Unit 1: State Building
This Chinese dynasty expanded its bureaucracy through meritocracy and oversaw major commercial growth.
The Song Dynasty
This empire unified the Silk Roads under one authority, increasing safety and trade.
silk road
This term refers to the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires, which used firearms to expand.
Gunpowder Empires
This exchange of plants, animals, people, and disease connected the Eastern and Western hemispheres after 1492.
Columbian Exchange
This intellectual movement emphasized reason, individual rights, and new political philosophies.
The Enlightenment
This waterway system helped China become the most populous trading region in the world.
Grand Canal
China created this early credit system because copper coins were too heavy to transport.
flying cash
This Russian leader expanded eastward and was known as “the Terrible.”
Ivan IV
This new economic theory pushed governments to control trade and accumulate wealth through colonies.
Mercantilism
This 1789 event marked the symbolic start of the French Revolution.
The Storming of the Bastille
This religious movement in South Asia emphasized devotion to a particular deity rather than ritual or study.
Bhakti Movement
These East African trading cities prospered from Indian Ocean commerce and blended African and Arabic culture.
Swahili city-states
This Safavid policy encouraged loyalty to the shah by promoting a specific sect of Islam.
Shi’a Islam
This navigational tool, improved by Islamic scholars, helped sailors determine latitude.
Astrolabe
This Haitian revolutionary led enslaved people to overthrow French rule and create an independent nation.
Toussaint L’Ouverture
The Aztec Empire relied on this system in which conquered peoples paid goods, labor, or services to the capital.
tributary system
This deadly pandemic spread along trade routes, killing up to one-third of Europe’s population.
Bubonic Plague or Black Death
Martin Luther criticized the sale of these documents, which claimed to reduce punishment for sin.
Indulgences
This labor system used by the Spanish required Indigenous peoples to work in exchange for “protection” and housing.
encomienda system
Otto von Bismarck used this political strategy—“the politics of reality”—to unify Germany.
Realpolitik
These traveling storytellers in Sub-Saharan Africa preserved history, genealogies, and oral traditions
griots
This commodity was the most valuable traded across the Trans-Saharan routes and fueled the rise of Mali.
gold
This peace agreement ended the Thirty Years’ War and allowed rulers to choose Catholicism, Lutheranism, or Calvinism.
Peace of Westphalia
This joint-stock company became extremely profitable in the Indian Ocean, especially in the Spice Islands.
The Dutch East India Company (VOC)
This invention by Eli Whitney revolutionized manufacturing by allowing identical replacement parts.
Interchangeable Parts