APWH Exam Review 4 Flashcards
Siberia
The northeastern sector of Asia or the Eastern half of Russia.
Sikhism
Indian religion founded by the guru Nanak (1469-1539) in the Punjab region of northwest India. After the Mughal emperor ordered the beheading of the ninth guru in 1675, warriors from this group mounted armed resistance to Mughal rule.
Silk Road
Caravan routes connecting China and the Middle East across Central Asia and Iran.
Simon Bolivar
The most important military leader in the struggle for independence in South America. Born in Venezuela, he led military forces there and in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
socialists
An umbrella term for people of diverse perspectives but many of whom typically advocate equality, protection of workers from exploitation by property owners and state ownership of major industries. This ideology led to the founding of certain labor parties in the late 1800s.
Socrates
Athenian philosopher (ca. 470-399 B.C.E.) who shifted the emphasis of philosophical investigation from questions of natural science to ethics and human behavior.
Sokoto Caliphate
large Muslim state founded in 1809 in what is now northern Nigeria.
Solidarity
Polish trade union created in 1980 to protest working conditions and political repression. It began the nationalist opposition to communist rule that led in 1989 to the fall of communism in eastern Europe.
Song Dynasty
Empire in southern China (1127-1279) while the Jin people controlled the north. Distinguished for its advances in technology, medicine, astronomy, and mathematics.
Stalingrad
City in Russia, site of a Red Army victory over the Germany army in 1942-1943. The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point in the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. Today Volgograd.
steam engine
A machine that turns the energy released by burning fuel into motion. Thomas Newcomen built the first crude but workable one in 1712. James Watt vastly improved his device in the 1760s and 1770s. It was then applied to machinery.
steel
A form of iron that is both durable and flexible. It was first mass-produced in the 1860s and quickly became the most widely used metal in construction, machinery, and railroad equipment.
steppes
Treeless plains, especially the high, flat expanses of northern Eurasia, which usually have little rain and are covered with coarse grass. They are good lands for nomads and their herds. Good for breeding horses: essential to Mongol military.
stock exchange
A place where shares in a company or business enterprise are bought and sold.
Stone Age
The historical period characterized by the production of tools from stone and other nonmetallic substances. It was followed in some places by the Bronze Age
submarine telegraph cables
Insulated copper cables laid along the bottom of a sea or ocean for telegraphic communication. The first short cable was laid across the English Channel in 1851; the first successful transatlantic cable was laid in 1866. In the late 1980s this technology was replaced with large submarine fiber optic cables that still today form the basis of most global communication.
sub-Saharan Africa
Portion of the African continent lying south of the Sahara.
Suez Canal
Ship canal dug across the isthmus of Suez in Egypt, designed by Ferdinand de Lesseps. It opened to shipping in 1869 and shortened the sea voyage between Europe and Asia. Its strategic importance led to the British conquest of Egypt in 1882.
Suleiman the Magnificent
The most illustrious sultan of the Ottoman Empire (r. 1520-1566); also known as ‘The Lawgiver.’ He significantly expanded the empire in the Balkans and eastern Mediterranean.
Sumerians
The people who dominated southern Mesopotamia through the end of the third millennium B.C.E. They were responsible for the creation of many fundamental elements of Mesopotamian culture-such as irrigation technology, cuneiform, and religious conceptions.
Sun Yat-Sen
Chinese nationalist revolutionary, founder and leader of the Guomindang until his death. He attempted to create a liberal democratic political movement in China but was thwarted by military leaders.
Sunnis
Muslims belonging to branch of Islam believing that the community should select its own leadership. The majority religion in most Islamic countries.
Swahili
Bantu language with Arabic loanwords spoken in coastal regions of East Africa.
Taiping Rebellion
The most destructive civil war in China before the twentieth century. A Christian-inspired rural rebellion threatened to topple the Qing Empire. Leader claimed to be the brother of Jesus.
Tamil Kingdoms
The kingdoms of southern India, inhabited primarily by speakers of Dravidian languages, which developed in partial isolation, and somewhat differently, from the Aryan north.
Tang Empire
Empire unifying China and part of Central Asia, founded 618 and ended 907. The Tang emperors presided over a magnificent court at their capital, Chang’an.
Tanzimat
Restructuring’ reforms by the nineteenth-century Ottoman rulers, intended to move civil law away from the control of religious elites and make the military and the bureacracy more efficient.
Tenochtitlan
Capital of the Aztec Empire, located on an island in Lake Texcoco. Its population was about 150,000 on the eve of Spanish conquest. Mexico City was constructed on its ruins.
Teotihuacan
A powerful city-state in central Mexico (100-75 C.E.). Its population was about 150,000 at its peak in 600.
terrorism
targeting random people who are usually civilians with violence for a political purpose.
Thebes
Capital city of Egypt and home of the ruling dynasties during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Amon, patron deity of Thebes, became one of the chief gods of Egypt. Monarchs were buried across the river in the Valley of the Kings. (p. 43)
Theravada Buddhism
Way of the Elders’ branch of Buddhism followed in Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia. It remains close to the original principles set forth by the Buddha; it downplays the importance of gods
Third World
Term applied to a group of “developing” or “underdeveloped” countries who professed nonalignment during the Cold War.
Thomas Edison
American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.
Thomas Malthus
Eighteenth-century English intellectual who warned that population growth threatened future generations because, in his view, population growth would always outstrip increases in agricultural production.
three-field system
A rotational system for agriculture in which one field grows grain, one grows legumes, and one lies fallow. It gradually replaced two-field system in medieval Europe.
