AP World Unit 6 Key Terms

Vasco de Gama

Portuguese mariner; first European to reach India by sailing around the tip of Africa in 1498.

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator in the service of Aragon and Castile; sailed west to find a route to India and instead discovered the Americas in 1492.

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese captain in Spanish service; began the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1519; died during voyage; allowed Spain to claim possession of the Philippines.

East India Companies

British, French, and Dutch trading companies that obtained government monopolies of trade to India and Asia; acted independently in their regions.

World economy

Created by Europeans during the late 16th century; based on control of the seas; established an international exchange of foods, diseases, and manufactured products.

Columbian Exchange

Interaction between Europe and the Americas; millions of Native Americans died of new diseases (smallpox) ; new world crops (potatoes, corn) spread to other world regions; European and Asian animals (horses, cattle) came to the Americas.

Lepanto

Naval battle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire resulting in Spanish victory in 1571; demonstrated European naval superiority over Muslims

Core nations

Nations, usually European, that profited from the world economy; controlled international banking and commercial services; exported manufactured goods and imported raw materials.

Dependent economic zones

Regions within the world economy that produced raw materials; dependent on European markets and shipping; tendency to build systems based on forced and cheap labor (ex. Brazil)

Vasco de Balboa

Began first Spanish settlement on Mesoamerican mainland in 1509. (modern Panama)

New France

French colonies in Canada and elsewhere; extended along the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes and down into the Mississippi River valley system. (including Quebec)

Atlantic colonies

British colonies in North America along Atlantic coast from New England to Georgia.

Treaty of Paris

Concluded in 1763 after the Seven Years War; Britain gained New France and ended France's importance in India.

Cape Colony

Dutch colony established at Cape of Good Hope in 1652 to provide a coastal station for Dutch ships traveling to and from the East Indies; settlers expanded and fought with Bantu and other Africans.

Boers

Dutch and other European settlers in Cape Colony before 19th-century British occupation; later called Afrikaners.

Calcutta

British East India Company headquarters in Bengal; captured in 1756 by Indians; later became administrative center for populous Bengal.

Seven Years War

Fought in Europe, Africa, and Asia between 1756 and 1763; the first worldwide war. (UK wins)

Cape of Good Hope

Southern tip of Africa; first circumnavigated in 1488 by Portuguese in search of direct route to India.

Mercantilism

Economic theory that stressed governments' promotion of limitation of imports from other nations and internal economies in order to improve tax revenues; popular during 17th and 18th centuries in Europe; possession of colonies important way to control tra

Mestizos

People of mixed European and Indian ancestry in Mesoamerica and South America; particularly prevalent in areas colonized by Spain; often part of forced labor system.

Francisco Pizarro

Led conquest of Inca Empire beginning in 1535; by 1540, most of Inca possessions fell to Spanish.

John Locke

(1632 - 1704) English philosopher who argued that people could learn everything through senses and reason and that power of government came from the people, not divine right of kings; offered possibility of revolution to overthrow tyrants. (life, liberty,

William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616) English poet and playwright considered one of the greatest writers of the English language; works include Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet.

Italian Renaissance

14th- and 15th-century intellectual and cultural movement in Europe that challenged medieval values and instigated the modern age.

Lowcountry

Areas such as modern-day The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, areas low in elevations

Niccolo Machiavelli

Author of The Prince, a realistic discussion of seizing and maintaining power.

Humanism

A focus on humanity as the center of intellectual and artistic endeavor / the philosophy of the Renaissance

Northern Renaissance

Cultural and intellectual movement of northern Europe; influenced by earlier Italian Renaissance; centered in France, the Low Countries, England, and Germany; featured greater emphasis on religion than in Italy

Francis I

King of France; a Renaissance monarch; patron of the arts; imposed new controls on the Catholic church; ally of the Ottoman sultan against the Holy Roman emperor.

Johannes Gutenberg

Introduced movable type to western Europe in the 15th century; greatly expanded the availability of printed materials.

European-style family

Emerged in 15th century; involved later marriage age and a primary emphasis on the nuclear family.

Nuclear Family

Family unit consisting of Mother, Father and children

Martin Luther

German Catholic monk who initiated the Protestant Reformation; emphasized the primacy of faith in place of Catholic sacraments for gaining salvation; rejected papal authority.

Protestantism

General wave of religious dissent against the Catholic church; formally began with Martin Luther in 1517.

Anglican Church

Form of Protestantism in England established by Henry VIII.

Jean Calvin

French Protestant who stressed doctrine of predestination; established center of his group in Geneva

Catholic Reformation

Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation; reformed and revived Catholic doctrine.

Jesuits

Catholic religious order founded during the Catholic Reformation; active in politics, education, and missionary work outside of Europe.

