Asia
A victory that costs so many lives and so much treasure that it is really like a defeat.
What is a Pyrrhic victory?
Specially shaped gates that stand at Shinto shrines to mark the border between divine and human, holy and unholy, sacred and profane.
What are torii?
The color of smoke the Roman Catholic Church's College of Cardinals send up the Sistine Chapel's chimney when a new pope is decided on.
What is white smoke?
If the Aztecs could walk through the Valley of Mexico today they would not recognize it because of this change.
What is all five of its great lakes have been filled in or drained to make room for the millions of people who live in and around Mexico City?
A government in which only religious leaders have a voice.
What is a theocracy?
The four most common castes in India.
What are Brahmins, Ksatriya, Vaisyas, and Sudras?
A communication network of the Mongol Empire that was similar to the Pony Express.
What is the Yam system?
He is called the "Morning Star of the Reformation".
Who is John Wycliffe?
The treacherous cape that blocked Portugal's progress down Africa's west coast for about 10 years?
What is Cape Bojador?
The practice of charging interest for loans.
What is usury?
The idea that salvation is earned through your own efforts instead of salvation by grace through faith.
What is karma?
These two rivers connect the Grand Canal.
What are the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers?
Explorers and soldiers who conquered the natives of the New World and claimed their territory for Spain.
Who were the Spanish conquistadors?
Some of the events that historians use as markers to divide the Medieval Era from the Renaissance era.
What are the Fall of Constantinople, the Age of Discovery, and the invention of the printing press?
The practice of granting powerful, high-paying jobs to one's relatives and friends, whether or not they are qualified for those jobs.
What is nepotism?
China's Four Great Inventions
What are gunpowder, the magnetic compass, paper, and wood block printing?
In Arabic this word means permissible and this word means sinful.
What is halal and haraam?
The era when the Roman Catholic Church had two popes at the same time.
What is the Western Schism, the Great Schism or the Papal Schism?
A government in which only the wealthiest citizens have a voice.
What is a plutocracy?
A document that granted a sinner release from the penalties of his or her sin.
What is an indulgence?
A samurai's highest duty.
What is to please his master and submit to his master's authority?
The end of the Byzantine Empire, the Roman Empire, Constantinople's place as the leading city of Eastern Christianity, and the Middle Ages.
What are the endings associated with the Fall of Constantinople?
The people of West Africa used this to cure and preserve meat, to flavor their food and to improve the health of their livestock.
What is salt?
A government in which all of the people, whether wealthy or poor, have a voice.
What is a democracy?
A place between heaven and hell where sinners purge themselves of sin by laboring to overcome the sins that plagued them during their lives on earth.
Where is purgatory?