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| 6171688807 | Columbian Exchange | the exchange of plants, animals, diseases, peoples, ideas, and cultural traits that occurred after Columbus's 1492 voyage permanently linked the Americas with Afro-Eurasia | 0 | |
| 6171688808 | plantations | large farms producing crops, typically "cash crops" like tobacco or sugar rather than staple foods, for export. Typically staffed by coerced labor such as indentured servants or, more commonly, by African slaves | 1 | |
| 6171688809 | smallpox | one of many European diseases that devastated Native American populations; disease caused between 50% and 90% of the Native American populations to die after European contact | 2 | |
| 6171698207 | mercantilism | an economic system in which, although economic assets are privately owned (i.e. joint-stock companies as opposed to government projects), governments regulate trade to increase the amount of gold and silver in their economies. | 3 | |
| 6171703329 | Atlantic Slave Trade | The system in which millions of Africans were enslaved and brought to the New World to work on plantations; roughly two million died in transit. The majority were transported to the Caribbean, where many died working in sugar plantations and needed to be replaced, or to Brazil. | 4 | |
| 6171713547 | mestizo | peoples of mixed European and Native American heritage; emerged as a result of Spanish colonization of the Americas | 5 | |
| 6171718517 | Sunni-Shia Split | The split in the Muslim community over the succession to Mohammed. The Safavids making Persia a Shia land alienated their Sunni Muslim neighbors and intensified the conflict with the neighboring Ottomans | 6 | |
| 6171718518 | Protestant Reformation | Luther's objection to the selling of indulgences ultimately led to the rejection of the authority of the Catholic Pope in much of Europe and the splintering of Western Christianity. | 7 | |
| 6171729796 | Suleiman the Magnificant | Known by his own subjects as "Suleiman the Lawgiver," this Ottoman sultan presided over the Ottoman Empire at its height. | 8 | |
| 6171729797 | Francis I of France | French king who allied with the Ottomans against the Hapsburgs in early modern Europe. | 9 | |
| 6171730897 | Hapsburg Empire | At its height the Hapsburg family ruled most of Germany and Italy, Spain, and Spain's empire in the Americas. The family's ambitions to become Europe's dominant power spurred opposition from lesser German nobles, the French, the English, the Dutch, and the Ottomans | 10 | |
| 6171737430 | Samurai | the warrior class of Japan similar to European knights. During the long peace of the Tokugawa Shogunate, most of them ended up becoming salaried government officials | 11 | |
| 6171737431 | Bushido | the warrior code of the samurai | 12 | |
| 6171737432 | Tokugawa Shogunate | the government that reunited Japan and ruled until the 1860s. Isolated the country to keep out Christianity, although they did allow Dutch to trade at Nagasaki (and really appreciated "Dutch Studies") and attempted to maintain traditional daimyo-samurai rule over others. | 13 | |
| 6171738702 | Ottoman Empire | "Gunpowder" empire founded by the Turkic warrior Osman controlling modern-day Turkey, the Balkans, Egypt, North Africa, and most of the Arabian peninsula. Practiced Sunni Islam. Empire founded in 1300s and lasted until after WWI. | 14 | |
| 6171738703 | Safavid Empire | "Gunpowder empire" comprising modern-day Persia. Practiced Shi'a Islam and regularly warred with Ottomans. | 15 | |
| 6171738704 | Mughal Empire | Founded by Afghan and Turkic invaders whose leader claimed descent from Genghis Khan, this empire dominated India after the fall of the Delhi Sultanate before being ultimately usurped by the British Empire. The ruling class of the Empire was Muslim, but the majority of the population were Hindus. | 16 | |
| 6171738705 | Russian Empire | Empire that began with Moscow dominating the Russian core territories west of the Ural Mountains and expanded outward into Siberia, Central Asia, etc. Mr. Quinn would describe it as a Christian gunpowder empire. Peter the Great brought in Western ideas and technology to modernize it. Practiced serfdom even when other European states abandoned the institution. | 17 | |
| 6171742264 | astrolabe | This device of Muslim origin was first used to find the direction of Mecca for prayer, but was later adapted for maritime (ship-based) navigation. | 18 | |
| 6171742265 | compass | This device of Chinese origin used magnetism to navigate and played a major role in European voyages of exploration | 19 | |
| 6171742266 | Ming Dynasty | this native Chinese dynasty was founded by a peasant rebel and ejected the Mongols from China; ultimately fell in the 17th Century to revolt by its subjects and external attack from the Manchus | 20 | |
| 6171742267 | Qing Dynasty | This Chinese dynasty was founded by the Manchu, a non-Chinese people from north of the Great Wall, and remained in power until the final end of the Chinese monarchy in the early 20th Century | 21 | |
