Technological Innovations
This triangular sail, borrowed from the Islamic world, allowed ships to tack against the wind.
What is the lateen sail?
This European state led early maritime exploration along Africa’s coast.
What is Portugal?
This disease devastated Indigenous populations after European arrival.
What is smallpox?
These two Asian states adopted isolationist trade policies to limit European influence.
What are Ming China and Tokugawa Japan?
This economic policy encouraged European states to control trade and accumulate wealth
What is mercantilism?
This Indigenous uprising in the Southwest resisted Spanish rule.
What is the Pueblo Revolt?
This empire accepted Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal.
What is the Ottoman Empire?
These maps helped sailors navigate using stars and celestial bodies.
What are astronomical charts?
This explorer’s voyages dramatically increased European interest in the Americas.
Who is Christopher Columbus?
These American crops became staple foods in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
What are potatoes, maize, and cassava?
These five European powers built major maritime empires.
Who are the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and British?
These companies financed exploration and competed in global trade
What are joint‑stock companies?
These runaway communities of formerly enslaved people formed in the Caribbean and Brazil.
What are Maroon societies?
This racial hierarchy developed in the Americas due to intermixing of peoples.
What is the Casta system?
This Portuguese‑favored ship design was small, fast, and ideal for exploration.
What is the caravel?
These three northern European powers searched for new routes to Asia across the Atlantic.
Who are the English, French, and Dutch?
These animals, brought by Europeans, transformed Indigenous American societies.
What are horses, pigs, and cattle?
These African states grew in power due to participation in global trade networks.
What are the Asante and the Kingdom of Kongo?
This labor system from the Inca Empire was adapted by the Spanish in the Andes.
What is the mit’a system?
This conflict in France challenged royal authority during the 17th century.
What is the Fronde?
These elites in Russia lost influence as tsars centralized power.
Who are the boyars?
Knowledge from these three world regions heavily influenced European navigation.
What are the Classical, Islamic, and Asian worlds?
Portugal’s trading‑post empire was built using advances in this field.
What is maritime technology and navigation?
These two foods were brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans.
What are okra and rice?
Europeans established these in Africa and Asia to control trade.
What are trading posts?
These two new labor systems developed in the Americas alongside chattel slavery.
What are indentured servitude and the encomienda/hacienda systems?
This conflict in New England was a major Indigenous resistance to English expansion.
What is Metacom’s War (King Philip’s War)?
This dynasty in China restricted the roles of Han Chinese after taking power.
What is the Qing Dynasty?
Understanding these environmental patterns made long‑distance ocean travel possible
What are regional wind and current patterns?
States supported exploration primarily to gain access to these three things.
What are wealth, trade routes, and global influence?
This term describes the global transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between hemispheres.
What is the Columbian Exchange?
Despite European arrival, this major trade network continued to flourish with Asian merchants.
What is the Indian Ocean trade network?
This precious metal from the Americas fueled global trade and met Chinese demand.
What is silver?
This African queen resisted Portuguese expansion in Ndongo and Matamba.
Who is Ana Nzinga?
Imperial expansion and global trade created these new groups of wealthy, powerful individuals.
What are new political and economic elites?