World History & Geography Final Exam (Terms)

Divine Right Monarchs

- European kings grew powerful during the early modern period for several reasons: kingdoms had grown wealthy from trade to Asia and the Americas; international trade required big merchant fleets and strong navies; and after a century of religious warfare, Europeans looked to strong monarchs to maintain stability. - Monarchs claimed to rule with a "divine right" that came directly from God. - The grandest of the ____________________________________ was Louis XIV who called himself the "Sun King." - He ruled France for 72-years when France was at the height of its power (1643-1715). - Twelve miles outside of Paris, Louis built a palace fit for a god-king. His huge palace at Versailles was surrounded by endless gardens and 1,500 fountains. Versailles was built in the Baroque style. - Other rulers tried to copy the splendor of Versailles, but none ever equaled it. - Louis shrewdly used his court at Versailles to control the French nobility. - As many as 5,000 French nobles living at Versailles had little to do except seek the king's favor and compete for honors like holding the candle while the Sun King prepared for bed.

Scientific Revolution

- Galileo of Italy used a telescope to observe the heavens and prove the Earth was not the center of the universe. (The Catholic Church disagreed and locked him up.) - Isaac Newton of England discovered the principle of gravity while sitting under an apple tree; he concluded that all objects in the universe obey the same laws of motion. - A Dutch shopkeeper and amateur scientist, Anton von Leeuwenhoek, built an early microscope and was struck with "wonder at a thousand living creatures in one drop of water." - This new world of tiny organisms challenged the accepted theory of spontaneous generation, a theory that proposed small creatures. - These and other discoveries amounted to a leap in scientific understanding in the 1600s that came to be called the ________________________________. - Printed books spread this new scientific knowledge along with the revolutionary idea that the workings of the universe could be explained by natural causes.

Hemispheres

- A ________________ is any half of earth's surface; the term comes from the Greek word for half a sphere. - The equator (zero degrees latitude) divides the earth into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. - The dividing line between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres is not so well defined, but it is usually placed at the Prime Meridian (zero degrees longitude) or at 20 degrees west longitude. - North and South America and surrounding waters are considered to be in the Western Hemisphere, while the continents of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia are considered to be in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Mongols

- Abbasid Empire fell when ______________ invaders conquered the capital of Baghdad in 1258 and massacred some 800,000 Muslims including the caliph. - They were nomadic tribesmen and superb mounted warriors from central Asia who swept east toward China and west toward Europe under the brilliant but ruthless leadership of Genghis Khan and his successors. - Created the largest land empire in world history, their conquests stopped in Western Europe when a leader died, general returned home to choose a new khan. - Kublai Khan completed the conquest of China and made himself emperor of China and established Beijing. - They increased trade between East and West over the old Silk Roads. These trade routes transported the fleas that carried the Black Death. - They did not develop the government institutions necessary to maintain an empire. Its unity withered in the late 1300s.

Plate Tectonics

- According to the theory of ________________________, the earth's surface is composed of about a dozen plates of solid material that slowly move as they float on a bed of magma, or molten rock. In other words, the surface of the earth resembles a cracked eggshell, and the pieces of the shell are moving. - These plates include both the ocean floor and the continents. The continents are simply high areas on the plates above sea level, so both the continents and the sea floor move with their plates. - Earthquakes and volcanoes often occur at boundaries between plates as the plates push together, spread apart, or slide against one another. - It continues to shape the earth's surface. - The super continent of the past is called Pangaea.

The Columbian Exchange

- After Columbus connected the two landmasses, an exchange of products began: __________________________________. - Native American cultures included excellent farmers who raised corn, potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, peanuts, coffee, and tobacco. - New World corn and potatoes had a big impact on Chinese and European diets, leading to large population increases in both places. - The most important food America acquired from Europe was wheat, used for making bread, pasta, and the like. - Soon oats, barley, grapes, rice, and sugarcane were being grown in America. - Domesticated animals from Europe changed America in a big way. - The plains Indians of North America, for example, built a lifestyle around horses, the Navajos around sheep, and cows came to outnumber people. - The import from Europe with the greatest impact was disease. Most diseases come from human contact with animals. - Over centuries, Europeans developed some immunity to diseases like smallpox and measles. - Americans had no such immunity. When these diseases arrived in America, indigenous populations were largely wiped out, emptying much of the land for Europeans.

Pax Romana

- After Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra, he became sole ruler of Rome and took the name Augustus. - Considered a political genius by many historians, Augustus proclaimed himself Rome's first emperor, and he was worshipped as a god. - He quietly stripped the Senate of its power, turning Rome into an empire disguised as a republic. - Nonetheless, the reign of Augustus ended nearly a century of political strife in the Roman world, and it was the beginning of a 200-year-long period of peace and prosperity called ______________________, Latin for the "Roman Peace."

Constantine the Great

- By the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire was in confusion. 26 emperors reigned in 50 years. - A strong general took control of the empire and tried to stop its decline. He is remembered as __________________________________. - He legalized Christianity, and he ended the blood sports in the Colosseum. - He established Constantinople as the capital of the stronger eastern part of the Roman Empire, while Rome remained capital of the weakened western part of the empire. - He ruled over both parts of the empire from Constantinople located on the Bosporus Strait that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

Tang Dynasty

- After nearly 4 centuries of disorder followed the fall of Han Dynasty in 220 AD, China finally became united again under a new emperor in the early middle ages, and shortly thereafter the _____________________ took control of China and returned China to greatness. - Under this dynasty, the ideals of Confucius were revived; art and music flourished, and gunpowder and printing were invented. - The Chinese first printed by carving words and pictures into blocks of wood, which were pressed against paper. Later the Chinese invented movable type. - Emperors tried to improve agriculture by reducing large estates held by aristocrats and giving land to the peasants. - During this period, China's economy was enriched by the new Grand Canal dug between the Yellow and the Yangtze Rivers. - Safe and inexpensive canal transportation brought more rice, precious goods, and taxes to northern China. - The dynasty lasted for three hundred years, from 618 - 907 AD. It weakened and was replaced by the Song dynasty that continued China's economic and cultural development for another three hundred years.

Jericho

- Agriculture and irrigation began in an area of the Middle East called the Fertile Crescent. - Villages grew near farmlands, and the world's first known city developed at ____________ in Palestine around 8,000 BC. - Walls were built around this area to protect its agricultural surplus from nomadic raiders. - Warfare might have begun here. - Hunting and gathering declined as agriculture became the way most humans made their living. - Agriculture and other technologies spread fastest in Eurasia for several reasons: much of the Eurasia lies in a temperate zone suitable for agriculture; Eurasia had more plants and animals that could be raised by humans, and it had more people. - Diseases, which often come from contact with animals, spread fastest in Eurasia too

Civilization

- Agriculture made __________________ possible because it permitted humans to settle permanently in one place, build cities, and develop complex societies. - Large groups of people living together encouraged job specialization, the development of government, and written language, all of which are important features of it. - Writing probably began as a way to record business dealings, especially the exchange of agricultural products. Cities and writing are often considered the primary indicators of it. When people started to write, prehistoric times ended, and historic times began. - Not everything about it was positive. Often a wealthy class of aristocrats controlled the land and collected rents from poor farmers. - Society became divided between the "haves" and "have-nots." Civilized societies also tended to be more warlike and more patriarchal than hunter-gatherer bands in which everyone helped to supply food that ensured the group's survival.

Germanic tribes

- Although the Romans called them barbarians, _________________________ defeated the Romans because the empire had grown weak, and it could no longer defend its vast borders. - But they were illiterate, and warriors were loyal only to their local chiefs, which made the development of nations or empires impossible. - This was a time of much warfare between competing tribes and bands; the populations of cities declined as people fled to the countryside to escape the fighting. - The loss of writing, cities, and government organization meant that civilization had largely ended in Western Europe. - As time went on, barbarian chiefs would become nobles and kings, and these people would evolve into the powerful kingdoms that ruled Europe during the later middle ages.

Arch

- An _______ is a curved opening that spans a doorway, window, or other space. - It could span much greater distances than the column-and-beam architecture of the Egyptians and Greeks. - It built side-by-side created aqueducts; arches placed in front of one another formed large "vaulted" ceilings, and arches arranged in a circular pattern created domes. - It was adopted on a large scale by the Romans who also developed the use of concrete as a construction material. - Concrete and this made it possible to construct public buildings with large interior spaces. - One of the most impressive of these buildings is the Colosseum, a great arena of ancient Rome that seated 50,000 spectators.