Tiananmen Square
Site in Beijing where Chinese students and workers gathered to demand greater political openness in 1989. The demonstration was crushed by Chinese military with many deaths.
Timur
Member of a prominent family of the Mongols’ Jagadai Khanate, Timur through conquest gained control over much of Central Asia and Iran. He consolidated the status of Sunni Islam as orthodox, and his descendants, the Timurids, maintained his empire.
Tokugawa Shogunate
was a semi-feudal government of Japan in which one of the shoguns unified the country under his family’s rule. They moved the capital to Edo, which now is called Tokyo. This family ruled from Edo 1868, when it was abolished during the Meiji Restoration.
Treaty of Nanking
Treaty that concluded the Opium War. It awarded Britain a large indemnity from the Qing Empire, denied the Qing government tariff control over some of its own borders, opened additional ports of residence to Britons, and ceded Hong Kong to Britain.
Treaty of Versailles
The treaty imposed on Germany by France, Great Britain, the United States, and other Allied Powers after World War I. It demanded that Germany dismantle its military and give up some lands to Poland. It was resented by many Germans.
Treaty Ports
Cities opened to foreign residents as a result of the forced treaties between the Qing Empire and foreign signatories. In the in these cities, foreigners enjoyed extraterritoriality.
tributary system
A system in which, from the time of the Han Empire, countries in East and Southeast Asia not under the direct control of empires based in China nevertheless enrolled as tributary states, acknowledging the superiority of the emperors in China.
tribute system
A system in which defeated peoples were forced to pay a tax in the form of goods and labor. This forced transfer of food, cloth, and other goods subsidized the development of large cities. An important component of the Aztec and Inca economies.
trireme
Greek and Phoenician warship of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. It was sleek and light, powered by 170 oars arranged in three vertical tiers. Manned by skilled sailors, it was capable of short bursts of speed and complex maneuvers.
czar
From Latin caesar, this Russian title for a monarch was first used in reference to a Russian ruler by Ivan III (r. 1462-1505).
Uigurs
A group of Turkic-speakers who controlled their own centralized empire from 744 to 840 in Mongolia and Central Asia. (p. 284)
ulama
Muslim religious scholars. From the ninth century onward, the primary interpreters of Islamic law and the social core of Muslim urban societies. (p. 238)
Umayyad Caliphate
First hereditary dynasty of Muslim caliphs (661 to 750). From their capital at Damascus, the Umayyads ruled one of the largest empires in history that extended from Spain to India. Overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate.
umma
The community of all Muslims. A major innovation against the background of seventh-century Arabia, where traditionally kinship rather than faith had determined membership in a community.
United Nations
International organization founded in 1945 to promote world peace and cooperation. It replaced the League of Nations.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
A 1946 United Nations covenant binding signatory nations to the observance of specified rights.
Varna
The four major social divisions in India’s caste system: the Brahmin priest class, the Kshatriya warrior/administrator class, the Vaishya merchant/farmer class, and the Shudra laborer class.
Vasco da Gama
Portuguese explorer. In 1497-1498 he led the first naval expedition from Europe to sail to India, opening an important commercial sea route.
vassal
In medieval Europe, a sworn supporter of a king or lord committed to rendering specified military service to that king or lord, usually in exchange for the use of land.
Vedas
Early Indian sacred ‘knowledge’-the literal meaning of the term-long preserved and communicated orally by Brahmin priests and eventually written down.
Victorian Age
Reign of Queen Victoria of Great Britain (1837-1901). The term is also used to describe late-nineteenth-century society, with its rigid moral standards and sharply differentiated roles for men and women and for middle-class and working-class people
Vladimir Lenin
Leader of the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party. He lived in exile in Switzerland until 1917, then returned to Russia to lead the Bolsheviks to victory during the Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed.
Western Front
A line of trenches and fortifications in World War I that stretched without a break from Switzerland to the North Sea. Scene of most of the fighting between Germany, on the one hand, and France and Britain, on the other.
witch-hunt
The pursuit of people suspected of witchcraft, especially in northern Europe in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Woodrow Wilson
President of the United States (1913-1921) and the leading figure at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. He was unable to persuade the U.S. Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations.
World Bank
A specialized agency of the United Nations that makes loans to countries for economic development, trade promotion, and debt consolidation. Its formal name is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
WTO
The initials of the international body established in 1995 to foster and bring order to international trade.
Yin and yang
In Daoist belief, complementary factors that help to maintain the equilibrium of the world. One is associated with masculine, light, and active qualities while the other with feminine, dark, and passive qualities.
Yongle
Reign period of Zhu Di (1360-1424), the third emperor of the Ming Empire (r. 1403-1424).Sponsored the building of the Forbidden City, a huge encyclopedia project, the expeditions of Zheng He, and the reopening of China’s borders to trade and travel
Yuan Empire
He created this dynasty in China and Siberia. Khubilai Khan was head of the Mongol Empire and grandson of Genghis Khan.
Zen
The Japanese word for a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on highly disciplined meditation.
Zheng He
An imperial eunuch and Muslim, entrusted by the Ming emperor Yongle with a series of state voyages that took his gigantic ships through the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to Africa.
Zhou
The people and dynasty that took over the dominant position in north China from the Shang and created the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to justify their rule. Remembered as prosperous era in Chinese History.
ziggurat
massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mudbricks. It is associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities, but its function is unknown.
Zoroastrianism
A religion originating in ancient Iran. It centered on a single benevolent deity-Ahuramazda, Emphasizing truth-telling, purity, and reverence for nature, the religion demanded that humans choose sides between good and evil
