HUMAN HISTORY - 1300 CE - 1599 CE Flashcards
MARCO POLO
Publication
Boyhood
Journey
Return
Inspiration for
Livres des merveilles du monde (1300) Book of the Marvels of the World, also known as The Travels of Marco Polo.
Marco Polo was an Italian merchant, explorer, and writer, born in the Republic of Venice in 1254. His travels were recorded in a book that described to Europeans the wealth and great size of China, its capital Peking, and other Asian cities and countries.
He learned the mercantile trade from his father and his uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan.
In 1269, when he was 14, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time.
The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years, age 38, to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was imprisoned and dictated his stories to a cellmate.
He was released in 1299, age 45, published his book, became a wealthy merchant, married, and had three children.
He died in 1324, aged 70.
Marco Polo was not the first European to reach China (see Europeans in Medieval China), but he was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travellers.
What did Marco Polo call Japan?
Cipango
Cuba was named for it by Columbus who thought he’d arrived in Asia and thought Cuba was Japan, which Marco Polo had called Cipango.
THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY OF THE CHURCH
What and when
Why was it significant to the age just beginning?
1309-1376 CE
Refers to the removal of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, France in 1309.
The next seven Popes would sit in Avignon, where the French King could dominate the Church. (Also the title of Martin Luther’s 1520 book on it. )
It severely damaged the Church’s prestige, and called into question its independence.
The Renaissance 1300-1600 followed
THE AZTECS
Dates
Location
1325: Founding of Tenochtitlan
The largest civilization in the pre-Columbian Americas, governed from the city of Tenochtitlan in Mexico. They were fiercely warlike and expanded their power by near constant war with neighboring civilizations.
1521: Spanish Conquistadors arrived
TENOCHTITLAN
Dates
Location
Significance
1325 Founded
Location: on an island in ancient Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. The Valley is the site of present day larger Mexico City Metropolitan Area (pop. 21M)
Started as a large Mexican city-state, became the centre of the Aztec Empire.
1521: Conquered by the Spanish
[Efforts by the Spanish to control flooding led to most of the lake being drained.]
TENOCHTITLAN Pronunciation
Ten ‘oche teet lan
START OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
Date
Significance
Names
Date:1337
Significance: Edward III was also Duke of Aquitaine in France.
In 1337, Philip VI confiscated the English king’s Duchy of Aquitaine, demanding tribute for its return.
Edward refused to pay, and believing he had the right through his ancestry and his wife Isabella of France, he declared himself the new king of France.
(At age 18, Edward threw off his degrading dependence on his mother and her paramour Mortimer. In October 1330 he entered Nottingham Castle by night, through a subterranean passage, and took Mortimer prisoner and later had him executed. Young, ardent and active, he strove with all his might to win back for England some of it’s former glory.) [Significance?]
1337
Significances
Names
Significance: Start of The Hundred Years’ War
Significance: Edward III was also Duke of Aquitaine in France.
In 1337, Philip VI confiscated the English king’s Duchy of Aquitaine, demanding tribute for its return.
Edward refused to pay, and believing he had the right through his ancestry and his wife Isabella of France, he declared himself the new king of France.
(At age 18, Edward threw off his degrading dependence on his mother and her paramour Mortimer. In October 1330 he entered Nottingham Castle by night, through a subterranean passage, and took Mortimer prisoner and later had him executed. Young, ardent and active, he strove with all his might to win back for England some of its former glory.)
THE BLACK PLAGUE
Dates
Origins and location first arrived
Percentage killed
Numbers killed
Time for population to recover
Mid 1300s. Bubonic plague was a bacteria carried into Europe by fleas that lived on black rats. The Black Death, as the plague was called, killed at least a third of Europe’s population.
The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, Great Plague or simply Plague, was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia and peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351
The Black Death is thought to have originated in the dry plains of Central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by 1343.[5] From there, it was most likely carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships, spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe.
