The Mongols
Steppe nomads could provide horses, livestock, and meat, while settled communities produced textiles, tools, and metal goods. What type of relationship developed between these groups?
A symbiotic relationship
What Ottoman system took Christian boys from Balkan families, converted and educated them, and prepared them for government or military service?
The devshirme system.
The word Renaissance points to the revival of what earlier civilizations' ideas and culture?
Classical Greek and Roman culture — a “rebirth” of classical learning.
A European monarch supports voyages hoping to gain wealth, spread Christianity, and increase national prestige. What three motives does this represent?
Gold, God, and Glory — the “3Gs.”
A colony produces sugar and tobacco mainly for export so that its European empire becomes wealthier. What economic idea does this illustrate?
Mercantilism: colonies were organized to produce wealth for the imperial power.
Give two factors that helped the Mongols expand rapidly under Genghis Khan.
-environmental pressure/reduced pasture
-highly mobile horse armies and mounted archery
-Temujin's strong political leadership and alliances
Why would an Ottoman sultan want to prevent powerful nobles from building their own large estates and private armies?
They could become rivals to the sultan, so limiting them strengthened central authority.
Renaissance artists increasingly studied anatomy, geometry, movement, and perspective. What larger change in Renaissance thinking did this reflect?
Humanism: greater emphasis on observation, realism, human experience, and human-centered subjects.
Name two technologies that made European long-distance maritime expansion easier and explain what each did.
lateen sail — improved handling of winds
astrolabe — helped estimate position
improved maps — aided navigation
gunpowder weapons — provided military force
Spanish colonial rulers required conquered communities to provide payments, crops, or labor. What was a regular payment from a weaker group to a ruling power called?
What term describes the period of relative stability when Mongol governments protected trade routes and made long-distance travel easier?
Pax Mongolica
What major city did Mehmet II conquer in 1453, and why was the conquest important?
Constantinople; its capture ended Byzantine control of the city and strengthened Ottoman expansion and power.
A wealthy Florentine banking family pays painters, architects, and scholars to create works that increase the family's status. What practice does this describe?
Patronage
Which Portuguese explorer reached India in 1498 by sailing around Africa, giving Europeans another route into Indian Ocean trade?
Vasco da Gama
Why did European colonists increasingly turn to enslaved African labor for plantations in the Americas? Give two connected reasons.
Plantations required a large continuous labor force
Indigenous populations declined sharply
Europeans already had trading connections along the West African coast
Mongol rulers moved astronomers, doctors, engineers, and artisans across their empire and adopted technologies from conquered peoples. What was one major result of this policy?
Knowledge and technology spread more widely across Eurasia.
Zheng He's enormous fleets traveled through the Indian Ocean as far as East Africa. What did these voyages demonstrate about early Ming China?
Its strong shipbuilding, political organization, wealth, and ability to project maritime influence over long distances.
How did northern Renaissance humanism help prepare Europe for religious reform?
Humanists studied original Christian texts, promoted education and translation, and became more willing to question corruption and inherited traditions.
Why did the Portuguese build coastal forts and trading posts rather than conquer huge areas of inland Africa?
They could control or influence trade and project military power without the cost of governing large inland territories.
What was the Middle Passage, and name two conditions enslaved Africans experienced during it.
The Atlantic voyage carrying enslaved Africans to the Americas; conditions included overcrowding, hunger, thirst, disease, violence, and high mortality.
How could the same networks that increased trade under the Mongols also create a major danger for Eurasia?
The movement of merchants, armies, ships, and caravans also helped spread the Black Death across Afro-Eurasia.
The Janissaries were originally created to strengthen the sultan. Explain how this system eventually produced the opposite problem.
Janissaries gained wealth, privileges, and political influence and eventually challenged, removed, or even killed sultans.
Explain the chain of events by which Gutenberg's printing technology could weaken the control of traditional institutions over information.
Cheaper and faster books → wider access to texts and ideas → criticism spreads to larger audiences → institutions have greater difficulty controlling information.
European weapons helped conquest, but another factor caused catastrophic Indigenous population decline after contact. Explain that factor and why it was so devastating.
Afro-Eurasian diseases such as smallpox spread rapidly because Indigenous populations lacked previous exposure and immunity.
Spanish silver could be mined in the Americas, carried to Europe, transported across the Pacific, and ultimately reach China. Why is this evidence of an emerging global economy?
It connected production, trade, and markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia within the same economic network.