Vocabulary for chapter 12, Mongol Eurasia and Its Aftermath, from The Earth and Its Peoples, fifth edition.
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| 1077482278 | Mongols | A people of this name is mentioned as early as the records of the Tang Empire, living as nomads in northern Eurasia. After 1206 they established an enormous empire under Genghis Khan, linking western and eastern Eurasia. | |
| 1077482279 | Genghis Khan | The title of Temüjin when he ruled the Mongols (1206-1227). It means the "oceanic" or "universal" leader. Genghis Khan was the founder of the Mongol Empire | |
| 1077482280 | nomadism | A way of life, forced by a scarcity of resources, in which groups of people continually migrate to find pastures and water. | |
| 1077482281 | Yuan Empire | Empire created in China and Siberia by Khubilai Khan. | |
| 1077482282 | bubonic plague | A bacterial disease of fleas that can be transmitted by flea bites to rodents and humans; humans in late stages of the illness can spread the bacteria by coughing. Because of its very high mortality rate and the difficulty of preventing its spread, major outbreaks have created crises in many parts of the world. | |
| 1077482283 | Il-khan | A 'secondary' or 'peripheral' khan based in Persia. The Il-khans' khanate was founded by Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, was based at Tabriz in modern Azerbaijan. It controlled much of Iran and Iraq. | |
| 1077482284 | Golden Horde | Mongol khanate founded by Genghis Khan's grandson Batu. It was based in southern Russia and quickly adopted both the Turkic language and Islam. Also known as the Kipchak Horde. | |
| 1077482285 | 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 for nearly a century and founded the Mughal Empire in India. | |
| 1077482286 | Rashid al-Din | Adviser to the Il-khan ruler Ghazan, who converted to Islam on Rashid's advice. | |
| 1077482287 | Nasir al-Din Tusi | Persian mathematician and cosmologist whose academy near Tabriz provided the model for the movement of the planets that helped to inspire the Copernican model of the solar system. | |
| 1077482288 | Alexander Nevskii | Prince of Novgorod (r. 1236-1263). He submitted to the invading Mongols in 1240 and received recognition as the leader of the Russian princes under the Golden Horde. | |
| 1077482289 | tsar | From Latin caesar, this Russian title for a monarch was first used in reference to a Russian ruler by Ivan III | |
| 1077482290 | Ottoman Empire | Islamic state founded by Osman in northwestern Anatolia ca. 1300. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire was based at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) from 1453 to 1922. It encompassed lands in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, and eastern Europe. | |
| 1077482291 | Khubilai Khan | Last of the Mongol Great Khans (r. 1260-1294) and founded the Yuan Empire | |
| 1077482292 | lama | In Tibetan Buddhism, a teacher | |
| 1077482293 | Beijing | China's northern capital, first used as an imperial capital in 906 and now the capital of the People's Republic of China. | |
| 1077482294 | Ming Empire | Empire based in China that Zhu Yuanzhang established after the overthrow of the Yuan Empire. The Ming emperor Yongle sponsored the building of the Forbidden City and the voyages of Zheng He. The later years of the Ming saw a slowdown in technological development and economic decline. | |
| 1077482295 | Yongle | The third emperor of the Ming Empire (r. 1403 - 1424). He 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. | |
| 1077482296 | 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. | |
| 1077482297 | Yi dynasty | The Yi dynasty ruled Korea from the fall of the Koryo kingdom to the colonization of Korea by Japan. | |
| 1077482298 | kamikaze | The "divine wind", which the Japanese credited with blowing Mongol invaders away from their shores in 1281. | |
| 1077482299 | Ashikaga Shogunate | The second of Japan's military governments headed by a shogun (a military ruler). Sometimes called the Muromachi Shogunate. |
