AP World History Chapter 13

The kingdom of Benin was a small, highly centralized state in West Africa ruled by a warrior king./The king of Benin patronized the artists who created brass sculptures.

People in West Africa who developed a group of city-states, each within a walled town and ruled by an oba or king./Some of the kings of the Yoruba city-states were women.

The Iroquois League was a loose alliance among the five Iroquois nations that settled their differences and established a council of clan leaders which settled disputes./The Iroquois League coordinated their peoples' relationship with the Europeans who arrived after 1500.

Timur was a Turkic warrior who attempted to restore the Mongol Empire by once again conquering Russia, Persia and India./Timur's conquest was the last military success of nomadic peoples from Central Asia.

The capital of China was relocated to Beijing by Emperor Yongle at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty./Bejing remains the capital of China.

Emperor Yongle ordered the building of the Forbidden City as an imperial residence./Emperors of China inhabited the Forbidden City until China became communist.

Emperor Yongle sponsored 11,000 volumes of previous writing, moved the capital of China and ordered the building of an imperial residence./Emperor Yongle began the Ming Dynasty which sought to restore the previous culture of China before the Mongol rule.

Zheng He, a Muslim, led a fleet commissioned by Emperor Yongle which included more than 300 ships and visited many ports in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, India, Arabia, and East Africa seeking to enroll distant peoples and states in the Chinese tribute system./Zheng He's expeditions ensured that China exerted control in the Indian Ocean.

The Renaissance was a reclaiming of the classical Greek tradition that had been previously overlooked. Instead of being focused on religion, this movement emphasized secular elements./The individualism of the Renaissance led to the beginning of a more capitalist economy of private entrepreneurs.

Scholars during the Renaissance who were known as "humanists" reflected on secular topics such as grammar, history, politics, poetry, rhetoric, and ethics which complemented more religious ideas./Humanists ideas moved thought away from the mystical Christian ideas.

Christopher Columbus was a Portuguese sailor who was funded by Spain to travel west across the Atlantic in hopes of arriving in the East./Columbus's journey resulted in the discovery of the Americas by the Europeans.

Vasco da Gama sailed around the tip of South Africa, along the East African coast and finally across the Indian Ocean to Calicut in southern India./Expeditions such as de Gama's were the beginning of European domination of much of the world.

The Ottoman Empire was an Islamic state that encompassed much of the Anatolian peninsula, southeastern Europe, much of the Middle East, coastal North Africa, and the lands around the Black Sea. It encompassed many diverse peoples and made the Turks the dominant people of the Islamic world./The Ottoman Empire was one of the great empires of world history.

The Safavid Empire was a Turkish empire that emerged from a Sufi religious order and which chose to forcibly impose the Shia version of Islam as the official religion of the state. Overtime, the Shia version of Islam came to be identified with Persia./The Sunni/Shia hostility divided the Islam world, and the division continues today.

The Songhay Empire was the largest of the states that arose at a crucial intersection of the trans-Saharan trade routes./Songhay became a major center of Islamic learning and commerce by the early sixteenth century.

Sunni Ali was a Songhay monarch who practiced Islam while at the same time being a magician and possessing charms./Sunni Ali's approach to religion resulted from the cultural divide that existed between Songhay's elite and commoners.

Malacca was a small fishing village that was transformed into a major Muslim port city./The Islam practiced in Malacca was blended with local Hindu/Buddhist traditions.

The Aztec Empire was established by the Mexica people from a small island in Lake Texcoco. An alliance between the Mexica and two other city-states led to a highly aggressive military conquest bringing much of Mesoamerica under their control./The Aztecs participated in many human sacrifices using the captives from their conquests.

Tenochtitlam was the capital city of the Aztecs./Aztecs required the people they conquered to send tributes to Tenochtitlam.

Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs./Cortes was amazed at the Aztec markets he found in Mesoamerica.

Pochkeca were professional merchants in the Aztec empire./Though Pochkeca were commoners, their wealth sometimes exceeded that of the nobility.

Huitzilopochtli was the Aztec god who tended to lose its energy in a constant battle against encroaching darkness. In order to replenish its energy, the Aztecs regularly sacrificed humans to Hitzilopochtli./Because most of the human sacrifices were from conquered people, the growth of the Aztec Empire was believed to help maintain cosmic order.

The Inca Empire began from a small community of Quechua-speaking people and grew to be the largest imperial state in the Western Hemisphere./The Incan Empire encompassed 2,500 miles and contained 10 million subjects.

Births, deaths, marriages, and other population data were carefully recorded on quipus, the knotted cords that served as an accounting device./Quipus is the considered by some scholars to have been an alternate form of writing.

The American Web refers to the extended network of economic relationships between the civilizations in the Americas./Part of this network included commerce made possible by connecting waterways.

Mita was the labor service required of conquered people by the Incas/While people kept what they produced at home, they were also required to work for the state.

Gender parallelism describes the gender systems of the Incas and Aztecs in which women and men operated in separate but equivalent spheres./The Inca sapay (ruler) and coya (consort) governed jointly and claimed descent from the sun and the moon respectively.

Modernity began when the Europeans established global relationships that generated sustained interaction amongst regions./The previously separate worlds of Afro-Eurasia, the Americas, and Pacific Oceania became linked forever.