World history notes and summaries

 

 

 

World history notes and summaries

 

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World history notes and summaries

 

World History Chapter 4 Notes (Ch. 1 and 2)

• The Hindu Kush is on the west with the Khyber Pass and the Himalayas on the east. India is a subcontinent of Asia.
• South of the Himalayas is the Indus-Ganges Plain. The Deccan Plateau is north of the Indian Ocean.
• Monsoons are seasonal winds. From October to May, winter ones (NE) blow dry air across the country. Then in June SW winds carry moisture from the ocean, making rain, which people depend on for their crops.

Cities flourished in the Indus Valley.          

• India’s first civilization developed on the rich plains of the northern subcontinent (Indus flooding each year). About 100 settlements were found on the Indus.
• The largest cities were Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Each city was laid out neatly (gridlike streets). Their bricks were standardized. The regular pattern of building suggests careful planning by a strong central government.
• There were huge public storehouses (grain) and a bathhouse and shops.
• People showed concern for sanitation – there were brickfloored bathing rooms where dirty water drained through pipes into gutters. Garbage fell into containers lined up in the streets.
• People lived by agriculture, trade, and crafts. People lived by farming, raising wheat, barley, rice, and cloth. They had domesticated animals. They had hundreds of small clay seals that merchants used to mark shipments of goods (also in Mesopotamia). There were kilns, vats, and metals. Rolling dice was also there.
• The Indus valley declined because: the Indus River changed course, or the people overgrazed and overfarmed and overcut its plants for houses and fuel. The declining civilization could have also been devastated by attacks.

Aryans moved in from the Northwest.

• Aryans, nomads from Central Asia, came from the Khyber Pass and into the Indus Valley. They were different because: they were nomadic herders (wealth = cattle) whereas the Indus people were farmers/artisans/merchants. They abandoned the cities they conquered. The Aryans did not write; their priests memorized poems and hymns.
• The Aryan language is an early form of Sanskrit. People fled the Aryans to the Vindhya Mountains, where they speak Dravidian.
• The Indus and Aryan culture combined to make Hinduism.

Hinduism shaped India’s culture.

• The Aryans passed down their Vedas. They had believed that everything in nature was in some way holy. These were 4 collections of rituals.
• The most important one was the Rig-Veda.
• The Upanishads were a collection of essays of teachers’ comments written by their students. There were four major beliefs: Brahman is One and Many. Everything is tied to Brahman. Atman is the Self/Soul and is an aspect of Brahman. Reincarnation. All wise Hindus must seek to reach a state of perfect understanding (moksha) so that there will be no reincarnation and that you will be merged with Brahman.

Castes Structured Indian Society.

• Brahmins were priests (Brahman’s mouth). Kshatriyas were warriors and rulers (god’s arms). Vaishyas were merchants, landowners, and artisans (god’s legs). Shudras were servants/slaves (god’s feet). These were called jatis, renamed castes by Europeans. There were a lot of subcastes within the caste system.
• The higher the caste, the purer it was. Anyone from a lower caste could contaminate the higher caste.
• Untouchables were outside the caste system. Hindus believed in karma. Each caste had its own dharma, or duties and obligations.

The Buddha sought an answer to life’s pain.

• Gautama was a prince who saw suffering. He joined a homeless band of five wanderers and ate only a grain of rice each day. He meditated and found out the truth.
• Gautama became the Buddha – “Enlightened One”.
• There were Four Noble Truths.
• Everything in life is suffering. The cause of this is because people are self-centered and desire things that will not last. To end this pain, end your desires. People can overcome their desires and attain enlightenment through the Eightfold Path.
• The Eightfold Path consists of: right knowledge, right purpose, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. Then one could attain nirvana.
• Buddhism and Hinduism differed. Buddhists were more simple and they taught in vernacular and they showed concern for everyone.

The Mauryan Dynasty built an empire.

