World History Facts List

WORLD HISTORY FACTS LIST

______is the study of human artifacts.
______is the study of hominid remains.
______is the exchange of traits between cultures due to any type of contact.
A ______is a succession of rulers from a single family or group.
______is a government run by religious officials
______is the belief in many gods.
______is the ancient ______belief that the right of a government to rule has been given by the gods.
______is the belief in one god.
Hammurabi was the ______king who presided over the ______of the first known written law code.
The ______runs from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean to the northern Persian Gulf.
Mesopotamia lies between the Tigris and ______Rivers and was home to Sumer.
The ______is the world’s longest river, flowing through northeast Africa, and fostered ancient Egypt.
Ancient ______built pyramids as tombs to honor their god-kings.
______are people who wander from place to place in search of food.
Ancient Sumer was divided into ______-______that are decentralized, independent political units.
Ancient Egyptians wrote in pictographs called ______.
______was a relatively adaptable Mesopotamian writing system.
The ______was the promise that the Hebrews would receive Canaan in return for their devotion to the one and only God.
______renewed the Covenant with God by delivering the Ten Commandments to the Hebrews.
______is a general term describing social class in Indian culture.
______is polytheistic religion of Aryan origin with no specific founding event or person.
______is the Hindu concept of duty based on class, age and gender
______is the Hindu concept that your soul accumulates a record of all good and bad behavior throughout its existence.
Moksha and Nirvana are respectively the ______and Buddhist concepts of the end of the reincarnation cycle.
Buddhism is a polytheistic faith in which adherents believe anyone can achieve ultimate ______.
Siddhartha Gautama was the Indian prince who renounced his privilege and established ______. Believers call him ______.
______is the Hindu-Buddhist belief in a cycle of many deaths and rebirths of the same soul.
Qin Shihuangdi was the first Chinese emperor, and established a highly centralized ______.
Mandarins were civil servants of the Han dynasty who got their jobs by passing rigorous exams.
______is a belief system that focuses on the individual’s relationship with nature and believes all people should strive to achieve a balance between the opposing forces within them.
______is a belief system that emphasizes respect for family and maintenance of social roles.
The ______culture and establishment of city-states was greatly influenced by its steep mountains and twisting coastline geography.
A ______is a traditional story that seeks to explain some mysterious aspect of nature or existence.
A ______was a Greek city-state, comprised of a single city and the countryside that supported it.
______was a Greek philosopher who developed a method of teaching by asking challenging questions.
______, one of the greatest Greek city-states, valued culture and learning in addition to physical strength.
______was a warlike Greek city-state that valued strength, but disliked learning and commerce.
An ______is any government ruled by a small group of people.
A ______is a person who is imbued with both the political privileges and duties of a particular society.
______is a political form in which all citizens directly participate in the political process- the people vote.
The ______wars were civil conflicts between the Greek states leading to the decline of Athens and Greek power in general.
______the Great was a Macedonian general who unified Greece, conquered Persia and established an empire stretching to the Indus River.
______were the Roman upper-class landowners who created the republic.
______were the Roman middle-class that gradually gained rights in the republic.
The ______was the all-patrician, law making body in early Rome.
______were plebeian legislators with veto power in the Roman republic.
A ______is a political structure in which citizens choose representatives to govern society.
The creation of the Twelve Tables of Roman law established a written, pubic code that assured greater equality for citizens.
The Romans used food handouts and increasingly brutal “circuses” to occupy the growing class of jobless poor.
Julius ______rose from the army to become a consul, and dictator of Rome.
Caesar originally server as a consul in a ______of three men with Crassus and Pompey.
Augustus overthrew the Senate that murdered Caesar to become Rome’s first ______.
Jesus Christ was a ______from the Roman province of Judea who was perceived by some Jews to be the Messiah. He is the ______of the Christian religion.
Emperor Constantine gave the first legal recognition to ______in the fourth century.
The ______was a period of great peace and prosperity for Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries.
Muhammad was a caravan leader from Mecca who established the ______faith.
The ______is the holiest book of Islam, said to be the word of Allah as told to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel.
The Five ______of Islam: Faith, prayer, alms, fasting and pilgrimage, are the central tenants of the faith.
______, site of the Ka’aba, is the holiest city of Islam.
A Caliph is a successor to the prophet Muhammad, who has both religious and ______authority in Islamic culture.
______was the Byzantine emperor who preserved Roman legal traditions by having his scholars unify them into a single code.
The Schism of 1054 marked a split of the Eastern Orthodox away from the ______structure of the western European Christian Church.
______is a political system in which vassals receive a fief from their lord in return for military service.
A ______is a grant of land and the peasants living on it.
______is an economic system in which serfs receive land to work and military protection in return for taxes in the form of agricultural production.
A______is a peasant who is not free to leave the manor.
The______was the Church court created to try heretics.
At the battle of Hastings in 1066 William the Conqueror and his Norman lords captured ______from the Anglo-Saxons.
______is the practice of basing legal rulings on the rulings from precedent cases.
The ______was a document King John was forced by his nobles to sign guaranteeing that he would not deny their traditional property and tax rights.
