State Building
The 13th-century empire that utilized the "Yam" postal system and protected Silk Road trade.
The Mongol Empire
This invention, brought to Europe from China, allowed for the mass production of books.
The Printing Press (or Moveable Type)
The rigid social hierarchy in India that dictated a person's occupation and status..
The Caste System
The branch of Islam followed by the Safavid Empire, often leading to war with the Ottomans.
Shia Islam
The primary luxury good that traveled west from China to Europe for centuries.
Silk
This 1453 event marked the end of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of the Ottomans.
The Fall of Constantinople
the "Champa" variety of this crop from Vietnam led to a massive population boom in China.
Champa Rice
This system in the Americas forced indigenous people into labor for Spanish landowners.
The Encomienda System
The movement started by Martin Luther that challenged the authority of the Catholic Church
The Protestant Reformation
The "economic lung" of the world from 1500-1800, mined largely in Potosi, Bolivia.
Silver
The Japanese policy of self-imposed isolation that lasted from 1603 to 1867.
he Tokugawa Shogunate (or Sakoku)
This maritime tool allowed sailors to determine their latitude by measuring the sun or stars.
The Astrolabe
The Enlightenment idea that government power should be divided into three branches.
Separation of Powers (Montesquieu)
This syncretic religion in India combines elements of both Hinduism and Islam.
Sikhism
The policy of a mother country extracting wealth from colonies to build its own gold reserves.
Mercantilism
This 1884 meeting of European leaders carved up Africa without a single African present.
The Berlin Conference
James Watt's perfection of this machine provided the power for the Industrial Revolution.
The Steam Engine
This 19th-century ideology argued that the working class (proletariat) would overthrow the owners.
Communism (or Marxism)
The Chinese philosophy used to justify the rule of the emperor and the civil service system.
Confucianism
The name for the forced journey of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Middle Passage
The "proxy war" fought on a peninsula from 1950-1953 that solidified Cold War divisions.
The Korean War
The 20th-century agricultural movement that used GMOs and fertilizers to fight global hunger.
The Steam Engine
The term for the mass movement of people from rural areas into cities during industrialization.
Urbanization
The 19th-century belief that "superior" races were biologically destined to rule others
Social Darwinism
The 1944 agreement that created the IMF and the World Bank to stabilize the global economy.
The Bretton Woods Conference