Here are some key people to remember for AP World History. They come from the back of the book "The Earth And Its Peoples."
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| 4588544426 | Akbar I | Most illustrious sultan of the Mughal Empire (r. 1556-1605). He expanded the empire and pursued a policy of concilation with Hindus. | 0 | |
| 4588544428 | Alexander the Great | King of Macedonia in northern Greece, Between 334 and 323 BCE, he conquered the Persian Empire, reached the Indus Valley, founded many Greek-style cities, and spread Greek culture across the Middle East. | 1 | |
| 4588544431 | Ashoka | Third ruler of the Mauryan Empire in India (r. 270-232 BCE). He converted to Buddhism and broadcast his precepts on inscribed stones and pillars, the earliest surviving Indian writing. | 2 | |
| 4588544432 | Atahualpa | Last ruling Inca emperor of Peru. He was executed by the Spanish. | 3 | |
| 4588544433 | Octavian | Founder of the Roman Principate. After defeating all rivals between 31 BCE and 14 CE, he laid the groundwork for several centuries of stability and prosperity in the Roman Empire. Also called Augustus. | 4 | |
| 4588544435 | Zheng He | An imperial eunuch and Muslim, entrusted by the Ming emperor Yongle with a series of state voyages that took his gigantic ships though the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to Africa. | 5 | |
| 4588544437 | Benjamin Franklin | American intellectual, inventor, and politician. He helped negotiate French support for the American Revolution. | 6 | |
| 4588544438 | Thomas Edison | American inventor best known for inventing the electric lightbulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures. | 7 | |
| 4588544439 | Albert Einstein | German physicist who developed the theory of relativity. | 8 | |
| 4588544442 | Yuan Shikai | Chinese general and first president of the Chinese Republic (1912-1916). He stood in the way of Sun Yat-sen's movement. | 9 | |
| 4588544443 | Ibn Battuta | Moroccan Muslim scholar, the most widely traveled individual of his time. He wrote a detailed account of his visits to Islamic lands from China to Spain and the western Sudan. | 10 | |
| 4588544445 | Napoleon Bonaparte | Overthrew French Directory in 1799 and became emperor of the French in 1804. Failed to defeat Great Britain and abdicatd in 1914. Returned to power briefly in 1815 but was defeated and died in exile. | 11 | |
| 4588544447 | Jawaharlal Nehru | Indian statesman. He succeeded Gandhi as the leader of the Indian National Congress. He negotiated the end of British colonial rule in India and became India's first prime minister (1947-1964). | 12 | |
| 4588544449 | Hammurabi | Amorite ruler of Babylon (r. 1792-1750 BCE). He conquered many city-states in southern and northern Mesopotamia and is best known for a code of laws, inscribed on a black stone pillar, illustrating the principles to be used in legal cases. | 13 | |
| 4588544451 | Henry the Navigator | Portuguese prince who promoted the study of navigation and directed voyages of exploration down the western coast of Africa. | 14 | |
| 4588544454 | Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla | Mexican priest who led the first stage of the Mexican independence war in 1810. He was captured and executed in 1811. | 15 | |
| 4588544455 | Adolf Hitler | Born in Austria, he became a radical German nationalist during World War I. He led the Nazi party in the 1920s and became dictator of Germany in 1933. He led Europe into World War II. | 16 | |
| 4588544456 | Saddam Hussein | President of Iraq from 1979 until overthrown by an American-led invasion in 2003. Waged war on Iran from 1980-1988. His invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was repulsed in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. | 17 | |
| 4588544458 | Khubilai Khan | Last of the Mongol Great Khans (r. 1260-1294) and founder of the Yuan Empire. | 18 | |
| 4588544461 | George Washington | Military commander of the American Revolution. He was the first elected president of the United States (1789-1799). | 19 | |
| 4588544462 | James Watt | Scot who invented the condenser and other improvements that made the steam engine a practical source of power for industry and transportation. The watt, an electrical measurement, is named after him. | 20 | |
| 4588544464 | 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 US Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations. | 21 | |
| 4588544468 | Shah Abbas I | The fifth and most renowned ruler of the Safavid dynasty in Iran. He moved the royal capital to Isfahan in 1598. | 22 | |
