trading, there was an increase in imports and exports. Smith also argued for legislation that would make trading as easy as possible. The Legacy of Adam Smith Smith's most prominent ideas-the "invisible hand" and division of labor-are now foundational economic theories. He died on July 19, 1790, at age 67, but the ideas he popularized live on in the classical school of economics and in institutions like the Adam Smith Institute, Britain's leading free market neoliberal think tank.1 In 2007, the Bank of England placed Smith's image on the £20 note.13

Ancient Near East

The Near East is traditionally regarded by archaeologists and ancient historians as the region of southwest Asia, specifically the area encircled by the MediterraneanSea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian/Arabian Gulf. In modern times this region includes the countries of Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and western Iran. Some scholars also include Cyprus and Transcaucasia (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) in their definition of the Near East, though these should probably be considered "eastern Mediterranean" and "the Caucasus" respectively. Egypt, though certainly a player in terms of Near Eastern ancient history, is often excluded from traditional definitions of Near East. For modern political scientists and journalists, the term "Middle East" is used to refer to the same geographic area. The Near East is generally regarded as the "cradle of civilization" as many milestones in human history, such as the earliest agriculture, writing, and cities, derived from this region. The land area roughly equivalent to nations from modern Egypt on the West to Iran in the East A geographical region that included the modern political states of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran.

Missionaries

people who work to spread their religious beliefs Beginning late 15th century, Catholic Spanish and Portuguese monarchs commissioned voyages to colonize the new lands and asked missionaries to come along. When Vasco da Gama arrived in India in 1498, sure enough, a missionary was with him. Later, Jesuit missionaries would become especially influential in India. Francis Xavier was a Jesuit missionary who was chosen to go to India at the behest of the Portuguese king. He arrived in 1542 and soon learned the local languages. Xavier was then able to preach to the people in their native tongue as well as translate the Apostle's Creed and the catechism into their language. In less than 20 years, Jesuits had baptized thousands of Indians [source: Mullin]. Xavier also traveled to other parts of Asia. In 1549, he came to Japan and found friends among influential political leaders. Within a few years, thousands of Japanese converted, and Nagasaki became a successful center of Christian missionary work in Japan. However, in the early 17th century, Christianity was outlawed and foreign missionaries were forced out [source: Mullin]. Robert de' Nobili, another important Jesuit missionary in India, did more than learn the local languages -- he enveloped himself into the culture. After adopting Indian garb and a vegetarian diet, he attempted to convert Hindus who adhered to the caste system and were hesitant to adopt Christianity. In a series of controversial compromises, de' Nobili encouraged converts by allowing social divisions within worship. Jesuit missionaries also ventured into China and saw fleeting success. Jesuit Matteo Ricci adopted Chinese culture and clothing and attempted to assimilate Christianity into the local tradition. However, the Vatican ultimately disapproved of his choice to allow Confucian ceremonies that honor ancestors, and the Jesuits lost influence in China afterward. Early Spanish and Portuguese dominance in the Americas allowed Franciscan, Dominican and Jesuit missionaries to prosper there, too. Such missionaries taught natives Catholicism along with farming techniques and other trades in addition to building hospitals and schools [source: Duiker]. They established dioceses and performed large-scale baptisms. However, a social divide pervaded, and Native Americans weren't allowed to become Christian priests for more than a century. The native population suffered under harsh treatment from civil leaders. Some historians criticize the Christian church for not speaking out against this treatment and blame missionary activity for making natives more vulnerable to such abuses.