Charles ______was the leader of the Franks who turned back the Muslim invasion of Europe in 732 at Tours.
______unified Western European portion of the old Roman Empire in the early 9th century.
The ______were an unsuccessful attempt to regain Christian control of the holyland from the Turks in the 12th and 13th centuries. They resulted in considerable cultural diffusion.
______were associations of craftsmen created to regulate quality, price and competition of goods in medieval Europe.
______were legal contracts granted to a group by the king, usually for commercial purposes.
______was the dominant intellectual theory during the Middle Ages.
Leonardo ______is considered by some to be the ultimate Renaissance man. His best-known works are the Mona Lisa and the Last ______.
Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and sculpted ______, a sixteen foot-high statue, from a single block of marble.
Dante, author of the Inferno, was one of the first authors in the Italian ______. (common language)
William ______was the author of dozens of plays in English. The wide accessibility of his work helped to unify the English language.
______was an Italian statesman who’s Prince stands out as an early work of political science.
Johannes Gutenberg was a German metal worker who developed a relatively cheap, efficient, and easy-to-use ______. His invention greatly increased the availability of written work.
______was the dominant intellectual theory during the Renaissance.
Martin Luther’s ______were the ‘spark’ that ignited the Protestant Reformation.
The sale of ______, forgiveness or salvation for your sins, was the Church behavior that provoked the writing of the 95 Theses.
Martin Luther did not want to break from the Catholic Church when he wrote the 95 Theses, rather he wanted to ______the Catholic Church.
John Calvin developed a sect of Protestantism based on the concept of ______, the idea that God already decided your salvation before you were born.
Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church and formed the ______Church in order to annul his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
______was the early center of Italian Renaissance Humanism.
The search for new outlets for trade, the desire to spread Christianity, and the quest for glory all fueled European ______in the 15th and 16th centuries.
The Treaty of Tordesillias divided the ______into Spanish and Portuguese regions of exploration in 1494.
Many nations used ______companies to provide the capital necessary for world exploration.
______were Spanish explorers on a mission to conquer specific regions on behalf of the King.
______is the economic philosophy that a nation’s power comes from the accumulation of wealth in the form of gold- making sure you export more than you ______.
The ______trade attempted to achieve the goals of mercantilism by using slave labor to produce colonial raw materials, while profiting from the domestic production of manufactured goods.
______attempted to reach Asia by sailing west, but instead made discoveries leading to the permanent European settlement of America.
______achieved Columbus goal of sailing west to reach Asia, but demonstrated its impracticality.
Vasco Da Gama was the first European to reach Asia by an all water route.
Francis Drake made his fame by pirating French ships, demonstrating England’s early disinterest with colonies.
The ______was the Spanish effort to drive the Moors out of Spain. It was concluded in 1492.
______is the concept that kings are chosen by God, and thus beyond question or limitation.
______, a French peasant girl, helped unify the French against England in the 100 Years War before her capture and execution.
England lost the 100 Years War to ______, over control of the French throne.
The Edict of ______attempted to end religious civil war in France by granting greater religious freedom to Huguenots.
Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIII’s advisor, was instrumental in the trend toward the ______(political ideology) of French kings.
______was England’s most beloved monarch, establish policy that expanded economic and military strength and civil stability.
The Peace of ______in 1555 granted greater toleration the German Calvinists.
The ______War began over religious issue, but quickly became political, strengthening France and expending German disunity.
Russian Czar Peter the Great attempted to modernize and ______Russia.
Louis XIV built the Palace of ______as a symbol of the king’s power and a tool to control his nobles.
Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws praised the political concept of separation of powers into ______.
Isaac Newton’s laws of motion,______and calculus all supported the concept that unchanging laws govern the universe.
Galileo’s reliance on tools like the telescope and the scientific method to support theories like ______got him into significant trouble with the Church.
______, a Polish astronomer, first advanced the concept of heliocentrism but had difficulty proving it to the satisfaction of other scientists.
John Locke advanced the idea of government by consent to protect life, liberty and ______in his Two Treatises on Government.
Jean Jacques ______advocated government by general will to diminish inequality in The Social Contract.
Adam Smith argued for a ______economy guided by natural law in The Wealth of Nations.
The idea of Enlightened Monarchy held that strong kings could use their power to secure the freedoms being advocated by enlightenment philosophers.
______, an artistic style, reinforced an emphasis on faith, emotion and even mysticism.
A new emphasis on the scientific method focused on the experimentation and testing of hypothesis during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The concepts of ______and natural law hold that individuals have certain rights and freedoms simply by virtue of their existence.
______(Constitutional) Monarchy, in which a king or queen shares power with a legislature, evolved over many centuries in England.
The ______Revolution saw Protestants in Parliament remove the Catholic Stuart kings from the English throne.
Oliver Cromwell led the Puritan Roundheads in the Puritan Revolution, and then led the commonwealth government that replaced the ______.
Habeas Corpus is the right to be brought before a judge and charged with a specific ______if you are being held in jail.