The classical period

- Ancient times began with the river valley civilizations starting about 3500 BC and ended with the fall of three great classical civilizations around 500 AD. - When people in the Western world speak of ___________________________, they are usually referring to ancient Greece and Rome. - But in a larger sense, it is when any civilization undergoes advancement in several fields such as government, religion, the arts, or science. - It is a time when a culture develops distinctive features that help to define it far into the future. - The three great classical civilizations of India, China, and the Mediterranean created larger empires than had existed before; all suffered from internal weaknesses before falling to Hun invasions by about 500 AD, marking the end of ancient times. - The Mauryan and Gupta dynasties gave India religious philosophies. The Qin and Han dynasties left China with a tradition of strong central governments headed by powerful rulers and a Confucian philosophy. Greece and Rome gave Western Civilization a humanistic philosophy, along with traditions of citizen involvement in government and rule by law.

Government

- As societies grew larger, government became necessary to provide an orderly way to make decisions, to maintain public order through police and courts, and to supply services that were not provided by merchants. - Ancient Greece demonstrated its several different forms. - The major types seen in history are: monarchies, aristocracies/oligarchies, democracies, and dictatorships.

Agriculture

- Before the Neolithic period, most humans made their living by hunting and gathering. - This began to change about 12,000 years ago when people in the Middle East discovered they could plant and harvest a wheat plant they found growing wild. - At about the same time, people began to domesticate wild animals, raising them for food and as a source of power that could pull wagons and plows. (__________________ means farming and raising livestock.) - People could settle in one place, grow crops, and eventually build towns and cities; collect more possessions. - Because it could support more people per square mile than hunting and gathering, human population jumped from about two million people during the early Stone Age to about 60 million during the late Stone Age. - Farmers learned to grow more food than they needed for their own use, resulting in a surplus. Its surpluses made it possible to accumulate wealth, and they led to job specialization because not everyone had to raise food to make a living. - It became the main source of wealth in most societies until the industrial age.

Persian Wars

- Centered in present day Iran, the Persian Empire stretched from the Middle East to India; it was the largest empire the world had yet seen. - The Persians tried to add Greece to their empire in the 400s BC, but the Greeks united long enough to defeat them. - At the Battle of Marathon, Greeks repelled a larger invading force of Persians, and legend says a Greek soldier ran nearly 26 miles from the battlefield to Athens where he died after delivering news of the victory. - This legend is the basis for the modern marathon foot race. - In fighting ten years later (480 BC), the people of Athens fled to the nearby island of Salamis after the Persians conquered and burned Athens. - The Persian king Xerxes had his throne placed on a hill where he could watch his fleet of 700 warships destroy the Greek navy of about 300 ships. Instead, Xerxes watched in horror as the Greeks lured his navy into a narrow strait that prevented many of the Persian ships from joining the battle. - The Greeks won the battle, and the ___________________ soon ended. Because the victory at Salamis preserved Greek culture, some historians have called this "the battle that saved Western Civilization."

Julius Caesar

- Civil war broke out when a successful general, _______________________, moved his army out of Gaul (present day France) and marched toward Rome. - He won the civil war, and he had the senate declare him dictator for life in 48 BC, ending the Roman Republic that had existed for over 400 years. - He was assassinated on the Ides of March (March 15th) in 44 BC by his friend Brutus and other senators opposed to his dictatorship. - Brutus and his fellow assassins wanted Rome to continue as a republic. It didn't. - While some people believed he was an arrogant tyrant, others gave him credit for restoring order at a time when Rome's republican government was no longer functioning effectively.

Egypt

- Civilization arose in the Nile River valley of ________. The people probably learned about irrigation, the plow, writing, and other technologies from Mesopotamia. - It is said to be a "gift of the Nile" because the river provided irrigation water, fertile soils due to annual floods*, and easy transportation by boat. - Boats on the Nile were pulled north by the Nile's current, and they sailed south with the prevailing winds. - They considered the river sacred; it separated the "land of the living" on the east bank (where the sun rises) from the "land of the dead" on the west bank (where the sun sets). - Its two main geographic features are the Nile and the Sahara Desert. Its ancient time was a long, narrow oasis along the river in the desert. - Its ancient people had a polytheistic religion; their important gods included Ra, god of the sun and creator of life, and Osiris, god of rebirth. Most of the gods were anthropomorphic but with animal characteristics. - Many works of art, literature, and architecture survive from its ancient time, and the great pyramids near Cairo, which is Egypt's modern day capital city. They also developed a 365-day calendar based on the solar year.

Charlemagne

- Civilization began to return to Europe with the reign of _________________________, the Christian king of a Germanic people called the Franks. - He established a large empire in western and central Europe. - After his armies defended the pope, the pope crowned him as the new Roman emperor on Christmas day in the year 800. The western Roman Empire didn't last long. - When he died, his empire was divided among his three sons. Two of these kingdoms formed the general outlines of today's Germany and France. - He is remembered for his encouragement of learning: he needed reading and writing to manage a large empire. - He established schools and surrounded himself with scholars. - He encouraged monks in monasteries to copy literature from the ancient Greeks and Romans; without this work, much of what we know about the classical world would have been lost forever.

Hellenistic Civilization

- Despite the decline of Athens, Greece would again take the center stage of history with the conquests of Alexander the Great, a young man from the mountainous northern region of Greece called Macedonia. - Alexander's tutor was the philosopher Aristotle, and his father was Philip of Macedon. - After his father died, Alexander took control of Greece at the age of 20, but Alexander wanted more. - Alexander succeeded in conquering Egypt and much of the ancient world, extending his empire all the way to India. In the process, he defeated Greece's old enemy, the Persian Empire. Alexander never lost a battle, but he became sick with fever and died at the age of 32. His empire fell apart and was divided among his top generals. - After his death, a new culture emerged known as __________________________________, a blend of Greek, Persian, Egyptian and Indian influences that would flourish for centuries. - One of the cities founded by Alexander, Alexandria, Egypt, had a great library that was the center of learning of the Hellenistic world.

The Swahili Coast

- During the Abbasid dynasty, Muslim traders brought sub-Saharan Africa into closer contact with the rest of the world and spread Islam. - Muslim merchants developed trade links with cities in East and West Africa, African rulers in these trade centers often converted to Islam, and helped spread the language of Swahili. - A string of prosperous _____________________ cities connected East Africa to the southern ocean trading network. - These ports traded gold, ivory, and slaves from Africa for cotton from India, silk from Persia, and porcelain from China.

The Silk Road

- During the Han Dynasty, regular trade began over ____________________, actually a network of trails that stretched 4,000 miles from China to the Roman Empire. - Only the Chinese knew how to raise silkworms and weave silk; Chinese silk was worth its weight in gold in Rome. - Europeans also acquired a taste for other Asian luxury goods including spices, a taste that would later send Columbus on his voyages of discovery. - It was a two-way street. Asian goods were traded for Western goods, which flowed back along the Silk Road to China. - Imports from the west to China included gold, silver, powerful horses, new foods, and Buddhism. - This overland trade was made possible by the camel, the "ship of the desert," with its large padded feet for walking on shifting desert sands and its ability go long distances without food or water. - Trade routes such as this were pioneered by nomads. For a price, nomads provided caravans with pack animals and protection. - This road in the north joined with the southern ocean shipping routes to form a trading web that spread goods, technologies, and ideas between Asia, Europe, and North Africa

Samurai

- Kublai Khan failed to conquer Japan. In 1281, he sent a fleet of over 4,000 ships and 150,000 warriors against Japan. - Japan appeared to be doomed until two days of typhoon winds destroyed much of the Chinese force. The Japanese called the storm kamikaze which is divine wind. - At this time, warlords ruled Japan, Japan had a feudal system similar to Europe. Poor farmers were bound to a land-owning lord and the lord protected his holdings with mounted professional warriors called ____________. - Some members of this class became rulers in their own right.

Qing Dynasty

- During the early modern period, only two Chinese ports were open to European ships. - Chinese products were so popular in Europe that much of the Spanish silver mined in the New World ended up in China where it paid for Chinese silks, tea, and fine porcelain. - The Ming dynasty began requiring Chinese to pay their taxes in silver. - When harsh weather reduced harvests, peasants didn't have enough food or enough silver. It is said starving peasants ate goose droppings and tree bark. Disease and death swept through China. - The Ming government was weak following years of internal conflicts, and it was unable to contend with large peasant uprisings. - The last Ming emperor hung himself in 1644. Like others before it, the Ming Dynasty grew, flowered, declined, and was replaced. The new rulers were Manchu nomads from northeast of the Great Wall (Manchuria). - They entered China, defeated the peasant army, and established the _____________________ that endured for two-and-a-half centuries until the early 1900s. - This dynasty would be China's last.

The Tokugawa Shogunate

- During the late middle ages, Japan was divided into many kingdoms; warlords lived in fortresses, and they employed mounted samurai warriors. - It looked like the feudal system in Europe. Endless warfare and pillaging made life miserable for Japanese peasants. - Then in the mid-1500s, something happened to change all this: Portuguese traders showed up in Japan selling firearms. - With the help of guns, a series of three warlords succeeded in conquering and unifying Japan. The last of these warlords, _________________, became Japan's shogun, or military ruler, in 1603. The ___________________ adopted a Japanese version of Confucianism, improved education in Japan. - They adopted a policy of near total isolation from the West. - Japan expelled Christian missionaries, burned Western books, and allowed only the Chinese and Dutch to trade with Japan at just one port. - The southern port city of Nagasaki became Japan's only window on the outside world.

