The Global Tapestry (1200–1450)
This Chinese dynasty used the civil service exam to staff government positions and saw inventions like gunpowder and paper money.
Song Dynasty.
What land-based trade route carried silk and luxury goods across Asia?
The Silk Roads.
Name one of the three “Gunpowder Empires.”
Ottoman, Safavid, or Mughal.
Who sailed in 1492 for Spain and opened sustained European contact with the Americas?
Christopher Columbus.
Which Enlightenment thinker argued that people have natural rights and may overthrow a government that fails them?
John Locke.
Name the West African ruler famous for his wealthy pilgrimage to Mecca that displayed Mali’s gold.
Mansa Musa.
Which ocean trade region relied on monsoon winds to move bulk goods between Africa, India, and Southeast Asia?
Indian Ocean trade.
Which Mughal ruler is known for policies of religious tolerance and attempts to reconcile Hindus and Muslims?
Akbar the Great.
What term describes the massive exchange of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the New World?
Columbian Exchange.
Name one major result of the Industrial Revolution on work or cities.
Urbanization, factory labor, child labor, poor working conditions.
What fast-ripening crop from Vietnam helped China’s population grow rapidly?
Champa rice.
Which nomadic leader created the largest contiguous land empire and promoted trade and religious tolerance?
Genghis Khan.
What was a common method land empires used to centralize authority (name one administrative or cultural example)?
Examples: bureaucracies/civil service exams, tax systems, centralized legal codes, monumental architecture.
Name the trade system connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas that included enslaved people.
Triangle Trade or Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Who led independence movements across northern South America and is known as “The Liberator”?
Simón Bolívar.
Describe one major feature of feudalism in medieval Europe.
Feudalism: decentralized political system with kings, lords, knights, serfs; land-for-service relationships.
What was the Pax Mongolica and one effect it had on Eurasian exchange?
Pax Mongolica: period of relative safety across Eurasia that increased long-distance trade and cultural exchange.
Who unified Japan and instituted policies that limited contact with foreigners?
Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Describe one environmental or demographic consequence of the Great Dying in the Americas.
Massive Indigenous population loss, labor shortages, collapse of societies, reshaping of demographics.
Define “imperialism” and give one example of an imperial power and a territory it controlled in the 1800s.
Imperialism: control of one country by another for economic/political gain. Example: Britain — India.
Explain how the spread of Islam contributed to learning and trade across Afro-Eurasia (give two specific examples).
Spread of Islam: promoted trade networks (e.g., Trans-Saharan/Indian Ocean), and centers of learning like Baghdad that advanced math and medicine.
Explain how the Black Death spread and one major economic or social consequence it caused.
Black Death spread via trade routes (Silk Roads, ships); consequences: population decline, labor shortages, economic disruption.
Explain how gunpowder changed warfare and state formation in this era (two effects).
Gunpowder enabled artillery/cannons and firearms that helped rulers conquer fortified cities and centralize states.
Explain how maritime empires differed from land empires in their economic goals and methods (two differences).
Maritime empires focused on naval power, overseas colonies, plantation economies and long-distance sea trade versus land empires’ territorial conquest and land-based bureaucracies.
Compare capitalism and socialism in one sentence, then give a historical reason socialism gained support during the 19th century.
Capitalism: private ownership and market competition; Socialism: state or collective control for wealth distribution. Socialism gained support due to poor working conditions and inequality created by industrial capitalism.