| 6172479645 | Portugal | the first European state to engage in large-scale exploration, starting with the western coast of Africa. The Portuguese Empire consisted of a series of cities that served as nodes of trade rather than vast territories as was the case with Spain. | 22 | |
| 6172481482 | Kongo | An African kingdom that converted to Catholicism (or at least the leadership did) and was on friendly terms with the Portuguese state, but was victimized by Portuguese slave-traders | 23 | |
| 6172486659 | Confucianism | teachings on social organization advocated by Chinese philosopher Confucius that included ideas like filial piety (respect of sons for fathers), five relationships, etc. Ruling belief system of the Qing Dynasty despite its foreign origins | 24 | |
| 6172493155 | silver | whitish metal that was EXTREMELY important to the Spanish Empire and lubricated global trade networks in the early modern period | 25 | |
| 6172495383 | Potosi | enormous mining center in the former Inca Empire; provided lots of silver for the Spanish Empire | 26 | |
| 6172499095 | gunpowder empire | a term used to refer to the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, who successfully used gunpowder weapons (especially artillery) to steamroll their enemies and establish gigantic empires. The Russians operated the same way, but are not considered one of these due to being Christian and located elsewhere geographically | 27 | |
| 6172504882 | Peter the Great | Russian Czar who had his government adopt lots of techniques, technologies, etc. from Western Europe to strengthen it | 28 | |
| 6172507570 | serfdom | labor system in which agricultural laborers are bound to the soil and not allowed to leave without permission; in the early modern period it disappeared in western Europe but grew more entrenched in Russia | 29 | |
| 6172514498 | closed-country policy | the Tokugawa Shogunate's policy of excluding foreigners from Japan (except for the Dutch in Nagasaki and the Chinese) in order to keep out foreign influences, especially Christianity | 30 | |
| 6172518719 | encomienda | a forced-labor system in which Spanish colonists in the New World received the right to demand labor and tribute from Indian villagers living near where they settled. Ideally they were to provide justice, religious instruction, and military protection to the Indians, but in practice it was cruel and exploitative. | 31 | |
| 6172518720 | Great Wall of China | A series of border defenses first created by the Qin Dynasty to repel the Xiongnu and later strengthened by the Ming Dynasty to fight the Mongols and the Manchu. However, the wall ultimately failed--its commanders let the Manchu into the country after the Ming Empire fell to internal rebels, leading to the Manchu conquest of China and the establishment of the Qing Dynasty. | 32 | |
| 6172527833 | single-whip policy | Chinese government policy requiring taxes be paid in silver rather than in kind (i.e. in grain or animals). These meant Chinese people had to buy and sell products for silver currency, leading to more trade and a more commercial economy, as well as inflation in China itself as the demand for manufactures and luxury goods led to a huge inflow of silver | 33 | |
| 6173032822 | inflation | what happens when the money supply is increased to the point it loses value; happened in Spain, China, the Ottoman Empire, and the Safavid Empire as a result of the influx of New World silver. | 34 | |
| 6173037326 | joint-stock company | a company that receives a government charter and sells stock to raise capital for trading ventures. Risk and reward diffused among many stockholders rather than a single businessman or a family that could be ruined by a failed venture. | 35 | |
| 6173038988 | Aurengzeb | Mughal emperor known for his religious intolerance, including forcing Hindus to pay the jiziya tax on non-Muslims, destroying Hindu temples, and persecuting the Sikhs to the point they took up arms | 36 | |
| 6173038989 | Akbar | Mughal emperor known for his religious tolerance, including attempting to create his own religion incorporating aspects of different faiths. | 37 | |
| 6232873344 | Christopher Columbus | Italian (Genoese) mariner who sailed for Spain; landed in the Caribbean thinking he'd sailed west to Asia. Ended the isolation of the New World from Afro-Eurasia. | 38 | |
| 6232878234 | Edict of Nantes | a French royal edict allowing the practice of Protestantism even though France was officially Catholic; revoked by Louis XIV, who forced Protestants to either become Catholic or leave. | 39 | |
| 6232897863 | feudalism | system of landholding in exchange for military service common in Europe after fall of Rome (and in Asian societies like China and Japan where central authority had been weakened or was absent). In the early modern period (1450-1750), this system disappeared in Western Europe. | 40 |