The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60% of Europe’s total population.[6] In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million in the 14th century.[7] It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level.[8][9] The plague recurred as outbreaks in Europe until the 19th century.
TIMUR
Who was he?
Dates
Locations
Timur was one of the rulers of the Mongol successor states and attempted to recreate the empire of Genghis Khan. Between 1370 and 1405, he conquered the Delhi Sultanate, Persia, and large swaths of Central Asia. His success was short-lived; after his death, his empire gradually receded.
THREE ISLAMIC GUNPOWDER EMPIRES
Approx Dates of First Decisive Gunpowder Battle
Names
Approx Dates use started (First Decisive Battle)
1400s: the Ottoman Turks (1453 Constantinople)
1500s: Safavid Persian (1514 Battle of Chaldiran)
1500s: the Mughal Indians (1526 First Battle of Panipat)
The OTTOMANS TURKS employed European foundries to cast their cannons, and by the siege of Constantinople in 1453, they had large enough cannons to batter the walls of the city, to the surprise of the defenders.
SAFAVID PERSIANS: At the Battle of Chaldiran in the 1514, the Safavids met the Ottomans in battle for the first time and were devastated by the Turk’s field artillery. Within two years of Chaldiran, Ismail had a corps of musketeers (tofangchi) numbering 8,000, and by 1521, possibly 20,000.[14] After Abbas the Great reformed the army (around 1598), the Safavid forces had an artillery corp of 500 cannons as well as 12,000 musketeers.
MUGHAL EMPIRE: Babur had employed an Ottoman expert who showed Babur the standard Ottoman formation—artillery and firearm-equipped infantry protected by wagons in the center and the mounted archers on both wings. Babur used this formation at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, where the Afghan and Rajput forces loyal to the Delhi sultanate, though superior in numbers but without the gunpowder weapons, were defeated. The decisive victory of the Timurid forces is one reason opponents rarely met Mughal princes in pitched battle over the course of the empire’s history.
1415
Significance
Who
Significance: Henry the V of England invaded France and won the Battle of Agincourt with many bowmen. [Date?]
BATTLE OF AGINCOURT
Date
Significance
Who
Date: 1415 Significance: Henry the V of England invaded France and won the battle with many bowmen. [name of the battle?]
THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
TURNING POINT
Date
Significance
Date: 1429
Joan of Arc led the French army to success against the English at the Siege of Orleans. [Ramifications?]
1429
Significance
Significance: Joan of Arc led the French army to success against the English at the Siege of Orleans. The turning point in the Hundred Years War. [date?]
SIEGE OF ORLEANS
Date
Significance
Date: 1429
Significance: Turning point of the Hundred Years War Joan of Arc led the French army to success against the English. [name of the battle?]
JOAN OF ARC
Death Date only
Significance
Said she received visions of the Archangel Michael and other Saints, instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War.
d. 1431 (19) Captured in Burgundy. Burned at the stake.
JOAN OF ARC
Catholic Titles
Nickname
Popular Opinion
Canonized as a Roman Catholic Saint, Martyr and “Holy Virgin”
Nicknamed “The Maid of Orléans” she was born a peasant.
She turned what had been a dry dynastic squabble that left the common people unmoved into a passionately popular war of religious and national liberation.
Women ever since have looked to her as a positive example of a brave and active woman.
THE PRINTING PRESS
Inventor
Date began and famous publication
Three reasons why it was revolutionary in design
Johannes Gutenberg
1436 began invention
1440 “perfected and unveiled the secret of printing”
1455 Gutenberg Bible publication
Revolutions in Design:
- Movable Type (Letter) Matrix
- Durable Type made from an alloy of Lead, Tin and Antimony
- Oil based Inks
Gutenberg most ingenious invention was a special matrix enabling the quick and precise molding of new type blocks from a uniform template. Known as movable-type.
He made his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, which produced type that proved to be much better suited for printing than all other known materials. The alloy melted at a relatively low temperature for faster and more economical casting, cast well, and created a durable type.
Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than the previously used water-based inks.
