The Gunpowder Empires
This Ottoman practice involved recruiting Christian boys from the Balkans to serve as elite soldiers and bureaucrats.
What is the Devshirme system?
Developed by the Portuguese, this small, highly maneuverable ship used lateen sails to sail against the wind.
The Caravel
This was the horrific middle leg of the Triangular Trade, where enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic.
What is the Middle Passage?
This German monk's 95 Theses sparked a religious movement that fractured the Catholic Church in 1517.
Who is Martin Luther?
This Spanish colonial labor system, adapted from an Incan model, forced indigenous people to work in the silver mines of Potosí.
The Mita System
This Mughal Emperor is famous for his policy of religious tolerance and for abolishing the jizya tax on non-Muslims.
Who is Akbar the Great?
This "Old World" disease was the single most devastating factor in the "Great Dying" of indigenous populations in the Americas.
Smallpox
In the Spanish Americas, this racial hierarchy placed those born in Spain at the top and those of mixed ancestry below them.
What is the Casta System?
This syncretic religion emerged in the Caribbean and Brazil, blending West African animist beliefs with Roman Catholic iconography.
Santería (or Candomblé/Vodun)
Most of the world's silver ended up in this empire, which changed its tax policy to the "Single Whip Law," requiring all taxes be paid in silver.
Ming China
To legitimize their rule, the Qing Dynasty continued to use this traditional Chinese exam system to recruit government officials.
What is the Civil Service Exam?
This specific navigational tool allowed sailors to determine their latitude by measuring the altitude of the sun or stars above the horizon.
The Astrolabe (or Sextant)
This Spanish labor system granted settlers the right to the labor of Indigenous people in exchange for "protection" and Christian conversion.
What is the Encomienda system?
This Queen of Ndongo and Matamba famously resisted Portuguese expansion in Africa by playing European powers against each other and offering sanctuary to runaway slaves.
Queen Ana Nzinga
This economic theory drove European monarchs to maximize exports, minimize imports, and accumulate as much bullion (gold/silver) as possible.
Mercantilism
This Russian Tsar "Westernized" the empire, moving the capital to a port city on the Baltic Sea to facilitate trade with Europe.
Who is Peter the Great?
The introduction of this New World crop to Afro-Eurasia is credited with causing a massive population explosion in the 18th century due to its caloric density.
The Potato or Corn (Maize)
These individuals were at the top of the social hierarchy in the Americas because they were born on the Iberian Peninsula.
Who are Peninsulares?
This 1688 event resulted in the deposition of James II and the accession of William III and Mary II, effectively establishing the supremacy of Parliament over the British monarchy.
The Glorious Revolution?
In the 17th century, Spain suffered from this economic phenomenon due to the massive influx of silver from their colonies, which devalued their currency and crippled their domestic industry.
The Price Revolution (Hyperinflation)
To display his absolute power and keep a close eye on the nobility, Louis XIV moved his court to this massive, ornate complex.
The Palace of Versailles
Unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese primarily established this type of empire, based on controlling strategic ports rather than large territories.
What is a Trading Post Empire?
Because sugar cultivation was so labor-intensive and the mortality rate was so high, this region of the Americas became the destination for nearly 40% of all enslaved Africans during the Atlantic Slave Trade.
What is Brazil?
This Russian rebellion, led by a Cossack in the 1770s, challenged Catherine the Great’s expansion of serfdom and illustrated the internal tensions of land-based empires.
Pugachev’s Rebellion
This joint-stock company effectively became a "state within a state," maintaining its own army and minting its own coins to control the spice trade in Indonesia.
The VOC (Dutch East India Company)