AP World History Key Terms

Charlemagne

"Charles the Great"; built the Holy Roman Empire

Caesar

"Emperor for Life"; resulted in assassination by angry senators

Wu Ti

"Warrior Emperor" who greatly enlarged the Han Empire to central Asia

Magna Carta

(1215) Document which reinstated the feudal rights of the nobles, as well as extending the rule of law to other people in the country, namely the growing burgher class. Nobles forced King John to sign it. Laid the foundation for the Parliament

Phoenicians

1). Established powerful naval city-states all along the Mediterranean 2). Developed a simple alphabet that used only 22 letters as opposed to the more complex cuneiform system

Hittites

Babylons fell to this group of people after the Kassites

Abu Bakr

Became caliph after Mohammad's death

Djenne-Djeno

Believed to be the first sub-Saharan city; not hierarchically organized

Peasants/Serfs

Below the vassals; worked the land

Nobles

Beneath the king in the European feudal structure; in exchange for military service and loyalty to the king were granted power over sections of the kingdom

Punic Wars

Between Rome and Carthage; first war was to gain control of Sicily, second war began by an attack instigated by Hannibal; third war was instigated by Rome and burned Carthage to the ground

Orthodox Christianity

Brand of Christianity established in the Byzantine Empire

Merovingian Dynasty

Declining Frankish dynasty

Battle of Tours

Defeat led by Charles Martel, of Muslim advancing armies

Mongols

Defeated the Abbasids

Diocletian

Emperor of Rome; brought armies back under imperial control; divided empire into two regions run by co-emperors; capped prices to deal with inflation

Manors

Estates that were granted to the vassals (originally called fiefs)

Patriarchal Structure

Familial structure which was headed by the eldest male

Thomas Aquinas

Famous Christian realist who made significant inroads in altering Christian thought. Wrote the Summa Theologica, which outlined his view that faith and reason are not in conflict, but that both are gifts from God and each can be used to enhance the other

Constantine

First Christian Roman Emperor

Qin Shihuangdi

First emperor of the Qin Dynasty; recentralized feudal kingdoms and standardized laws, currencies, weights, measures, and systems of writing

Queen Hatshepsut

First female ruler known in history; ruled for 22 years during the New Kingdom; credited with greatly expanding Egyptian trade expeditions

Inquisition

Formalized interrogation and persecution progress of heretics, under Pope Gregory IX

Carolingian Dynasty

Founded by Charles Martel; put his sons forth as successors

Chandragupta Maurya

Founded the Mauryan Empire by unifying smaller Aryan kingdoms into a civilization

Chandra Gupta the Great

Founder of the Gupta Empire

Charles Martel

Frankish leader who stopped the Muslim advance in Europe

Visigoths

Germanic people who had adopted Roman law and Christianity; pressures faced by Rome of invasions by this group

Theocracy

Government ruled by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as being divinely guided

Polis

Greek city-states which shared a common culture and identity

Socrates/Plato/Aristotle

Greek philosophers whose processes were more revolutionary than the ideas themselves

Otto the Great

His coronation marked the beginning of the name of the Holy Roman Empire

Shia Islam

Holds that Ali, Mohammad's son-in-law, was the rightful heir to the empire

Sunni Islam

Holds that the four rightly guided caliphs should lead

Code of Chivalry

Honor system that strongly condemned betrayal and promoted mutual respect. Most of the lords and knights followed this code

Sufis

Islamic mystics who were its most effective missionaries

Edict of Milan

Issued by Constantine to end the persecution of Christians

Pope Innocent III

Issued strict decrees on church doctrine. Heretics and Jews were frequently persecuted and a fourth Crusade, which was ultimately unsuccessful, occurred under him

Patricians

Land-owning noble men

Delian League

League comprising of Athens and other city-states

Golden Age of Pericles

Led by Pericles, who established a democracy, rebuilt Athens after Persian deconstruction (Parthenon), established Delian League, and philosophy and arts flourished

Philip III of Macedon

Led the Macedonians to conquer Greece; respected Greek culture and allowed it to flourish

Vassals

Lesser lords who controlled smaller sections of nobles' land; land could further be split to subordinate vassals and so on

Great Royal Road

Longest of the Persian roads (approx. 1600 miles)

Pepin the Short

Martel's son who chose to have his succession certified by the pope, a significant step that sent the clear signal that an empire's legitimacy rested on the Roman Catholic Church's approval

Burghers

Middle-class merchants who became politically powerful during the Middle Ages

Crusades

Military campaigns undertaken by European Christians of the eleventh through fourteenth centuries to take over the Holy Land and convert Muslims and other non-Christians to Christianity

Medina

Mohammad and his followers fled to this city to escape persecution; "hijra" (first year in Muslim calendar)