Elizabeth 1

- England became a Protestant country in 1534 when King Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church so he could divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn. - He was hoping for a male heir, but instead they had a daughter. His daughter grew up to become one of history's most brilliant rulers, Queen ___________________(1). - She was intelligent and confident. By tolerating religious differences, she maintained peace in her kingdom. - She ruled for nearly a half century during the Renaissance in England, the "(1) Period," when William Shakespeare wrote his plays, and the English language underwent rapid development. - Greek and Latin words entered the English vocabulary, and Shakespeare alone invented hundreds of new words. - It was during her reign that England defeated the "invincible" Spanish Armada of 130 warships sent by Spain.

Pyramids

- For a person to enter the next life, the body had to be preserved through mummification and religious rituals performed by priests. - The most famous burial tombs of ancient Egypt are the great ________________ at Giza near Cairo. - These and other tombs were built to house the bodies of pharaohs for the afterlife. - They are the oldest and the only remaining examples of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. - Without iron tools or wheeled vehicles, workers cut, moved, and lifted millions of limestone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons each. - Archeologists believe the workers who built them were not slaves, but valued members of society who lived in a nearby community with their families. - Standing guard over these at Giza is the Sphinx. - Their age building in Egypt lasted from about 2700 BC to 1000 BC.

Continents

- Geographers divide most of the land surface of the earth into seven large landmasses called __________________. - They are Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, North America, and South America. Antarctica is the only continent not settled by humans. - The Ural Mountains of Russia are considered the dividing line between Europe and Asia. Europe and Asia form a single large landmass called Eurasia. - They only cover less than a third of the earth's surface. - Earth is mostly a water planet, and 97% of that water is found in the earth's four oceans, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian and the Arctic. - Because ocean water is salty, it cannot be used for drinking, farming, or manufacturing. Far less than 1% of the earth's water is fresh water, water that is not salty and can be used to grow crops.

Stone Age

- History has been divided into three eras based on the kinds of tools, or technology, that people used during these periods: the _________________, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. - By far the longest stretch of human history took place before and during this age, a period called prehistoric times, when people did not yet know how to read or write. - Evolutionary scientists believe it began about 250,000 BC and ended about 4,000 BC when the Bronze Age began in the Middle East. (These ages began at different times in different places.) - People learned to use fire and make stone tools and weapons; they also developed spoken language and farming. The earliest discoveries of human art are also from this age. - Paleolithic is a scientific term applied to the early Stone Age when humans made their living mostly by hunting, scavenging, or gathering wild food such as nuts and berries. Neolithic means the late Stone Age when agriculture began, and copper tools were developed.

The Maya

- Humans and civilization came late to the Western Hemisphere. - _________________ civilization arose centuries later just east of Olmec lands. - Its city-states flourished between 300 and 900 AD in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and northern Central America. - They improved on the achievements of the Olmecs to create the most advanced native civilization of the Americas. - They used hieroglyphics, had a zero-based numbering system, created fine arts, a calendar of 365-1/4 days, and impressive pyramid-shaped temples in large cities. - They practiced human sacrifice and apparently played a ball game that ended with the deaths of the losers. - They overpopulated their land depleting it of natural resources, which lead to their decline.

Marco Polo

- In 1271, a teenager from Venice left on a trading trip to China with his father and uncle. - They visited the court of Kublai Khan, who gave him a job as ambassador to outlying regions of China. - He returned to Italy 24 years later and was serving as captain of a Venetian warship when he was captured and sent to prison in Genoa, Italy. - There he wrote what is probably the most influential travel book of all time, The Travels of Marco Polo. - The book gave Europeans their first real knowledge of China, and about two centuries later it inspired another Italian, Christopher Columbus of Genoa, to set sail for Asia.

Peter 1 - Peter the Great

- In 1682, Russia got a new and energetic tsar who stood nearly seven feet tall. - He was ____________, known as _______________________. - He took eighteen months off to travel as a commoner in Europe where he worked as a carpenter and learned more about the West. - He tried to bring Russia into the modern world by adopting elements of Western culture and technology. - He imported printing presses along with European clothing and architecture, and he adopted the Western calendar. - He also reorganized his military and civil service along European lines. - In a war with Sweden, he acquired land on the Baltic Sea giving Russia an ocean outlet to the west and direct access to Europe by ship. - There he built a European-style capital at St. Petersburg. - He died at the age of 53 after jumping into icy water to save drowning sailors.

Guilds

- In Europe of the late middle ages, townspeople gradually won the right from their local lords to run their own city governments. - Trade grew, and cities became important centers of manufacturing and commerce. - Many of the goods traded in Europe were produced by self-employed craftspeople who formed organizations called __________ to regulate the price and quality of their products such as shoes or metalwork. - They were the forerunners of today's labor unions. - They served as civic organizations that helped to run the towns. - Some women began taking up trades that gave them greater financial independence. - Merchants and craftspeople were becoming a new class in European society, a middle class between the peasants and the nobility (lords and kings).

Buddhism

- In the 500s BC, a young Hindu prince raised in luxury became troubled by the suffering he saw in the world. He left his wife and infant son to become a wandering monk, seeking a way to end the suffering. After six years of solitary searching, he found an answer and began to teach. - His followers called him the "Buddha" or "the enlightened one." - Buddha taught that our life in the physical world is merely an illusion. When people let go of their worldly pain and worries, they can unite with the universal soul and achieve a state of complete peace called nirvana. - Buddhists believe nothing is permanent, that life constantly moves through cycles of birth, death, and rebirth like the turning of a wheel. - Although Buddha accepted the Hindu belief in reincarnation, he taught that people could achieve nirvana from their actions in this life alone, and he rejected the caste system. For these reasons, Buddhism became popular among the lower classes in India. - Today ________________ is a major world religion. Although it began in India, it spread to the east and declined in India as Buddhism was absorbed into Hinduism. Buddhists are now found in the greatest numbers in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

The Voyages of Zheng He

- In the early 1400s, Ming emperors sent Zheng He - a Muslim and a eunuch - on seven great overseas voyages to demonstrate Chinese power and to collect treasure. - On his first expedition, he commanded a fleet of 62 ships and 28,000 men, some of his treasure ships were over 400 feet long, many times bigger than Columbus's ships. - These expeditions traveled as far as Arabia and east Africa, extending Chinese influence over much of the civilized world - The ocean expeditions stopped and China's fleet went into decline because Ming court advisers decided it was better to defend the home front instead of attacking other countries.

Empire of Mali

- Islam came to West Africa with camel caravans crossing the Sahara Desert from North Africa. - Trading cities such as Timbuktu grew and prospered where caravans stopped and exchanged salt and other goods from the north for gold from sub-Saharan Africa. - Several large states developed around these trading cities in the "hump" of West Africa. - The _____________________ thrived during the 1200s and 1300s. - A ruler, Mansa Musa, went on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 and distributed so much gold on his journey that the value of gold dropped in Egypt. - Much of the interior of Africa was untouched by Muslim culture, people there continued to follow traditional religions, and many lived in stateless societies without formal rulers.

Arab conquests

- Islam gave Arabia's Bedouin tribes one God to worship, and it promoted equality among believers. - The tribes experienced a unity they had never known before. - Rather than fighting each other, they went on a spree of foreign conquest aided by fast Arabian horses and camels well suited to desert warfare. - They spread Islam as they conquered, but they permitted Jews and Christians to retain their monotheistic religion. - They subdued Persia to their east, parts of the Byzantine Empire to the north, and Egypt to the west. - After splitting into two sects, the Sunni and Shi'a, the Arabs resumed their conquests in northern India, North Africa, and Spain. - But, when they tried to expand farther into Christian Europe, they were stopped by the Franks in the west and by the Byzantine Empire in the east. - In just a hundred years, Arabs created the largest empire since Rome.

Christianity

- It took hold in the Roman Empire as the empire was falling apart. - It is based on the Old Testament of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, who lived during the reign of Augustus Caesar. - Jesus taught his followers to love God and their neighbor, and to devote their lives to following him, trusting in him and his sacrificial death for salvation from hell. - Jewish leaders disagreed with Jesus's teachings and had him placed on trial. He was executed by Roman officials, but rose from the dead three days later. - After persecuting the followers of Christ for almost 300 years, the Roman Empire adopted it as its official religion. - It soon became a major world religion. Today it is the world's largest religion. - The Roman Catholic Church was one institution from Roman times that did not break down. During the Dark Ages, Latin-educated Catholics kept the flame of learning alive in Western Europe. Even the Germanic tribes converted to this by about 600 AD. - It came to dominate art, architecture, and thinking in the lands where it was adopted.