| 4588544469 | Shi Huangdi | Founder of the short-lived Qin dynasty and creator of the Chinese Empire (ca. 221-210 BCE). He is remembered for his ruthless conquests of rival states, standardization of practices, and forcible organization of labor for military and engineering tasks. His tomb, with its army of life-size terracotta soldiers, has been partially excavated. | 23 | |
| 4588544470 | Socrates | Athenian philosopher (ca. 470-399 BCE) who shifted the emphasis of philosophical investifation from questions of natural science to ethics and human behavior. He attracted young disciples from elite families but made enemies by revealing the ignorance and pretensions of others, culminating in his trial and execution by the Athenian state. | 24 | |
| 4588544471 | Josef Stalin | Bolshevik revolutionary, head of the Soviet Communist Party after 1924, and dictator of the Soviet Union from 1928-1953. He led the Soviet Union with an iron fist, using Five-Year Plans to increase industrial production and terror to crush all opposition. | 25 | |
| 4588544474 | Sun Yat-sen | Chinese nationalist revolutionary, founder and leader of the Kuomintang until his death. He attempted to create a liberal deemocratic political movement in China but was thwarted by military leaders. | 26 | |
| 4588544481 | Maximilien Robespierre | Young provincial lawyer who led the most radical phases of the French Revolution. His execution ended the Reign of Terror. | 27 | |
| 4588544483 | 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 wars that followed. | 28 | |
| 4588544484 | Leopold II | King of Belgium (r. 1865-1909). He was active in encouraging the exploration of Central Africa and became the ruler of the Congo Free State (to 1908). | 29 | |
| 4588544486 | Toussaint L'Ouverture | Leader of the Haitian Revolution. He freed the slaves and gained effective independence for Haiti despite military interventions by the British and French. | 30 | |
| 4588544488 | Jesus | A Jew from Galilee in northern Israel who sought to reform Jewish beliefs and practices. He was executed as a revolutionary by the Romans. Hailed as the Messiah and Son of God by his followers, he became the central figure in Christianity, a belief system that developed in the centuries after his death. | 31 | |
| 4588544489 | Muhammad Ali Jinnah | Indian Muslim politician who founded the state of Pakistan. A lawyer by training, he joined the All-India Muslim League in 1913. As leader of the League from the 1920s on, he negotiated with the British and the Indian National Congress for Muslim participation in Indian politics. From 1940 on, he led the movement for the independence of India's Muslims in a separate state of Pakistan, founded in 1947. | 32 | |
| 4588544491 | Darius I | Third ruler of the Persian Empire (r. 521-486 BCE). He crushed the widespread initial resistance to his rule and gave all major government posts to Persians rather than to Medes. He established a system of provinces and tribute, began construction of Persepolis, and expanded Persian control in the east (Pakistan) and west (northern Greece). | 33 | |
| 4588544492 | Deng Xiaoping | Communist Party leader who forced Chinese economic reforms after the death of Mao. | 34 | |
| 4588544495 | Osama bin Laden | Saudi-born Muslim extremist who funded the al Qaeda organization that was responsible for several terrorist attacks, including those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. | 35 | |
| 4588544496 | Otto von Bismarck | Chancellor of Prussia from 1862-1871, when he became chancellor of Germany. A conservative nationalist, he led Prussia to victory against Austria (1866) and France (1870) and was responsible for the creation of the German Empire in 1871. | 36 | |
| 4588544497 | 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. | 37 | |
| 4588544498 | Joseph Brant | Mohawk leader who supported the British during the American Revolution. | 38 | |
| 4588544499 | Siddhartha Gautama | An Indian prince alternately known as the Buddha, who renounced his wealth and social position. After becoming "enlightened" he enunciated the principles of Buddhism. This doctrine evolved and spread throughout India and to Southeast, East, and Central Asia. | 39 | |
| 4588544500 | 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. | 40 | |
