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| 5914031696 | Ziggurat | A massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mudbricks. It is associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities, but its function is unknown | 0 | |
| 5914035652 | Cuneiform | A system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but later was adapted to represent other languages of western Asia. Because so many symbols had to be learned, literacy was confined to a relatively small group of administrators and scribes | 1 | |
| 5914037391 | Neo-Assyrian Empire | An empire extending from western Iran to Syria-Palestine, conquered by the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia between the tenth and seventh centuries B.C.E. They used force and terror and exploited the wealth and labor of their subjects. They also preserved and continued the cultural and scientific developments of Mesopotamian civilization | 2 | |
| 5914037392 | Mandate of Heaven | Chinese religious and political ideology developed by the Zhou, according to which it was the prerogative of Heaven, the chief deity, to grant power to the ruler of China and to take away that power if the ruler failed to conduct himself justly and in the best interests of his subjects | 3 | |
| 5914037393 | Olmec | The first Mesoamerican civilization. Between ca. 1200 and 400 B.C.E., the Olmec people of central Mexico created a vibrant civilization that included intensive agriculture, wide-ranging trade, ceremonial centers, and monumental construction. The Olmec had great cultural influence on later Mesoamerican societies, passing on artistic styles, religious imagery, sophisticated astronomical observation for the construction of calendars, and a ritual ball game | 4 | |
| 5914040142 | Chavín | The first major urban civilization in South America (900-250 B.C.E.). Its capital, Chavín de Huántar, was located high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Chavín became politically and economically dominant in a densely populated region that included two distinct ecological zones, the Peruvian coastal plain and the Andean foothills | 5 | |
| 5914040143 | Mita | Andean labor system based on shared obligations to help kinsmen and work on behalf of the ruler and religious organizations. | 6 | |
| 5914081159 | Cyrus | Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Between 550 and 530 B.C.E. he conquered Media, Lydia, and Babylon. Revered in the traditions of both Iran and the subject peoples, he employed Persians and Medes in his administration and respected the institutions and beliefs of subject peoples. | 7 | |
| 5914081160 | Satrap | The governor of a province in the Achaemenid Persian Empire, often a relative of the king. He was responsible for protection of the province and for forwarding tribute to the central administration. Satraps in outlying provinces enjoyed considerable autonomy | 8 | |
| 5914081161 | Polis | The Greek term for a city-state, an urban center and the agricultural territory under its control. It was the characteristic form of political organization in southern and central Greece in the Archaic and Classical periods. Of the hundreds of city-states in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions settled by Greeks, some were oligarchic, others democratic, depending on the powers delegated to the Council and the Assembly | 9 | |
| 5914082886 | Pax Romana | literally, "Roman peace, it connoted the stability and prosperity that Roman rule brought to the lands of the Roman Empire in the first two centuries C.E. The movement of people and trade goods along Roman roads and safe seas allowed for the spread of cultural practices, technologies, and religious ideas | 10 | |
| 5914086804 | Third Century Crisis | Historians' term for the political, military, and economic turmoil that beset the Roman Empire during much of the third century C.E.: frequent changes of ruler, civil wars, barbarian invasions, decline of urban centers, and near-destruction of long-distance commerce and the monetary economy. After 284 C.E. Diocletian restored order by making fundamental changes | 11 | |
| 5914086805 | Qin Dynasty | A people and state in the Wei Valley of eastern China that conquered rival states and created the first Chinese empire (221-206 B.C.E.). The Qin ruler, Shi Huangdi, standardized many features of Chinese society and ruthlessly marshaled subjects for military and construction projects, engendering hostility that led to the fall of his dynasty shortly after his death. The Qin framework was largely taken over by the succeeding Han Empire | 12 | |
| 5914088483 | Han & Han Dynasty | A term used to designate (1) the ethnic Chinese people who originated in the Yellow River Valley and spread throughout regions of China suitable for agriculture and (2) the dynasty of emperors who ruled from 206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E | 13 | |