Roman Law

- Judges were required to weigh evidence fairly, and accused persons were considered innocent until proven guilty. The courts enforced legal contracts. These principles were later adopted in legal systems of other nations including the United States. - __________________ is one of the greatest legacies of the empire. - The empire was also held together by a well-trained army, by communications over an extensive road system, and by the Latin language. - The Latin alphabet was derived from an earlier writing system created by sea traders from Phoenicia on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. - From their travels, Phoenicians learned about Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics, writing systems that used hundreds of symbols to represent words or syllables. - The Phoenicians had a better idea; they created just 22 symbols to represent spoken sounds. We call these symbols letters.

Mesopotamia

- Located in the modern country of Iraq, _____________________ is known as the "cradle of civilization" because it is here that civilization first began around 3500 BC, a date considered the beginning of ancient times. - It is a region, not a country, within the larger region of the Middle East. - It lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; its name means "between the waters" in Greek. - Here farmers learned to build irrigation systems that turned the dry valley into a prosperous center of agriculture supporting many people. - As settlements in the south grew into busy cities, this area called Sumer became the world's first civilization. The Sumerians built walled cities and developed the earliest-known writing called cuneiform, in which scribes (record-keepers) carved symbols onto wet clay tablets that were later dried. - The Sumerians are credited with writing the world's oldest story, the Epic of Gilgamesh*, about the life of a Sumerian king. The Sumerian number system was based on 12, which explains why we have 60-minute hours, 24-hour days, 12-month years, and 360-degree circles.

The Middle Ages

- Many people use the term ____________________ to identify the period between ancient times and modern times, a thousand years from approximately 500 AD to 1500 AD. - Although civilization was in decline at the beginning of this period, a powerful new Islamic civilization was about to arise in the Middle East, and older civilizations would eventually revive. - During this time, international trade would grow, helping to spread civilization and major religions from core civilizations to outlying regions including sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, and Russia. - The first few centuries of this time in Europe are often called the Dark Ages because civilization had collapsed after the Fall of Rome, and Europe was torn by widespread fighting among barbarian tribes.

India

- Most of the country of ________ is a triangular-shaped peninsula that juts into the Indian Ocean. - Due to its central location on the Indian Ocean between China and the Middle East, it became the ancient world's largest trading center. - It also gave the world important new ideas including the numbering system we use today and the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. - Today it is the second most populous country in the world after China, and the world's largest democracy. - Its capital is New Delhi. This and nearby countries form a region known as the Indian subcontinent or Southern Asia. - The earliest civilization here grew along the Indus River valley of the west around 2500 BC. - Ships and overland trade caravans connected it to Mesopotamia and Egypt in an early international trading network.

Great Wall of China

- Natural barriers protected China on three sides: oceans to the east and south, mountains and desert to the west. But, China's northern border lay open to attack from Huns. - The First Emperor ordered a number of individual walls joined together to form one great stone wall to defend China's northern border from attack. Hundreds of thousands of laborers worked on the __________________ for years, and many workers died under the harsh conditions. - Gates in the wall became centers of trade with the nomadic peoples who lived outside. The wall still stands, but it has been repaired and rebuilt a number of times over the centuries. - The First Emperor also built for himself a magnificent underground tomb, and nearby he buried a terra-cotta army of life-size soldiers to protect him for eternity. - One pit contained sculptures of 6,000 infantrymen (foot soldiers), and a second pit held the cavalry (mounted soldiers) complete with life-size horses, all arranged in battle formation. - Each clay soldier was modeled after an actual soldier of the emperor's army. - One of the great archeological finds of the twentieth century, the terra-cotta army was uncovered accidentally in 1974 by a farmer digging a well. - Hoping to find a way to avoid death, the First Emperor experimented with a number of potions until he killed himself by accidental poisoning. - The Qin Dynasty lasted for only fifteen years, but it began a Chinese tradition of strong central governments controlled by powerful rulers.

The First Emperor

- One of China's warring states, the Qin kingdom of western China, grew wealthy from agriculture based on extensive irrigation. - With this wealth, the Qin ruler raised a powerful army and spent twenty years ruthlessly conquering China's warring states. - He declared himself ________________________ in 221 BC. Thus, it was the first one, Qin Shi Huangdi, who created the country of China and gave China its name. - In order to unify China, he stripped the regional warlords of their power, and he forced them to move to the capital where he could control them. - He also standardized the Chinese language, money, roads, and weights and measures. - He ruled with a philosophy that considered people selfish and evil by nature; he adopted strict laws and harsh punishments to keep people in line. - He also tried to control what people could think. - It is said he buried scholars alive, burned books including the teachings of Confucius, and he brutally eliminated those who disagreed with him.

Socrates

- One of the best known talented artists and thinkers, who were drawn to Athens during the Age of Pericles, was the philosopher ________________. - He was famed for saying, "The unexamined life is not worth living." - He encouraged his students to question accepted wisdom including government policies. - But, the golden age of Athens was about to end as Athens went to war with Sparta. - Early in the fighting, a plague of typhoid fever killed a third of the residents of Athens including Pericles. - After 27 years of warfare, Athens was defeated and went into decline. - He was condemned to death by the citizens of Athens for neglecting the gods and corrupting the morals of the young. - Many historians believe, however, that he was made a scapegoat for the decline of Athens after it was defeated by Sparta. - He did not leave behind written works; his philosophy was carried forward by his student, Plato.

Southeast Asia

- One of the most important events of the middle ages was the spread of rice farming in Asia. Large tracts of swampland and forest were converted to rice paddies. - In China, population doubled between the 700s and 1100s. - This new type of rice originated in ___________________(1) and reached China and India over ocean trade routes. These same routes brought manufactured goods such as scissors and cooking pots to (1). - It is a region comprised of two parts: the southeast corner of the Asian mainland and a large archipelago between the Asian mainland and Australia. - It includes the modern mainland countries of Vietnam and Thailand, and the island nations of Indonesia and the Philippines. - Sailors here were among the world's most daring, during ancient times, they discovered how to ride the monsoons. These sailors opened the southern ocean trade routes. They were sailing two-thirds of the way around the earth.

Code of Hammurabi

- One of the most powerful civilizations to arise in Mesopotamia was Babylon (1900 to 500 BC). - Hammurabi was an early king of Babylon who created an empire by bringing much of Mesopotamia under his control. He helped unite the Babylonian empire by publishing a set of laws known as the _______________________________, history's first known written laws. He had the 300 laws of the code carved onto stone pillars for all to see, which meant that nobody was above the law; it applied to everyone. - Babylon later became known for its hanging gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and for the decadent life-style of its people; "a Babylon" now means a place of corruption and sin. - The Bible mentions the Tower of Babel, probably a ziggurat, that the builders hoped would reach to heaven. In response to their arrogance, God confused the builders' language so they could no longer understand one another's speech. The Bible says this is how the people of the world came to babble in different languages.

Incas

- One of the two greatest empires of the late middle ages. - The ________ civilization was centered in present day Peru, but it grew to include most of the Pacific coast of South America between the Andes Mountains and the ocean. - It was a high-altitude civilization; farmers developed irrigation systems and stepped terraces for growing crops on steep hillsides. - The 3,000 mile-long empire was linked by the most extensive road system since the Roman Empire. - Way stations built on main roads provided travelers with places to stay at the end of each day's journey. - Did not have writing as we know it, but they kept accurate numerical records on knotted strings called quipu. - People living in the Americas had no way of knowing their long separation from Eurasia was about to end with consequences they could hardly imagine.

Aztecs

- One of the two greatest empires of the late middle ages. - collected heavy taxes from groups they conquered. - were a fierce and warlike people of central and southern Mexico who controlled their subjects through fear and military force. - Their polytheistic religion practiced human sacrifice on a scale unknown elsewhere in history. - They believed their sun god required blood from beating human hearts each night in order to rise again in the morning. Often the purpose of war was to obtain victims for sacrifice. - built their capital on swampy marshland in what is now Mexico City. - floating gardens provided the city's food. - When Europeans first saw the capital, they were amazed to find an island city of 200,000 people with tall temples, a huge marketplace, ball courts, and even a zoo.

BC and AD

- Our solar calendar comes from ancient Egypt. Years are numbered from the birth of Christ: years before year 1 are designated BC for "Before Christ". BC years are counted backward from year 1. - Years after year 1 are designated AD, an abbreviation for the Latin term Anno Domini, which means "in the year of the lord." AD years are counted forward from year 1. - In recent years, people who wish to avoid the reference to Christ have begun using the term BCE (Before the Common Era) to replace BC and CE (Common Era) to replace AD. The terms BCE and CE are found in some history books.

