East Asia
Quick maturing drought resistant rice
What is Champa Rice?
A population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin
What is diaspora?
A Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeated commander, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history, as well as one of the most brutal. Also considered a great patron of art and architecture as he interacted with intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun, Hafez, and Hafiz-i Abru and his reign introduced the Timurid Renaissance.
What is Timur?
The ancestral civilization of Mesoamerica.
What is the Olmec?
A series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to recover Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Islamic rule.
What is the Crusades?
The process by which non-Chinese societies come under the influence of Chinese culture, particularly the language, societal norms, culture, and ethnic identity of the Han people—the largest ethnic group of China.
What is Sinification?
A roadside inn where travelers (caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey. Supported the flow of commerce, information and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa and Southeast Europe, most notably the Silk Road.
What is Caravanserai?
Title of certain rulers who claimed almost full sovereignty (i.e., not having dependence on any higher ruler) without claiming the overall caliphate, or to refer to a powerful governor of a province within the caliphate
What is Sultan?
A Nahuatl-speaking indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico who were the rulers of the Aztec Empire.
What is Mexica?
A plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.
What is the Black Death?
Imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279.
What is Song Dynasty?
An institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph, a person considered a political-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world.
What is a Caliphate?
A Sanskrit title for a "great ruler", "great king" or "high king".
What is Maharaja?
A large Mexica altepetl in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. At its peak, it was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas.
What is Tenochtitlan?
A royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War.
What is the Magna Carta?
Historiographical term which describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the Mongol Empire on the social, cultural and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast Eurasian territory that the Mongols conquered in the 13th and 14th centuries.
What is Pax Mongolica?
A mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ritualism, asceticism and esotericism.
What is Sufism?
A temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring 162.6 hectares (1,626,000 m2; 402 acres). Originally constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire by King Suryavarman II, it was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century; as such, it is also described as a "Hindu-Buddhist" temple.
What is Angkor Wat?
Called Tawantinsuyu by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts") was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco.
What is Inca Empire?
The status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.
What is Serfdom?
Moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism.
What is Neo-Confucianism?
Scholar and explorer who travelled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, largely in the Muslim world. He travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around 117,000 km (73,000 mi), surpassing Zheng He with about 50,000 km (31,000 mi) and Marco Polo with 24,000 km (15,000 mi).
What is Ibn Battuta?
A Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty.
What is Zheng He?
A technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relies on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. They are built up on wetlands of a lake or freshwater swamp for agricultural purposes, and their proportions ensure optimal moisture retention.
What is a Chinampa?
The combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
What is Feudalism?