| 5914090307 | Mauryan Empire | The first state to unify most of the Indian subcontinent. It was founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 324 B.C.E. and survived until 184 B.C.E. From its capital at Pataliputra in the Ganges Valley it grew wealthy from taxes on agriculture, iron mining, and control of trade routes | 14 | |
| 5914090308 | Gupta Empire | A powerful Indian state based, like its Mauryan predecessor, on a capital at Pataliputra in the Ganges Valley. It controlled most of the Indian subcontinent through a combination of military force and its prestige as a center of sophisticated culture | 15 | |
| 5914092628 | Ashoka | Third ruler of the Mauryan Empire in India (r. 270-232 B.C.E.). He converted to Buddhism and broadcast his precepts on inscribed stones and pillars, the earliest surviving Indian writing. | 16 | |
| 5914092629 | Bantu | Collective name of a large group of sub-Saharan African languages and of the peoples speaking these languages | 17 | |
| 5913742284 | Sunni | Muslims belonging to branch of Islam believing that the community should select its own leadership. The majority religion in most Islamic countries | 18 | |
| 5913742285 | Shia | Muslims belonging to the branch of Islam believing that God vests leadership of the community in a descendant of Muhammad's son-in-law Ali. Shi'ism is the state religion of Iran. | 19 | |
| 5913746018 | Umayyad Caliphate | First hereditary dynasty of Muslim caliphs (661 to 750). From their capital at Damascus, the Umayyads ruled an empire that extended from Spain to India. Overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate | 20 | |
| 5913748237 | Abbasid Caliphate | Descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, al-Abbas, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate and ruled an Islamic empire from their capital in Baghdad (founded 762) from 750 to 1258. | 21 | |
| 5913809718 | Ulama | Muslim religious scholars. From the ninth century onward, the primary interpreters of Islamic law and the social core of Muslim urban societies. | 22 | |
| 5913813503 | Carolingian Empire | Through a series of military conquests Charlemagne established the Carolingian Empire, which encompassed all of Gaul and parts of Germany and Italy. Though illiterate himself, he sponsored a brief intellectual revival | 23 | |
| 5913815488 | Kievan Rus' | State established at Kiev in Ukraine ca. 879 by Scandinavian adventurers asserting authority over a mostly Slavic farming population | 24 | |
| 5913817324 | Holy Roman Empire | Loose federation of mostly German states and principalities, headed by an emperor elected by the princes. It lasted from 962 to 1806. | 25 | |
| 5913821681 | Serfdom | In medieval Europe, an agricultural laborer legally bound to a lord's property and obligated to perform set services for the lord. In Russia some serfs worked as artisans and in factories; serfdom was not abolished there until 1861. | 26 | |
| 5913823715 | Investiture Controversy | Dispute between the popes and the Holy Roman Emperors over who held ultimate authority over bishops in imperial lands. | 27 | |
| 5913823716 | Crusades | Armed pilgrimages to the Holy Land by Christians determined to recover Jerusalem from Muslim rule. The Crusades brought an end to western Europe's centuries of intellectual and cultural isolation. | 28 | |
| 5913826374 | Neo-Confucianism | Term used to describe new approaches to understanding classic Confucian texts that became the basic ruling philosophy of China from the Song period to the twentieth century | 29 | |
| 5913826375 | Woodblocking Printing | writings carved into a woodblock and printed | 30 | |
| 5913829180 | Movable Type | Type in which each individual character is cast on a separate piece of metal. It replaced woodblock printing, allowing for the arrangement of individual letters and other characters on a page, rather than requiring the carving of entire pages at a time. It may have been invented in Korea in the thirteenth century. | 31 | |
| 5913829181 | Black Death | An outbreak of bubonic plague that spread across Asia, North Africa, and Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, carrying off vast numbers of persons | 32 | |
| 5913829182 | Humanists | (Renaissance) European scholars, writers, and teachers associated with the study of the humanities (grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, languages, and moral philosophy), influential in the fifteenth century and later. | 33 | |
| 5913831497 | Mansa Musa | Ruler of Mali (r. 1312-1337). His pilgrimage through Egypt to Mecca in 1324-1325 established the empire's reputation for wealth in the Mediterranean world | 34 | |
| 5913831498 | Swahili Coast | African shores of the Indian Ocean between the Horn of Africa and the Zambezi River; from the Arabicsawahil, meaning "shores | 35 | |