Parthenon

- Pericles used this income to rebuild his burned-out city and to finance the construction of magnificent new buildings including the ______________. - It is a temple built to honor Athena, goddess of wisdom and war and the patron goddess of Athens. - It is the main building on the Acropolis, a high point in Athens that was the center of Athenian life and a fortress against attack. - Although it is now in ruins, it is famed for its beauty and proportion. - It is probably the most influential building in the history of Western architecture. - It has served as a model for important buildings in much of the world including the Lincoln Memorial in the United States. - Like all classical Greek temples, it was built with closely spaced columns that left little interior space.

Korea and Japan

- Rice growing became important in _________(1) about 100 AD, and rice took hold in _______(2) over a century later. Other imports from China and India soon followed. - Buddhist monks brought reading, writing, and their religion first to (1) and then to (2). - Both countries adopted Chinese architectural styles. Their rulers tried to organize central governments based on the Chinese model. - (1), a peninsula attached to the Chinese mainland, was strongly influenced by China. - (2), an archipelago separated from China by 500 miles of ocean, was somewhat less affected by Chinese culture. - Both societies managed to retain distinct cultures by blending Chinese influences with their own traditions. - Women in (2) had fewer rights than men. Nonetheless, upper class women studied art and music, and they learned how to read and write. They produced some of finest literature of the age including The Tale of Genji about life in the royal court. The Tale of Genji is believed to be the first novel written in any language.

Crusades

- Roman Catholic popes encouraged Christian kings and knights to undertake military expeditions, or _________________, to capture the Holy Land from the Muslims. - Christian crusaders conquered much of the Holy Land, taking Jerusalem in 1099 but were driven out by 1291. They are still recalled with bitterness by some Muslims. - This probably had greater impact on Europe than on the Holy Land. - Europeans now had first-hand knowledge of just how backward Europe seemed in comparison to the more advanced Islamic culture, this pushed Europeans to develop more rapidly to catch up with the rival Muslims. - Europeans acquired important technologies from the Muslim world including the "Arabic" numbering system (India), the compass (China), and the astrolabe.

Roman Empire

- Rome was also the capital of the ancient _________________________. - The people were practical and hard-working, and Rome's sturdy farmers made good soldiers. - Rome was only a small town, but Rome grew to become a strong city-state at about the time of Alexander the Great. - They adopted Hellenistic culture. - At first, kings ruled Rome, and then about 500 BC, the Roman Republic was established with a law-making body called the Senate. For a time Rome had a form of democracy, although wealthy upper-class families held most of the political power. Later, during a time of trouble in the republic, Julius Caesar seized control of the government. - At its height, it completely encircled the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Middle East to the British Isles. - Rome's central location in the Mediterranean made it an ideal location for building a large Mediterranean empire and international trading network. - It was said, "All roads lead to Rome." The empire had a strong central government that produced massive public works including paved roads, government buildings, baths, sports arenas, and aqueducts (water transport structures). - As the years passed, it weakened, was divided into two parts, and eventually fell to nomadic invaders.

Religion

- Secular historians find the beginnings of ____________ in Neanderthal burials that included food and tools, presumably for use in the afterlife. - They concluded that it may have begun as a way to cope with misfortune and with the human awareness of death. - Earlier, it was mostly polytheism. - The Biblical account clearly identifies the first religion as monotheistic, but then people turned to polytheism in the periods before and after Noah. - The gods of these polytheistic societies were seen as immortal, but acted like persons and were anthropomorphic (human in form). There was no promise of immortality or heaven for the people. The goals were this worldly: better crops and animals, victory in war, offspring, etc. - It was about prosperity, and that is why they tried to appease the gods. It was extremely important in Sumer where priests were originally the most powerful people in society. - Later, warrior kings would take control. Sumerians believed their gods lived in statues housed in temples including large pyramid-like structures called ziggurats.

Australopithecus

- Some scientists believe that _______________________ was an extinct member of early man that lived in Africa from about 4 to 1 million years ago. - Its first discovery was made in the Great Rift Valley, the skeletal remains of a female now called Lucy. - Evolutionary theory leads many scientists to conclude that humans evolved from apes. - Because it walked on two feet and had a relatively large brain, these scientists consider it an early human/prehuman. - It is Latin for "southern ape."

Abbasid Empire

- The Arab empire came under control of the _________________________ in 750 AD. - Arabic conquest was over, people of many lands adopted Islam. - Rulers were tolerant of different peoples and open to new ideas. - Muslims preserved the works of Aristotle and other Greek writers, zero-based numbering system of India, compass and papermaking from China, and developed a creative society. - Islamic literature, art, architecture flowered, the civilization surpassed all others in science and technology and in size. - But the vary size of the empire made it difficult to govern, rulers were losing control of their empire to non-Arabs. - As the empire weakened, it broke into competing Islamic kingdoms and then fell to nomadic invaders.

The Caste System

- The Aryans, who took control of India, were illiterate so civilization was lost in India for several centuries. - Nonetheless, the light-skinned Aryan invaders from the north made themselves the ruling class in the ____________________, a social system that still has influence in India today. Under this system, people were born into permanent classes for life, and they could marry only within their own caste. - There are four main castes with complicated rules of behavior: 1) the priests, 2) the warriors, 3) the merchants, and 4) the common people, mostly peasants and laborers. - Most people of ancient India were members of the commoner class, which had limited rights. - A fifth group, the Untouchables (or Dalits), was outside the caste system. Considered not human, Untouchables performed the worst jobs such as cleaning toilets and burying the dead. - While the caste system may seem unfair to us today, it provided a means for different kinds of people to live together peacefully while avoiding the slavery common to many ancient cultures.

Iron Age

- The Bronze Age was followed by the ________________. - This is when people learned how to use a draft of air from a furnace or bellows to produce the hot temperatures needed to melt iron from iron ore and to shape it into tools and weapons. - Iron was much stronger than bronze, and it was less expensive because iron ore was easier to find than the tin needed to make bronze. - Iron working not only meant better tools and weapons, it meant lots more of them, a major technological change. Iron working probably began in the Middle East about 1200 BC and quickly spread. - Iron had a big impact on agriculture and warfare. Iron plow blades and hoes made it possible to work heavier soils than before, extending agriculture into new lands and boosting human populations. - Armies grew bigger and deadlier due to more effective and less expensive iron weapons and armor. - It continues to the present day, although some might say we live in the "Industrial Age" or the "Digital Age."

Polis

- The Greeks established a new kind of society by inventing the _________. - It was an association of free male citizens who served as the soldiers who defended their city-state from attack, and they managed the government. - It chose leaders to govern the city-state for a limited period of time, often a year. This approach was quite different from other ancient societies in which government was headed by a king, and the people were separated by class into a small group of the rich and a large group of the poor. - The democratic principals developed in this reached their greatest extent during the rule of Pericles in Athens where every citizen was expected to participate in government. - Most of the Greek city-states did not have democratic governments, and even in Athens, citizens were a minority of the population because women, slaves, and foreign-born persons did not qualify as citizens.

Gupta Empire

- The Gupta Empire was one of the greatest civilizations of India's classical period, a period when India underwent great cultural and political advancement. - Its reign has been called India's "golden age," a high point of Indian history when art, drama, literature, and science flourished. - Mathematicians invented the zero, which made it possible to calculate numbers faster and more accurately, and it was adopted the world over. Doctors developed an inoculation against smallpox. Farmers learned how to turn the juice from sugarcane into dried sugar crystals that could be easily stored and traded over long distances. Cotton from India clothed people across much of the ancient world. - It declined in the early 500s AD when tribes of nomadic horsemen called Huns invaded from grasslands to the north.

Gothic - Gothic Architecture

- The Roman Catholic Church reached the height of its power and influence during the late middle ages. - The most visible symbol of the church's power were magnificent ___________(1) cathedrals built in the 1100s and 1200s including Notre Dame, Chartres, and Reims, all in France. - The most prominent feature of ___________________________ is the pointed arch, but this style is also known for soaring ceilings, walls filled with glass windows, and flying buttresses. - A flying buttress is an external, arched support for the wall of a building. - Glass was extremely important to (1) cathedrals: it lighted the interior, its beauty seemed inspired by God, and the Bible stories portrayed on the windows taught about religion at a time when most people were illiterate.

Bronze Age

- The Stone Age was followed by the __________________ when people learned to make bronze tools, ornaments, and weapons. - Bronze is made by combining copper with tin, which produces a harder metal than copper alone, and it holds an edge much longer. - This was a time of great invention; the wheel, plow, writing, money, cities, armies and chariots all came into use during this time in Mesopotamia. - It is important in history as the period when civilization and writing began, marking the end of prehistoric times and the beginning of ancient times. - In Mesopotamia, it lasted from roughly 4000 BC to the beginning of the Iron Age around 1000 BC.

