Download Final Exam Study Guideanswers1-3

Final Exam Study Guide (Part 1-3)
I.
Ancient Civ.
1. What geographic factor do Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China all have in common?
All River Valleys
2. What was the Neolithic Revolution?
Change to Domestication of Animals and Systematic Agriculture and rise of Settled
Communities
3. When does cultural diffusion happen?
Cultural diffusion is the process through which the idea(s) of a particular cultural
are spread (diffused) through an area beyond the culture who came up with the
idea(s). For example, Buddhism was started in India, but spread throughout Asia.
4. What river did ancient Egypt develop on?
NILE
5. What rivers did ancient Mesopotamian civilization develop on?
TIGRIS/EUPHRATES (THE FERTILE CRESCENT)
6. What is the Hammurabi Code?
FIRST WRITTEN CODE OF LAWS/REINFORCE IDEA GOVERNMENT CREATES ORDER
7. What group is credited with the foundation of our modern alphabet?
PHONECIAN (ALTHOUGH SUMER HAD FIRST ALPHABET-CUNEIFORM)
8. What is the Mandate of Heaven?
The Mandate of Heaven is the idea that heaven granted East Asian
emperors the right to rule based on their ability to govern. Heaven
bestows its mandate to a just ruler, the Son of Heaven, and
withdraws it from a despotic ruler, leading to the overthrow of that
rule (Divine Right)
9. What is the Silk Road, and why was trade so important to early civilizations?
The Silk Road, or Silk Route, is a series of trade and cultural
transmission routes that were central to cultural interaction through
regions of the Asian continent connecting the West and East by linking
traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers
from China to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods of time..
10. What are the major characteristics that define a
civilization?RELIGION/WRITING/GOVERNMENT/CITIES/SOCIAL STRUCTURE/ART
11. What is the purpose of religion in civilizations?
Religious beliefs and practices allow for the development of cultural institutions
that often unite people and groups.
It also explains the world.
II.
Ancient Greece and Rome
1. Describe the GEOGRAPHY of Ancient Greece. How did the geography of Greece
impact the political situation of the ancient Greek city-states?
On the Mediterennean, created isolated cities states that had to raid/trade/invade
2. Who was Solon and what is his importance in ancient Athens?
Solon revised early code of laws by Draco, which were mean.
3. What sparked the Golden Age of Athens? Who was Pericles?
Trade and Reform. He expanded direct democracy to new classes of free men
4. What were the orders of Greek architecture?
Doric, Ionic, and Corinthia
5. Who was Alexander the Great and what was his primary accomplishment?
Macedonian who conquered much of the Ancient Mediterrenean and spread
Greek Culture (Cultural Diffusion/Hellensitic Era)
6. What was the Hellenistic Age and how was Hellenistic culture developed?
The Spreading of Greek Culture by Alexander’s spreading of art, culture, architecture
and language.
7. What is considered as Greece’s major contribution to the modern world?
Democracy, Philosophy
8. Describe the TWO MAIN social groups of the Roman Republic. What was the primary
difference between the two groups?
Plebian(Poor)/Patrician(Rich)
9. What is a Republic?
A government in which certain citizens have the right to vote and the leader is not a
king
10. How do the characteristics of Roman Government (the 3 branch system and Checks
and Balances) apply to modern American Democracy?
America adopts these, as well as right to trial/defense/need for evidence, for their
government.
11. Who were Julius Caesar and Octavian, and what was their importance?
The first dictator and then the first Emperor, who began the transition from Roman
Republic to Empire.
12. How did the Roman Emperors feel about the development of Christianity? Why?
Initially they disliked it because it did not recognize the supremacy of the Empire,
which was counter to their views that state comes first.
13. How did the Roman government distract the masses from problems?
Bread and Circuses, free grains and elaborate bloody entertainments in the Coliseum
14. Why did the Roman Empire begin to decline and then eventually fall?
A number of factors including lead poisoning, corruption, barbarian invasions,
immorality and a reliance on mercenaries instead of Roman Soldiers.
15. What are Rome’s greatest legacies to the modern world?
Law, as Roman law becomes the model for English and American Checks and
Balances.
III.
Middle Ages
1. What was Justinian’s Code?
The result of Emperor Justinian's desire that existing Roman law be
collected into a simple and clear system of laws, or "code." It was the first
modern law code and became a model for our own.
2. What was the only Entity to survive the fall of the Roman Empire?
The Catholic Church and the Eastern Roman Empire
3. What is Christendom and the Age of Faith?
Chriustendome is the the medieval and early modern period, during which the
Christian world represented a geopolitical power. The Age of Faith is another
world for the Middle Ages.
4. Head official of the Church of Rome (Catholic church)?
The Pope aka the Bishop of Rome.
5. Who united most of Western Europe into an Empire after the fall of Rome?
Charlemagne united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman
Empire. His rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of cultural and
intellectual activity within the Catholic Church. Both
the French and German monarchies considered their kingdoms to be
descendants of Charlemagne's empire.
6. What were Feudal and Manorial systems?
Both were local systems of government which developed after Rome fell. Feusalism
was based on vassals holding lands for lords with mutual obligations (vassals owed
soldiers and money). Manroialism is a form of sharecropping in which everyone
worked the land for the local lords and gave some to the Lord and kept some.
7. Why was Feudalism necessary after the fall of Rome?
No real government and barbarian threats like the Vikings.
8. Who was William the Conqueror and why is he important to the Middle Ages?
a. A French Duke who in 1066 crossed the English Channel and conquered Britain.
He began a new unified Kingdom there.
9. What Middle Ages document limited the power of Kings? What revolutionary idea did
put forward?
Magna Carta: That a leader could be restricted by a legal document and had to
respect certain rights.
10. What was the Black Death?
The outbreak of Bubomic Plague that killed ¼ to 1/3 of Europe in the 14 th century
11. Name three effects of the Black Death.
People lost some faith in the Church and Religion.
Labor shortages brought higher wages for many workers.
Peasants left their manors, weakening the feudal system
12. What was the 100 Years War? Who fought and what woman was involved?
The Hundred Years' War was a long struggle between England and France over
succession to the French throne. It lasted from 1337 to 1453, Joan of Arc
13. What events/situations caused the decline in Feudalism?
The Crusades and travel during the Middle Ages opened new trade options to England
The Black Death - this reduced the population of England by one third. Labour became a
valuable commodity
More trade saw the growth of more towns
Peasants moved away from the country into towns they were eventually allowed to buy
their freedom
Nobles became weaker - the Kings took back their lands and power
14. What were the crusades and some of its effects on Europe?
a. Holy Wars sponsored by the Church against the Infidels (Muslims) of the Middle
East in order to capture Jerusalem. It fostered cultural diffusion, led to the sack
of Constantinople and opened the West to Importation of Asian luxury goods
created a greater interest in trade
15. What was the Spanish Inquisition and the Reconquista?
The Inquisition was originally intended in large part to ensure that those who
converted from Judaism and Islam stayed converted. This regulation of the faith
of the newly converted was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and
1501ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave.
a period of about 700 years (539 years in Portugal) in the Middle Ages during which
several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking (and
repopulating) the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Al-Andalus Province.