Edict of Nantes

1598 grant of tolerance in France to French Protestants

Thirty Years War

War from 1618 to 1648 between German Protestants and their allies against the Holy Roman emperor and Spain; caused great destruction.

English Civil War

Conflict from 1640 to 1660; included religious and constitutional issues concerning the powers of the monarchy; ended with restoration of a limited monarchy.

Proletariat

Class of people without access to producing property; usually manufacturing workers, paid laborers in agriculture, or urban poor

Witchcraft hysteria

17th-century European violence reflecting uncertainties about religion and about resentment against the poor; especially affected women.

Scientific Revolution

Process culminating in Europe during the 17th century; period of empirical advances associated with the development of wider theoretical generalizations; became a central focus of Western culture.

Copernicus

Polish monk and astronomer; discredited Hellenistic belief that the earth was at the center of the universe.

Galileo

Publicized Copernicus's findings; used the telescope to study moon and planets; added discoveries concerning the laws of gravity; condemned by the Catholic church for his work.

John Harvey

English physician who demonstrated the circular movement of blood in animals and the function of the heart as a pump.

Ren� Descartes

Philosopher who established the importance of the skeptical review of all received wisdom; argued that human wisdom could develop laws that would explain the fundamental workings of nature.

Isaac Newton

English scientist; author of Principia Mathematica; drew various astronomical and physical observations and wider theories together in a neat framework of natural laws; established principles of motion and defined forces of gravity.

Deism

A concept of God during the Scientific Revolution; the role of divinity was limited to setting natural laws in motion.

John Locke

English philosopher who argued that people could learn everything through their senses and reason; argued that the power of government came from the people, not from the divine right of kings; people had the right to overthrow tyrants.

Absolute monarchy

Concept of government developed during the rise of the nation-state in western Europe during the 17th century

Louis XIV

Late 17th- and early 18th-century French king who personified absolute monarchy.

Mercantilism

17th- and 18th-century economic theory that stressed government promotion of internal and international policies to strengthen the economic power / Colonies played a major role in promoting the "mother country

Glorious Revolution

English political settlement of 1688 and 1689 that affirmed that parliament had basic sovereignty over the king.

Enlightenment

Intellectual movement centered in France during the 18th century; argued for scientific advance, the application of scientific methods to study human society; believed that rational laws could describe social behavior.

Adam Smith

Established new school of economic thought; argued that governments should avoid regulation of economies in favor of the free play of market forces.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Enlightenment English feminist thinker; argued that political rights should be extended to women.

Indulgences

Roman Catholic theological tenant for the remission of sins.

Predestination

The belief that God has ordained all events to come including those who were to be saved

Parliamentary monarchy

Originated in England and Holland, 17th century, with kings partially checked by significant legislative powers in parliaments.

Frederick the Great

Prussian king of the 18th century; attempted to introduce Enlightenment reforms into Germany; built on military and bureaucratic foundations of his predecessors; introduced freedom of religion; increased state control of economy.

Ivan III (the Great)

Prince of the duchy of Moscow; responsible for freeing Russia from the Mongols; took the title of tsar.

Third Rome

Russia, with Moscow as its capital, claimed to be the successor of the Roman and Byzantine empires.

Ivan IV (the Terrible)

Confirmed power of tsarist autocracy by attacking the authority of the boyars; continued policy of expansion; established contacts with western European commerce and culture.

Boyars

The Russian nobles.

Cossacks

Peasant adventurers with agricultural and military skills recruited to conquer and settle in newly seized lands in southern Russia and Siberia.

Time of Troubles

Early 17th-century period of boyar efforts to regain power and foreign invasion after the death of Ivan IV without an heir; ended with the selection of Michael Romanov as tsar in 1613.

Romanov dynasty

Ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917.

Old Believers

Russians who refused to accept the ecclesiastical reforms of Alexis Romanov; many were exiled to southern Russia or Siberia.

Peter I (the Great)

Tsar from 1689 to 1725; continued growth of absolutism and conquest; sought to change selected aspects of the economy and culture through imitation of western European models.

St. Petersburg

Baltic city that was made the new capital of Russia by Peter I.

Catherine the Great

German-born Russian tsarina; combined selective Enlightenment ideas with strong centralizing policies; converted the nobility to a service aristocracy by granting them new power over the peasantry.

Partition of Poland

Three separate divisions of Polish territory among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1772, 1793, and 1795; eliminated Poland.

Pugachev rebellion

Unsuccessful peasant rising led by Cossack Pugachev during the 1770s; typical of peasant unrest during the 18th century and after

Westernization

Process in which traditional cultures come under the influence of Western culture.

Serfdom

Institution in which a peasant is attached to a feudal estate.