Mandate from Heaven

- The Zhou dynasty took control of China in 1122 BC and ruled for nearly 900 years. - To give their government legitimacy, Zhou and later Chinese rulers claimed to rule with approval from the gods, a _________________________________. - Although this claim was meant to enhance the emperor's authority, it also established the right to overthrow an ineffective emperor. The emperor was expected to protect his people by ruling in a way that pleased the gods. If trouble developed in the empire people might say the emperor had lost his, and the emperor could be overthrown. - Over many centuries, China's history experienced a recurring pattern. A ruling dynasty would start out strong and gradually weaken over time until it was replaced by a new dynasty. - Zhou rulers controlled their kingdom through a feudal system, meaning they divided the land into smaller territories and appointed officials to govern them. - When the Zhou dynasty eventually weakened, some of these territories developed into strong states that opposed the emperor and began fighting among themselves. - These bloody conflicts lasted for over two centuries, a time called the "Warring States" period.

Hebrews

- The _______________ were an ancient people of the Middle East who established the kingdom of Israel at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea about 1000 BC. - There they founded the religion of Judaism. Judaism was unusual because it worshipped only one God (monotheism). - The Israelites were conquered by the Babylonians in the 500s BC and taken to Babylon in chains. - During the exile in Babylon, Jewish scribes began to write the Bible in an effort to preserve Hebrew culture and religion. - Laws contained in the Bible such as "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" can also be seen in the Code of Hammurabi.* - In an effort to regain their Ancient homeland in the Middle East, Jews took over Arab lands in Palestine following World War II, which touched off years of conflict between Jews and Arabs that still continues.

Sahara Desert

- The ____________________ is about the size of the United States, which makes it the largest dry desert in the world. - It extends from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to the Red Sea on the east, and it is still expanding to the south. - It separates North Africa from sub-Saharan Africa. - Sub-Saharan Africa is the land that lies south of the desert. It has sometimes been called "black Africa" because people living there have darker skins than North Africans.

Fall of Rome

- The ____________________(1) was a slow-motion process that took centuries to unfold. - The Roman Empire continued to decline after Constantine's death as nomadic warriors stepped-up their attacks. These nomads included Huns who swept down from the Eurasian steppes pushing other nomadic tribes like Goths and Vandals ahead of them. - Many nomads were simply seeking a better life inside the empire. - The Romans considered these nomadic peoples to be culturally inferior and called them barbarians. - Near the end, the Roman Empire was in chaos, hiring barbarians to fight other barbarians. - The last emperor in the west was defeated in 476 AD, the date usually given as the (1). - It should be remembered, however, that the eastern portion of the Roman Empire lived on for another thousand years as the Byzantine Empire. - Historians have long debated the causes of this. Factors included a terrible plague, the decline of agriculture, heavy taxes, and a decadent upper class devoted to luxury and greed. - Perhaps the more important question is not why Rome fell, but why it lasted so long.

Han Dynasty

- The _________________________ took control of China in 206 BC. - Rulers adopted Confucian ideas about creating a respectful and orderly society, and they set-up a civil service system to run the government with well-educated officials chosen by written tests. - It expanded China's empire to the south and west, and it produced marvels that would change the world including the ship's rudder, the magnetic compass, and paper. - The four-hundred-year reign of this empire was so successful that it is considered the greatest of China's classical dynasties. It eventually weakened, fell apart, and was replaced by three kingdoms in 220 AD. - About a hundred years later, Hun invaders took control of the Chinese heartland. The period of classical civilization in China was over, but the Chinese were left with an enduring belief that China was the center of civilization.

Big Bang theory and Young Earth theory

- The __________________________ is supported by scientific observations that indicate galaxies in space are moving away from Earth. Astronomers use the speed of this movement to estimate the age of the universe at about 15 billion years. Many scientists accept a figure of about 5 billion years as the age of Earth. - Some scientists hold a ______________________________, believing that God created the earth in six literal days. Based on science and a literal reading of the creation account in Genesis, these scientists conclude that the act of creation occurred between six and ten thousand years ago. At the end of the sixth day, God said that His creation was very good. - Since the half-life of the earth's magnetic field is 1,400 years, a simple math problem shows us that the earth is probably closer to 5,600 years old. The formula shows us that the oldest the earth could be is 11,200 years, because at that point its magnetic field would have been too strong to support life.

Humanism

- The ancient Greeks considered human beings to be the center of existence. - Unlike other ancient cultures that were deeply concerned with religion, gods, and the afterlife, the philosophy and arts of classical Greece were more concerned with the value of human beings on earth. - This emphasis on humans can be seen in Greek art that portrayed the human body realistically. - Art of the classical Greek period was much more realistic than the stiff, formal art of earlier eras such as the art of ancient Egypt and early Greece. - Greeks strived for excellence in the way they conducted their daily lives. - They believed that reason was the true source of knowledge and that a wise person was the best person; reason, not emotion, should rule our lives. - This concern with human life, and the effort to improve humanity through reason, is called humanism. - Greek __________________(1) emphasized order in daily life, nothing in excess, a balance between extremes known as "The Golden Mean." - In school, for example, both the body and the mind were trained. Over two thousand years later, Greek (1) would help shape the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in Europe.

Climate Zones

- The earth has three main _________________: the tropics, the temperate zones, and the arctic and antarctic regions. - The tropics are generally the warmest areas of the earth because they are near the equator where the sun's rays are most direct. The Tropic of Cancer is an imaginary line that circles the earth at 23-1/2 degrees north latitude (on the summer solstice). The Tropic of Capricorn lies at 23-1/2 degrees south latitude (on the winter solstice). - The arctic and antarctic regions are located near the earth poles where the sun's rays are least direct and weakest. The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that circles the earth at 66-1/2 degrees north latitude; the Antarctic Circle lies at 66-1/2 degrees south latitude. - Those areas of the earth that lie between the tropics and the arctic/antarctic regions are called the temperate zones, meaning areas where temperature and climate tend to be more moderate.

Byzantine Empire

- The eastern Roman Empire, which did not fall to barbarians, survived for another thousand years under a new name, the _________________________ with its capital at Constantinople. - The size of the empire fluctuated over the centuries, but it generally included Greece and Asia Minor. Its culture extended into Russia. - The emperors served as head of both the Christian church and the state. Greek replaced Latin as the official language. - Eventually the Christian church split into eastern and western branches, with Latin-speaking Roman Catholics in Western Europe and Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians in the East. - The emperors promoted a style of art that featured beautiful mosaics. The best-known example of its architecture is the church of Saint Sophia constructed by emperor Justinian in Constantinople. - Rules and customs in the court became so complex that the name of the empire is now used to indicate any set of complicated laws or procedures.

Asoka

- The first Indian empire was established in the Ganges valley by the Mauryan dynasty in 324 BC. - Its greatest leader was __________, who extended his empire to the south in a bloody invasion that conquered all but the southern tip of India. - He had a sudden change of heart. - He publicly announced his grief at the suffering caused by his armies, and he rejected violence. - He even gave up hunting and eating meat. - He converted to Buddhism, and he spread Buddhist ideals throughout India and to neighboring countries. - Ruling India with Buddhist ideals, his government promoted the welfare of the people by kind acts such as digging new wells, building hospitals for people and animals, allowing freedom of religion, and easing harsh laws. - He also encouraged long-distance ocean trade. It was during his reign that India became the center of a vast southern ocean-trading network that stretched from China to Africa and the Middle East.

New Spain

- The huge Spanish trading empire stretched from Europe to Asia to the Americas. - Spain's holdings in America were called ___________________; they extended from what is now the southern U.S. to the tip of South America. - Its biggest business enterprise was silver mining, which produced enough silver to make Spain the most powerful nation in Europe if not in the world. - The Spanish wanted to bring the indigenous people of this place into the Catholic faith. - Many Spaniards intermarried with Native Americans and later with African-Americans creating a distinctive new civilization in Latin America. - In this mixed society, Spaniards born in Europe were at the top of the social pyramid followed by Spaniards born in America (creoles). - These people controlled society here. - Next in rank were people of mixed Spanish and Native American heritage (mestizos) and mixed Spanish and black heritage (mulattos). - At the bottom of society were Native Americans and African-Americans of unmixed ancestry.

China

- The world's fourth great civilization also got its start along a river valley, the Yellow river of northeastern _________ where farmers grew millet and wheat. - Farming later moved south to the Yangtze river, where rice production led to an increase in China's population. - The land between the rivers became the center of Chinese civilization, called "Middle Kingdom." - Its early culture grew in relative isolation due to physical barriers and long distances that separated it from other major civilizations of Eurasia. - The world's highest mountain range, the Himalayas, separate it from India. - They have long believed in a philosophy that recognizes a fundamental balance in nature between opposite but complimentary principles called yin and yang. Examples include day-night, hot-cold, wet-dry, and male-female. - Central to its philosophy and religion is a belief that people should avoid extremes and seek harmony with the balance of nature. - It today is the world's most populous country, and it has a fast-growing economy. It was a superpower in the past, and it has become a superpower again in this century. This and neighboring countries of Mongolia, Korea, and Japan form a region bordering the Pacific Ocean known as East Asia or the Far East.