| 4588544501 | Mahatma Gandhi | Leader of the Indian independence movement and advocate of nonviolent resistance. After being educated as a lawyer in England, he returned to India and became the leader of the Indian National Congress in 1920. He appealed to the poor, led nonviolent demonstrations against British colonial rule, and was jailed many times. Soon after independence he was assassinated for attempting to stop Hindu-Muslim rioting. | 41 | |
| 4588544502 | Giuseppe Garibaldi | Italian nationalist and revolutionary who conquered Sicily and Naples and added them to a unified Italy in 1860. | 42 | |
| 4588544503 | Genghis Khan | The title of Temujin when the ruled the Mongols (1206-1227). It means the "oceanic" or "universal" leader. He was the founder of the Mongol Empire. | 43 | |
| 4588544504 | Mikhail Gorbachev | Head of the Soviet Union from 1985-1991. His liberalization effort improved relations with the West, but he lost power after his reforms led to the collapse of communist governments in eastern Europe. | 44 | |
| 4588544507 | Pericles | Aristocratic leader who guided the Athenian state through the transformation to full participatory democracy for all male citizens, supervised construction of the Acropolis, and pursued a policy of imperial expansion that led to the Peloponnesian War. He formulated a strategy of attrition but died from the plague early in the war. | 45 | |
| 4588544510 | Peter the Great | Russian tzar (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. | 46 | |
| 4588544511 | Francisco Pizzarro | Spanish explorer who led the conquest of the Inca Empire of Peru in 1531-1533. | 47 | |
| 4588544512 | Ferdinand Magellan | Portuguese navigator who led the Spanish expedition of 1519-1522 that was the first to sail around the world. | 48 | |
| 4588544513 | Thomas Malthus | 18th century English intellectual who warned that population growth threatened future generations because, in his view, population growth would always outstrip increases in agricultural production. | 49 | |
| 4588544514 | Mansa Kankan 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. | 50 | |
| 4588544515 | Mao Zedong | Leader of the Chinese Communist Party (1927-1976). He led the Communists on the Long March (1934-1935) and rebuilt the Communist Party and Red Army during the Japanese occupation of China (1937-1945). After World War II, he led the Communists to victory over the Kuomintang. He ordered the Cultural Revolution in 1966. | 51 | |
| 4588544516 | Karl Marx | German journalist and philosopher, founder of the Marxist branch of socialism. He is known for two books: "The Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital." | 52 | |
| 4588544520 | Muhammad | Arab prophet; founder of the religion of Islam. | 53 | |
| 4588544521 | Muhammad Ali | Leader of Egyptian modernization in the early 19th century. He ruled Egypt as an Ottoman governor, but had imperial ambitions. His descendants ruled Egypt until overthrown in 1952. | 54 | |
| 4588544522 | Benito Mussolini | Fascist dictator of Italy (1922-1943). He led Italy to conquer Ethiopia (1935), joined Germany in the Axis pact (1936), and allied Italy with Germany in World War II. He was overthrown in 1943 when the Allies invaded Italy. | 55 | |
| 4588544524 | Charlemagne | King of the Franks (r. 768-814); emperor (800-814). Through a series of military conquests he established the Carolingian Empire, which encompassed all of Gaul and parts of Germany and Italy. Though illiterate himself, he sponsored a brief intellectual revival. | 56 | |
| 4588544525 | Chiang Kai-shek | Chinese military and political leader. Succeeded Sun Yat-sen as head of the Kuomintang in 1923; headed the Chinese government from 1928-1948; fought against the Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders. After 1949 he headed the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan. | 57 | |
| 4588544527 | Christopher Columbus | 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. | 58 | |
| 4588544528 | Confucius | Western name for the Chinese philosopher Kongzi. His doctrine of duty and public service had a great influence on subsequent Chinese thought and served as a code of conduct for government officials. | 59 | |
| 4588544529 | Constantine | Roman emperor (r. 312-337). After reuniting the Roman Empire, he moved the capital to Constantinople and made Christianity a favored religion. | 60 | |
| 4588544530 | Hernan Cortes | Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the conquest of Aztec Mexico in 1519-1521 for Spain. | 61 | |
| 4588544531 | Cyrus | Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Between 550 and 530 BCE, 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. | 62 |