The U.K.’s Prime Minister is the leader of the strongest party in Parliament and serves as the king’s chief advisor.
In the ______Revolution the restored Stuart monarchs were removed from the English throne without any bloodshed.
The ______was a weak French legislature composed of members of the clergy, nobility and common classes.
The French Revolution began in 1789 when commoners created the National ______, proclaiming the right to draft a constitution.
In the ______of ______extremists in control of the revolution executed thousands in an effort to silence critics of the revolution.
General Napoleon Bonaparte rose to prominence as a military leader, then took over France, first as an elected official, then as a ______.
The destruction of the French navy by the British at the Battle of Trafalgar led Napoleon to abandon plans for an invasion of Britain.
The attack on and destruction of the old fortress and prison called the ______marks a symbolic beginning of the French Revolution.
Waterloo in Belgium was the sight of Napoleon’s final defeat in his quest to conquer Europe.
Improvements in ______caused a growth and urban shift in Europe’s population starting in the 18th century.
The English ______movement was supported by Parliament and increased crop yields on individual plots while driving many peasants off of that land.
The______system/______system/______system divided steps in the manufacturing process between several individuals, each working out of their own home.
______unions seek to strengthen the bargaining position of workers by engaging in collective bargaining where representatives negotiate a contract for all employees.
James Watt developed the first safe, efficient ______for industry.
Thomas Edison is famed for many inventions such as the phonograph and ______.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the ______.
Robert Fulton was the first to effectively apply steam engine technology to ______.
______is the domination or control of the political, economic, and/or cultural life of one country by another.
A system in which an imperial nation sends a few governors and Generals to administer a local government and military operated by local officials is called a ______.
In a sphere of ______an imperial nations enjoys and exclusive economic or diplomatic relationship with another country or region.
The building and control of the Suez ______became a focal point of imperial conflict in Egypt.
Sepoys were Indian natives serving in the British ______in India. They rebelled against the British over perceived religious insults.
The Indian National Congress was formed in the 1880’s to achieve independence from Britain. It succeeded by the 1940’s.
______is the legal concept that a visitor to a foreign land is subject to the laws of his home country and not those of the country he is in.
The Meiji gained control of Japanese government in the 1860’s and use economic and political modernization to reduce ______in Japan.
Conflict between Peninsulares (European born Latin American governors) and ______(American born European settlers in Latin America) fueled conflict leading to independence for many Latin American nations.
Toussaint L’Ouverture began a slave uprising that ultimately led the Haitian independence.
Simon Bolivar was the general who achieved independence from Spain for much of South America.
In the ______Doctrine the U.S. stated it would tolerate no new imperial efforts in the Western Hemisphere.
The Congress of Vienna sought to establish stability and restore monarchy to Europe after the conquests of Napoleon.
Balance of Power was the diplomatic concept that nations would form alliances for the purpose of suppressing the development of a single dominant ______in Europe.
The Concert of Europe refers to the ongoing diplomatic efforts of European nations to ensure stability in the aftermath of Napoleon.
Clemens Von Metternich was the Austrian Prime Minister who dominated the Concert.
Chartist attempted to expand the franchise in 19th century Britain.
The Home Rule movement in Ireland attempted to eliminate British control over Irish government
Various revolutions swept through Europe in 1848 reflecting a more liberal, anti-monarchist trend in European politics.
Camilio Cavour was the Sardinian Prime Minister who helped shape the move toward Italian unity.
The Zollverein was a free trade union between German states that helped build German Unity.
Napoleon III came to power in the wake of the 1848 revolution in France but quickly abandoned liberal principals and became an emperor.
Otto Von Bismarck, King William I’s Prussian prime minister was the man most responsible for achieving German political unity.
Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian War was the final step in drawing small German states in to a larger union.
Karl ______was the German philosopher most closely associated with the ideas of revolutionary socialism.
A system of interlocking and opposing ______in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries made the eruption of a major war over a minor issue more likely.
______, the desire to be ruled by people sharing a local culture, fueled political tensions in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Serbia led the Slavic nationalist movement, and groups like the ______violently opposed outside control.
In June 1914, Austria issued the Serbia ______, insisting that Serbia cooperate with Austrian suppression of nationalism and investigation of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. Incomplete compliance with these demands led to Austria’s declaration of ______.
The ______plan was an unsuccessful German plan to attack and quickly remove France from WWI.
Vladimir Lenin led the Bolsheviks, a group of revolutionary Russian ______who eventually gained control of the Russian revolution.
In the Brest-Litovisk Treaty, Lenin and the Communists took Russia out of WWI, leaving the Central powers with a one-front war.
At the conclusion of WWI, U.S. President Wilson pressed for acceptance of his ______, which provided for a non-punishing reconciliation of differences. Most provisions were rejected.
Wilson’s League of ______was created after the War, but rejection by the U.S. senate and lack of enforcement power doomed it to long-term failure.
In the NEP Soviet leaders temporarily permitted free markets for small businesses to help the economy recover.
Stalin’s five year plans set targets for Soviet industrial production that included harsh penalties for failure.
Stalin also pursued collectivization of agriculture.