Great Rift Valley

- This is a valley in eastern Africa where two of the earth's plates are spreading apart exposing the fossil remains of early humans. - Fossils are the remains of living organisms that have been left behind after the living tissue has slowly been replaced by stone-like material that preserves the form of the original organism. - Scientists believe it might be where human life began and spread to other areas of the earth, making humans the most widespread species in the world. - The Olduvai Gorge area of this valley has been the site of famous discoveries by the husband and wife team of Louis and Mary Leakey and other paleontologists.

Homo Sapiens

- This is the biological classification for modern humans. - The earliest were Neanderthals and evolutionary scientists believe they developed about 150,000 years ago and went extinct shortly after encountering a human species with more advanced technology. - The species that replaced Neanderthals was us, Homo sapiens sapiens. - This term is Latin for wise human. - From Africa, it spread over Eurasia and later reached Australia and America during Ice Ages when water locked in ice sheets lowered the level of oceans.

Hieroglyphics

- This was the ancient Egyptian system of writing that used pictures to represent words or syllables. - It preserved records of ancient Egyptian culture for thousands of years. - Egyptians carved it into stone, and they wrote on papyrus made from a reed plant that was pressed and dried to make a paper-like material. Papyrus was rolled onto scrolls, which made written records lightweight, compact, and portable. - Modern people did not understand Egyptian hieroglyphics until the Rosetta Stone was discovered in Egypt by Napoleon's armies in the late 1700s. Carved into the Rosetta Stone was a message written in this along with a translation in Greek. Modern scholars understood Greek and used it to break the code of this writing.

The great voyages of discovery

- Three civilizations had the necessary wealth and knowledge: Islamic, Chinese, and Christian Europe. - Only Christian Europe seemed eager to reach outward. Europeans were hungry to explore. - The Vikings had taught them how to sail the stormy Atlantic. The Crusades whetted their appetite for travel and adventure, and Marco Polo got them thinking about Asia. - Europe also had the means to explore. The Renaissance brought European culture to a level of other advanced civilizations and gave Europeans a new sense of confidence. The competing kings of Europe were busy adopting new technologies and trade links to give them advantages over rival monarchs. - In August of 1492, Spain sent Christopher Columbus into the Atlantic Ocean with three small ships to search for a western trade route to the spice islands of Asia, a voyage that finally connected the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. - Sailing for Portugal, Vasco de Gama rounded Africa and connected Europe to the Indian Ocean and Asia in 1498. - In 1522, Magellan's Spanish expedition circled the earth and connected the world. The world would never be the same. - The middle ages were over, and modern times had begun.

Ottoman Empire

- Three new Islamic empires emerged to replace the fallen Abbasid Dynasty, one of them was the __________________________ in the eastern Mediterranean. - Of these three empires, it was the largest, and it lasted longest. - The people were a branch of Turkish nomads from central Asia who fled west to escape the Mongols. - They settled in Asia Minor and eventually extended their rule to Christian lands in southern Europe and to Muslim lands in the Middle East. - Its Turks conquered the last remaining piece of the old Byzantine Empire in 1453 when they used early canons to destroy the walls of Constantinople, made the city their capital and renamed it Istanbul. - Its Turks were Sunni Muslims. Their neighbors in the Safavid Empire were Shi'a Muslims. The two empires battled for dominance, a struggle intensified by their religious differences. - Today Shi'a Muslims remain in Iran and Iraq while Sunnis are a majority elsewhere.

Protestant Reformation

- Through Gutenberg's printing press, Martin Luther's ideas spread until they tore apart the Catholic Church. Then along came the Renaissance to revive the classical Greek idea of humanism. - But the biggest blow to the Roman Catholic Church came in 1517 when Luther nailed his "95 Theses" (or arguments) to the door of a Catholic church in Germany. - He was upset about the sale of "indulgences," which allowed Catholics to pay money to be forgiven of sins. The money was being used to build the huge, new, Renaissance-style St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. - He believed that every person could have a direct relationship with God, so there was little need for Catholic priests or Catholic rituals. - The printing press made such a direct relationship easier by supplying Bibles in local languages. - Luther's attempt to reform the Catholic church is called the _____________________. His protest led to the establishment of Protestant churches. - It was not only fractured the church, it opened minds to new ways of thinking.

Joint Stock Companies

- To increase their income from taxes on foreign trade, European monarchs encouraged the formation of _____________________________________. - Stock (or shares) was sold to several investors who shared the expense and risk of expensive ocean trading voyages. If a ship went down, no single investor lost everything, but if a voyage was successful, all stockholders shared in the profits. The modern stock market operates in a similar way today. - Best known of these companies were the British East India Company that traded mostly with India, and the Dutch East India Company that operated in Southeast and East Asia. - Both acted as extensions of their governments and even had their own armies. - These companies promoted the rise of an economic system called capitalism. Since joint stock companies were chartered by governments, they were a form of state-sponsored capitalism.

Islam

- Today it is the world's second largest religion. - The worshippers live in a geographic band that stretches from Morocco in west Africa to the islands of Southeast Asia. - They believe Allah is the same God worshiped by Jews and Christians; Muhammad said this is a refinement of these two earlier religions. - They are required to help the poor and sick and are expected to be kind and generous to those of lower rank. - They face Mecca five times a day to pray, and they are encouraged to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. - The scholars developed the Shari'a. Today there is a sharp divide in Islam. - Fundamentalist believers believe that it is under attack and respond with terrorist attacks on Western countries. More secular worshippers denounce these attacks and some maintain that it is a religion of peace.

Hundred Years' War

- Two wars between France and England marked the beginning and the end of the age of knights and castles in Europe. - The first of these wars was the Norman Conquest of England. In 1066, a duke from the Normandy region of northern France invaded and conquered England becoming the new English king, William the Conqueror. - Several centuries later, William's descendents claimed the legal right to the French throne. - This and other causes led to the _____________________________ fought on French soil from 1337 to 1453. - In battle after battle, French knights were defeated by English forces that included foot soldiers firing powerful longbows that filled the skies with deadly arrows. - Most of France had fallen under English control. Joan of Arc led a French army to victory over the English in a battle at Orleans, France in 1429. The French continued winning and finally drove the English from France in 1453. - During this war, knights were made obsolete by English longbows and guns. Kings replaced knights with paid armies. Castles became obsolete because cannons could destroy stone walls. The entire feudal system was breaking down as people in England and France developed loyalties to their countries rather than to local lords. - In the process, the modern nations of France and England were born.

Feudalism

- Under _______________, people owed loyalty and service to those above, while those above owed protection to those below. - It was a middle stage in the development of govern-ment between rule by tribes and rule by large nations with centralized governments that would come later. - This system offered people some protection, and the church provided cultural unity and the hope of a better life in heaven. - But Christendom was divided among many competing kingdoms, and commercial activity was weak. In the early middle ages, Europe was still a backward society compared to the great civilizations of Eurasia

Primary and Secondary Sources

- Usually, they study ________________________, which are sources created at about the same time as the event being studied, often by people involved in the event. Examples of primary sources include artifacts uncovered by archeologists, art works, government records, diaries, letters, speeches, and newspaper articles. - Historians also study _______________________. These are sources created after the event by people not involved in the event. Examples of secondary sources include history books, textbooks, encyclopedias, and Fresh Squeezed History.

Russia

- Viking traders moved into western ___________(1) and developed river trade routes that reached south to Constantinople. - Furs from Scandinavia were traded for luxury products from the Byzantine Empire. - Many of the people visited Constantinople, and missionaries traveled to (1) spreading the Eastern Orthodox religion. - One of its early rulers, a Viking descendent named Vladimir I, married the sister of a Byzantine emperor, and he accepted Orthodox Christianity for his people. - Its culture, including its art and architecture, began to resemble Byzantine culture. - Its alphabet is derived from the Greek alphabet, and Orthodox Christianity is the main religion in Russia today.

Conquest of the Americas

- When Christopher Columbus and his three small ships arrived in the West Indies on an October day in 1492, they set in motion a chain of events that would profoundly change life in the Americas and elsewhere in the world. - The great Aztec and Inca civilizations would soon perish, conquered by Spanish conquistadors, adventurers seeking gold and glory. - The Native Americans had no weapons to match Spanish swords and cavalry. - Between 80 and 95 percent of the Americans would die (by the colonists and disease) and be replaced by immigrants from Europe seeking new opportunities and by immigrants from Africa who arrived in chains. - Gold and silver taken from the Americas would make Spanish and Portuguese kings rich and powerful.