• The Persian King Darius I conquered NW India and experienced centralized control (unity, order, taxes). Alexander the Great then conquered them.
• Chandragupta Maurya stirred up a revolt against a weak king and ruled India. He ruled through force and fear and planted spies everywhere. He slept in a different room every night and made servants taste his meals.
• Ashoka was first as warlike as Chandragupta, but later he ruled according to Buddhism. He proposed edicts that guaranteed righteous treatment and also urged the people of his empire to live righteously. He also employed “officials of righteousness” to look out for the welfare of Indians.
• Ashoka sent missionaries to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and other kingdoms. Indian civlization was established.

 

World history notes and summaries

 

World History Chapter 4 Lessons 3 and 4 Notes

• Chinese civilization was in the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys.
• China was isolated from all other civilizations (Pacific Ocean, Takla Makan, Plateau of Tibet, Himalayas, Mongolia)
• Chinese people had duties to their family and their king/emperor
• The family was central to society, with fixed roles for the whole life.
• Only the elders had power. And among the elders, the man had the power.
• The oldest man was in charge of the family’s goods/possessions and had final approval of the arranged marriages.
• The oldest woman had authority over all the other women.
• A girl’s marriage was arranged between 13-16 years and she moved permanently into the house of her husband.
• The spirits of family ancestors were thought to have the power to bring fortune/disaster to living members of the family. Every family paid respect to its father’s ancestors and made sacrifices.
• Only sons could carry on the traditional religious duties (valued much more)
• The ruler was like a super-grandfather who had supreme responsibility for the welfare of the Chinese people.
• A just ruler had the Mandate of Heaven. The ancestral spirits might show their displeasure by causing a flood, riot, etc. The Mandate of Heaven might pass to another noble family as well.
• The fall of one dynasty and the rise of another was never achieved without bloodshed.
• The dynastic cycle is: strength, decline, and replacement.
• The first family to rule the Middle Kingdom was Shang. The next, the Chou, was the longest ruling. Ch’in was the shortest/ cruelest. Then the Han was the last.
• From the mountains, the Yellow River picks up loess, which is spread over the peasants’ fields. This river is unpredictable. When rains are heavy, the river devours whole villages – “China’s Sorrow”.
• Anyang was one of the capitals of the Shang dynasty. It was built mainly of wood. It stood in a forest clearing. Nobles lived in rectangular wooden houses with thatched roofs while commoners lived in cone-shaped huts/pit-houses.
• Warrior-nobles owned the land and served in the army. Nobles governed the scattered villages within the Shang lands and sent tribute to the ruler.
• Peasants tilled the soil. They only had wooden digging sticks and hoes and sickles. The soil was so rich that it compensated (millet, rice, wheat).
• Craftsmen were a separate class. Bronzework was the leading craft in Shang times. Bronze objects were used in religious rituals and symbols of royal power.
• Chinese learned how to draw the threads from a silkworm’s cocoon and weave them into silk.
• Oracle bones were used to foretell the future (animal bones/tortoise shells). In Chinese writing, each character stands for an idea. There were practically no links between the spoken language and its written one.
• People everywhere in China could learn the writing, even if the dialects differed.
• The disadvantage was the mass number of characters to be memorized.
• The Chou was the longest dynasty. The King’s power was wielded locally by lords, but the king had final authority.
• Barbarians sacked Hao, the Chou capital. Members of the royal family escaped to Loyang, which was the new capital. They “ruled” from there, but actually, nobles could not be controlled. They grew in power and claimed to be kings in their own territory (“time of the warrings state”)
• K’ung Futzu (Master Kung) was Confucius. He studied history, music, and moral character.
• Confucious believed that social order/good government could be restored if society were based around: ruler/subject, father/son, husband/wife, older brother/younger brother, friend/friend.
• Children should practice filial piety, or respect for their parents/elders.
• The Duke of Lu appointed Confucius the Minister of Crime. However, Confucius resigned later when the duke changed his ways.
• Lao Tzu said that nothing in nature strives for fame, power, or wisdom. Nature moves without effort because they follow the Tao (the way) or the universal force that guides all things. Only humans fail to follow the Tao. Arguments are futile. Withdraw from society to live close to nature.
• The Legalists thought that a highly efficient and powerful government was the key to restoring order. A ruler provides rich rewards for people who carry out duties well, but the disobedient should be punished.
• In practice, the Legalists stressed punishment more than rewards (ex: no travel permit). A Rules should burn all writings that might encourage people to think critically about government. They gained favor with a prince of the Ch’in dynasty.
• Ch’in Shih Huang-ti (“first Emperor”) started the Emperor calling. He stopped the petty wars that sapped China’s strength and conquered the southern barbarians. He built a Great Wall along the north and gave China a form of government.
• The First Emperor concentrated on destroying outside rival armies and destroying resistance to his rule from within. The China of the Ch’in dynasty was double the size of the Chou China. He commanded all the nobles to live at the capital city. He wiped out the Lu, Ch’u, Ch’in, etc. borders and drew new boundaries (36 districts, controlled by officials). He ordered the burning of all books that were judged to be useless/harmful. He set uniform standards for everything.
• The Great Wall was from the Yellow Sea to the edge of the Gobi Desert. The wall builders worked because it was the law. The First Emperor’s son was revolted against by the Han.
• There are three reasons the Han has a good reputation. Even though the emperor still had great power, the laws of the Ch’in were revoked and legalist thinkers expelled from the imperial palace. The Han ruled during a time when barbarians rarely threatened the Chinese. Confucius’s teaching were also widespread.
• Wu-ti was the Martial Emperor (drove back Huns). Boundaries were extended to c. Asia, Vietnam, and Korea. He allowed scholars to read Confucius. The most precious were the “Five Classics,” the greatest writings of the Chou times collected by Confucius. The Analects contained his words of wisdom as recorded by his students.
• Wu-ti proclaimed Confucianism the official set of beliefs for his government. He founded a national university to teach the Five Classics and other great writings. Graduates who passed exams on the Classics were chosen for high government positions.
• Wu-ti’s conquests west of China encouraged overland trade. He discovered Persians, and silk linked them.
• After Wu-ti’s reign ended, Chinese lived under debts and taxes. When there was bad harvests/drought, peasants were forced to sell their children into slavery. Other peasants fled to the mountains and became bandits (Red Eyebrows, Green Woodsmen, Yellow Turbans – secret societies).
• There were two periods of Han; the Early Han (206 BC – AD 8) and the Later Han (AD 25-220). Cruel/corrupt officials gained power in government after a short peace.
• Buddhism came to China with graders on the Great Silk Road or on trade vessels from the Indian Ocean. In these bitter times for Chinese, Buddhism was a comfort. As the Han empire collapsed, Buddhism spread.