Gupta Empire

More decentralized and smaller than the Mauryan Empire, but referred to as the Golden Age, due to advances in mathematics, arts, and science

Tikal

Most important Mayan political center; populated by around 100,000 people

Universal Church/Church Militant

Name given to the Church due to its pervasiveness and ultimate power

Second Triumvirate

Octavius, Marc Anthony, Lepidus

Middle Ages

Period after the fall of Rome and before the Renaissance

Pax Romana

Period of Roman peace for 200 years

Alexander the Great

Philip's son who widely expanded Macedonian dominance

First Triumvirate

Pompey, Crassus, Julius Caesar

Mohammad al-Razi

Published a mathematical encyclopaedia which was unlike anything compiled before it

Rock and Pillar Edicts

Reminded Mauryans to live generous and righteous lives; commissioned by Ashoka

Shang China

Rose in the Huang He River Valley; very isolated and believed that they were at the center of the world

Octavius

Rose to power and assumed the name of Augustus Caesar, and became emperor; Rome became the capital of the Western world under him; established the rule of law, a common coinage, civil service, and secure travel for merchants

Qin Dynasty

Short-lived Chinese dynasty which came after the Zhou, but was noted for the Great Wall

Hebrews

Significant for their monotheistic Jewish beliefs

William the Conqueror

Since his time, England followed a tradition of a strong monarchy

Caste System

Social hierarchical system in India established by the Aryans

Pater Familias

Social structure of Roman family; eldest male; patriarchy

Paganism

State religion of Rome

Silk Road

Stretched from China to the Roman Empire

Hellenism

The culture, ideals, and pattern of life of Classical Greece

Chichen Itza

Tiered temple of the Mayans, resembling the Egyptian pyramids and Mesopotamian ziggurats

Interregnum

Time between kings

Neolithic/Agricultural Revolution

Transition period in which groups of people moved from nomadic lifestyles to agricultural lifestyles and town and city life (8000-3000 B.C.E.)

Mamluks

Turkish slaves who revolted and established a new capital at Samarra, Iraq. This was one of the final blows to the Islamic caliphates

Olmec/Chavin

Two early civilizations in the Americas; the former in Mexico and the latter in the Andes

Athens/Sparta

Two main city-states; former was the cultural center of Greece, while the latter was highly agricultural and militaristic

Mohenjo-Daro/Harappa

Two major cities of the Indus Valley civilization; held more than 100,00 people (enormous, by ancient standards)

Justinian

Under this emperor, the former glory and unity of the Roman Empire was somewhat restored in Constantinople

Persian Wars

United all the Greek city-states against their common enemy, Persia

Peloponnesian War

War between Athens and Sparta which eventually made it vulnerable to outside attacks (despite the Spartan victory), which were seized by the Macedonians

Bureaucracy

Way of organizing government tasks by department; allowed different parts of the government to specialize and stabilize

Primogeniture

When a lord died under the feudal system, his land and title were passed down to his eldest son

Homer

Wrote the Illiad and the Odyssey prior to the Golden Age

Mandate of Heaven

Zhou Dynasty; heaven would grant the Zhou power only as long as its rulers governed justly and wisely

Nebuchadnezzar

Chaldean king who rebuilt Babylon as a showplace of architecture and culture (Hanging Gardens)

Ashoka Maurya

Chandragupta's grandson; converted to Buddhism after battle at Kalinga

Constantinople

City ordered by Constantine over the Greek city of Byzantium

Carthage

City-state in North Africa with powerful ambitions of its own, and became Rome's first enemy

Justinian Code

Codification of Roman law that kept ancient Roman legal principles alive

Twelve Tables of Rome

Codified set of Roman laws; "innocent until proven guilty"

Scholasticism

Academic progress which sometimes came into conflict with the Church because it relied on reason rather than faith as its basis (people thought more openly and universities were found)

Seleucid

Alexander's Empire: Bactria and Anatolia

Ptolemaic

Alexander's Empire: Egypt

Antigonid

Alexander's Empire: Greece and Macedon

Plebeians

All other free men

Hanseatic League

Alliance which controlled trade throughout much of Northern Europe

Draco/Solon

Aristocrats who worked to create the democracy in Athens and to ensure fair, equal, and open participation

Lydians

Came up with the concept of using coined money to conduct trade, rather than the barter system

Baghdad

Capital of the Abbasid Dynasty and one of the great cultural centers of the world

Hannibal

Carthiginian general considered one of the greatest military geniuses of all time

Hagia Sophia

Cathedral built by Justinian

Three-Field System

Centered on the rotation of three fields: one for the fall harvest, one for the spring harvest, and one not-seeded fallow harvest (the latter allowing the land to replenish its nutrients)