| 5913885233 | Caravel | A small, highly maneuverable three-masted ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish in the exploration of the Atlantic. | 36 | |
| 5913885234 | Christopher Colombus | Genoese mariner who in the service of Spain led expeditions across the Atlantic, reestablishing contact between the peoples of the Americas and the Old World and opening the way to Spanish conquest and colonization | 37 | |
| 5913892488 | Hernán Cortés | Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the conquest of Aztec Mexico in 1519-1521 for Spain | 38 | |
| 5913892489 | 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 | 39 | |
| 5913894384 | Aztec Empire | Also known as Mexica, the Aztecs created a powerful empire in central Mexico (1325-1521 C.E.). They forced defeated peoples to provide goods and labor as a tax | 40 | |
| 5913894385 | Inca Empire | Largest and most powerful Andean empire. Controlled the Pacific coast of South America from Ecuador to Chile from its capital of Cuzco | 41 | |
| 5913896601 | Protestant Reformation | religious reform movement within the Latin Christian Church beginning in 1519. It resulted in the "protesters forming several new Christian denominations, including the Lutheran and Reformed Churches and the Church of England. | 42 | |
| 5913930293 | Scientific Revolution | The intellectual movement in Europe, initially associated with planetary motion and other aspects of physics, that by the seventeenth century had laid the groundwork for modern science | 43 | |
| 5913930294 | Encomienda | A grant of authority over a population of Amerindians in the Spanish colonies. It provided the grant holder with a supply of cheap labor and periodic payments of goods by the Amerindians. It obliged the grant holder to Christianize the Amerindians | 44 | |
| 5913933086 | Bartolomé de Las Casas | First bishop of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. He devoted most of his life to protecting Amerindian peoples from exploitation. His major achievement was the New Laws of 1542, which limited the ability of Spanish settlers to compel Amerindians to labor for them. | 45 | |
| 5913933087 | Middle Passage | The part of the Atlantic Circuit involving the transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas | 46 | |
| 5913933088 | Mali | Empire created by indigenous Muslims in western Sudan of West Africa from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. It was famous for its role in the trans-Saharan gold trade | 47 | |
| 5913936363 | Songhai | A people, language, kingdom, and empire in western Sudan in West Africa. At its height in the sixteenth century, the Muslim Songhai Empire stretched from the Atlantic to the land of the Hausa and was a major player in the trans-Saharan trade. | 48 | |
| 5913936364 | Mercantilism | European government policies of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries designed to promote overseas trade between a country and its colonies and accumulate precious metals by requiring colonies to trade only with their motherland country. The British system was defined by the Navigation Acts, the French system by laws known as theExclusif | 49 | |
| 5913967634 | Capitalism | The economic system of large financial institutions—banks, stock exchanges, investment companies—that first developed in early modern Europe. Commercial capitalism, the trading system of the early modern economy, is often distinguished from industrial capitalism, the system based on machine production | 50 | |
| 5913970157 | Tulip Period | Last years of the reign of Ottoman sultan Ahmed III, during which European styles and attitudes became briefly popular in Istanbul | 51 | |
| 5913970158 | Akbar | Most illustrious sultan of the Mughal Empire in India (r. 1556-1605). He expanded the empire and pursued a policy of conciliation with Hindus | 52 | |
| 5913970159 | Safavid Empire | Iranian kingdom (1502-1722) established by Ismail Safavi, who declared Iran a Shi'ite state | 53 | |
| 5913972570 | Aurangzeb | the grandson of akbar. The Mughal empire reached its peak under his rule | 54 | |
| 5913972571 | Peter the Great | Russian tsar (r. 1689-1725). He enthusiastically introduced Western languages and technologies to the Russian elite, moving the capital from Moscow to the new city of St. Petersburg | 55 | |
| 5913974176 | Daimyo | Literally, great name(s). Japanese warlords and great landowners, whose armed samurai gave them control of the Japanese islands from the eighth to the later nineteenth century. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate they were subordinated to the imperial government. | 56 | |
| 5913974177 | Tokugawa Shogunate | The last of the three shogunates of Japan | 57 | |
| 5913977163 | Qing Dynasty | Empire established in China by Manchus who overthrew the Ming Empire in 1644. At various times the Qing also controlled Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, and Tibet. The last Qing emperor was overthrown in 1911 | 58 |