African Slave Trade

- With native populations dying off, Europe looked for another source of cheap labor. - Although slavery no longer existed in Europe, Europeans began importing slaves from Africa to work on plantations and mines in the New World. - As the slave trade grew, Africans began kidnapping other Africans in large numbers and selling them to European slave traders. - Due to ocean currents and prevailing "trade winds," European sailors learned they could make the fastest crossing to America by first sailing south to Africa. On the last leg of this Triangular Trade Route, the Gulf Stream ocean current sped ships from America back to Europe. - Leaving West Africa for America on the "Middle Passage" of this three-part journey, ship cargo holds were crammed full of Africa's chief export, human beings. - Conditions on the slave ships were appalling. Many slaves died of disease from eating rotten food and breathing foul air. - Some desperate slaves took their own lives. - When these African people were sold at slave markets in the New World, the profits were used to purchase plantation products such as sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cotton, which were shipped back to Europe and sold there. - It was a splendid system of trade for everyone except the Africans whose lives were ruined.

Asia

- ________ is the world's largest continent, sharing the landmass of Eurasia with Europe. - The Ural Mountains of Russia are considered the dividing line between Asia and Europe. - It was the site of three of the world's earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia, India and China. - Today it has three-fifths of the world's population and the two most populous countries in the world, China and India. - Because it is so huge, geographers have divided Asia into several regions. - On the western side of Asia is the Middle East, which includes Asia Minor. Farther east is central Asia. To the south lies the Indian subcontinent. On the eastern side of Asia are East Asia (sometimes called the Far East) and Southeast Asia.

Africa

- __________ (1) is the second-largest continent after Asia. - Its major geographic features include the Sahara Desert in the north, the Kalahari Desert in the south, and tropical rain forests centered on the Congo River basin in south-central Africa. - In the east are the Great Rift Valley, the Nile river, and its highest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro. - The savanna is a large land area in central and the southeast with grasslands and scattered trees. - The Nile is the longest river in the world. It originates in the highlands of the central (1) and flows north for more than 4,000 miles to the Mediterranean Sea where it forms a wide triangle-shaped delta in northern Egypt. - Deltas are flat areas of land that sometimes form at the mouths of rivers where the rivers deposit sediment as they flow into the sea.

Greece

- ____________ is a mountainous and rocky peninsula with little good farmland, but its long irregular coastline provided fine harbors. - Many of the people turn to sea to make a living by fishing and trading. - They established colonies and dominated trade in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. - Its communities isolated by mountains developed into independent self-governing city-states that often fought one another. - The leading city-states were Sparta with its strong military government and Athens. - They had a polytheistic religion, their gods lived on Mount Olympus. - It is known for its classical civilization of 500 to 300 BC. - Its classical culture is famed for its beautiful arts, architecture, philosophy, theater, Olympic Games, and for creating the first democracy.

Hinduism

- _____________ is the oldest major religion in the world today; it survived so long by changing and adjusting to new circumstances. - To them, all religions are acceptable, and the practices of other religions may be included as part of their worship. - They believe in an eternal and infinite spiritual principle called Brahman that is the ultimate reality and foundation of all existence. - Brahman can take the form of many gods including Brahma the creator of the universe, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. - For them, a proper life is unconcerned with worldly riches; the goal is to seek union with Brahman, a quest that may take many lifetimes. - They believe in reincarnation, meaning the soul never dies and may be reborn again in a different body. - Karma, all of the actions of a person's life, will determine if a person returns in the next life at a higher level on the ladder of incarnation and closer to union with Brahman. - It is the largest religion of India and a defining feature of Indian culture. This and the caste system served to maintain order among India's many ethnic groups because each person knew his or her place in society, and people who followed the rules could hope to move to a higher caste in the next life.

Vikings

- ______________ were fierce warriors, traders and raiders from Scandinavia. - During the 800s and 900s, they terrorized much of coastal Europe and traveled far inland by river to loot, destroy, and slaughter (their favorite targets were monasteries). - They conquered Normandy (land of the Northmen) in northern France where they settled down and converted to Christianity. - They traveled the stormy North Atlantic in excellent ships that could also navigate shallow rivers. - They brought the adventurous spirit of ocean exploration to Europe. - Leif Erickson was probably the first European explorer to discover North America, but little resulted from his visit.

Culture

- _______________ is a term for the knowledge and achievements passed on from one generation to another to form the way of life shared by a group of people. - Most people living in Europe and North America share a common culture known as Western Civilization, also called Western culture or simply the West. The East refers to Asia, Asian culture, or Eastern Civilization. - Evolutionary scientists believe human culture may have begun with Homo erectus, believed to be another extinct member of the hominid family living from about two million to a half-million years ago.

Pharaohs

- _______________(1) were the kings of ancient Egypt and believed to be the incarnation of the god Horus. Their wealth came from the bountiful agriculture made possible by the Nile. - Egypt's (1) controlled strong central governments that built massive public works such as the irrigation systems that tamed the Nile's floods allowing agriculture to flourish in the desert. - They also built impressive temples and monuments that still stand today. - Notable among Egypt's (1) were Ramses II (Ramses the Great) who was a warrior as well as a builder of great temples and statues, and Queen Hatshepsut, the first important woman ruler in history. Cleopatra was the last queen of the thirty-one dynasties, or ruling families, of Egypt. - The best-known (1) is Tutankhamen, or King Tut, who died at the age of eighteen.

Carthage

- ________________ was an ancient city on the coast of North Africa, and it was a powerful rival of Rome. - From 264-146 BC, this city and the Roman Republic fought three Punic Wars. - During the second war, a general from here named Hannibal led a huge army supported by war elephants from Spain through the Alps into Italy. Hannibal could not be stopped, and he was threatening Rome when Roman armies attacked it, forcing Hannibal to return to protect his homeland. Hannibal later poisoned himself rather than become a prisoner of the Romans. - In the third and final Punic War, Roman armies burned it to the ground, and the people became Roman slaves. - As in ancient Greece, much of Rome's work was done by slave labor. With this defeated, Rome was free to expand into new territories including Spain, Greece, and Egypt.

Confucius

- ________________ was born in 551 BC when Zhou rulers were losing control of their empire. - He tried to return harmony to China with a philosophy based on devotion to the family, respect between the classes, high moral ideals, and learning. - He emphasized individual duty and responsibility, what we might call a strong work ethic. The family was the center of this society with the father at the head. The mother and children owed total obedience to the father. Family ancestors were honored and not forgotten. - He promoted an orderly society in which people of higher rank were courteous to those below, and those of lower rank were respectful to those above. - He said a ruler should act like a good father and lead by example, not through power and harsh laws. - While the teachings of Confucius were not influential in his lifetime, they soon became a guiding philosophy of Chinese civilization, and they still exert a strong influence on Chinese culture today.

The Middle East

- ____________________ is a popular term for a region that includes southwest Asia and northeast Africa, extending from Libya in the west to Afghanistan in the east. - The terms Near East or Southwest Asia are sometimes used to describe parts of this region. - We can trace our Western culture back to the beginnings of civilization here. - It was also the birthplace of three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. - Today it is important as the major oil-producing region of the world and as a hot spot of international tension including the Arab-Israeli conflict and recent wars fought by the United States against Iraq and Afghanistan.

Muhammad

- ____________________ was born in the city of Mecca where he became a successful caravan trader and merchant. - Learned of Judaism and Christianity, religions with only one God from his travels. - He was prosperous and respected, but he wanted more than a life devoted to material wealth. He was troubled by inequality. - He would often go off by himself to think and meditate. - The angel Gabriel told him to recite the messages from God. He began to teach these messages, and eventually they were collected in a book called the Quran. - His teachings led to conflicts with the rulers of Mecca who threatened his life. - In 622 AD, he fled to the nearby town of Medina where his religious teachings gained him many followers. - He proved to be an effective military leader when his followers battled forces from Mecca. In 630 AD, him with thousands of followers returned to Mecca in victory. He died just two years later, but he is revered as the chief prophet or messenger of Islam.

Renaissance

- means reawakening or rebirth, and it refers to a rebirth of learning from classical Greece and Rome. - In the late middle ages, Italians became interested in learning about the glories of their ancestors in the Roman Empire. They searched for classical literature and acquired classical works from Muslim and Byzantine scholars. Archeologists uncovered classical art and architecture. - Italians became interested in humanism. - Its architecture abandoned the church's Gothic style and adopted the simplicity and balance of more classical forms. - Artists including Michelangelo and Da Vinci shaped Western art, Shakespeare wrote plays that explored human nature, and Gutenberg's printing press spread its knowledge through cheaper books that encouraged people to learn how to read and write. - It began in Florence, Italy about 1350 and spread to Rome and finally to much of Europe before it ended in the early 1600s. - It was a bridge between the middle ages and the modern world.