America – The Essential Learning Edition

corn; the primary grain crop in Mesoamerica yielding small kernels often ground into cornmeal

otherwise known as "Aztecs", a Mesoamerican people of northern Mexico who founded the vast Aztec Empire in the 14th century, later conquered by the Spanish under Hernáán Cortés in 1521

a network of more than 300 city-states & upwards of 30 provinces, established in the 14th century under the imperialistic Mexica, or Aztecs in the valley of Mexico

a funereal tradition, practiced in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys by the Adena-Hopewell cultures, of erecting massive mounds of earth over graves, often shaped in the design of serpents & other animals

the largest chiefdom & city of the Mississippian Indian culture located in present-day Illinois, & the site of a sophisticated farming settlement that supported 15,000 inhabitants

various Native American peoples, particularly the Algonquian, Iroquoian & Muskogean regional groups, who once dominated the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Louisiana

the Christian faith and religious practices of the Roman Catholic Church, which exerted great political, economic, & social influence on much of Western Europe & through the Spanish & Portuguese Empires, on the Americas

16th century religious movement initiated by Martin Luther, a German monk whose public criticism of corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, & whose teaching that Christians can communicate directly with God, gained a wide following

Spanish term for "conquerors," applied to Spanish & Portuguese soldiers who conquered lands held by indigenous peoples in central & southern America as well as the current states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona & California.

a land-grant system under which Spanish army officers (conquistadors) were awarded large parcels of land taken from Native Americans

the transfer of biological & social elements, such as plants, animals, people, diseases, & cultural practices, among Europe, the Americas, & Africa in the wake of Christopher Columbus's voyages to the New World

also called contagious diseases, illnesses that can pass from one person to another by way of invasive biological organisms able to reproduce in the bodily tissues of their hosts; Europeans unwittingly brought many such diseases to the Americas, devastating Native American peoples

a region in the American Southwest, originally established by the Spanish, who settled there in the 16th century, founded Catholic missions & exploited the region's indigenous peoples

the Spanish introduced horses to the Americas, eventually transforming many Native American cultures

a massive Spanish fleet of 130 warships that was defeated at Plymouth in 1588 by the English navy during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1

humans have migrated to the Americas

agricultural revolution begins in Mexico

the city of Cahokia flourishes in North America

Mexica (Aztec) Empire founded in Central Mexico

Columbus makes his first voyage of discovery in the Americas

Spaniards bring first enslaved Africans to the Americans

Martin Luther launches the Protestant Reformation

Cortés begins the Spanish conquest of Mexico

Pizarro subdues the Inca Empire in South America for Spain

Spaniards build fort at St. Augustine, the first permanent European outpost in the present-day United States

Raleigh's Roanoke Island venture

the English navy defeats the Spanish Armada

Pueblo Revolt