 

Chapter 12 Lessons 1-3 Notes

• - Sui Wen-ti (north -> south)             brought China under a strong central government – the Sui dynasty. His son Yang-ti was emperor after.
• Yang-ti completed reuniting China. He built the Grand Canal, which tied together the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. It united China politically and economically. The emperor got obedience and tribute from southern China (rice). A lot of peasants died on the job.
• The building of canals, walls, and palaces turned people against the Sui dynasty. They were also overtaxed.
• T’ai-tsung founded the Tang dynasty. It meant “Grand Ancestor”.He conquered the NW lands that China had lost (Turks) and Korea (NE) fell to his son later. He lowered taxes and took lands from landlords and gave them to peasants.
• Wu Chao was the only woman ever to rule China in her own name. She married T’ai-Tsung’s son. She ruled in her sons’ names, then took the throne herself. She won in Korea and lowered taxes and encouraged Buddhism.
• T’ang dynasty’s reform was system for choosing government officials. Candidates had to pass three exams. Any man could take the first one; this favored wealthy people, because they could afford an education. The people who passed the first test were the Budding Scholars, then went to the provincial capitals to take a second exam, then to Ch’ang-an to take the third exam.
• When successful, the scholar became a member of China’s class, scholar-officials (gentries). He was freed from paying taxes or serving in the army. He could grow his fingernails wrong. He could use his privileges to gain land and get a fortune.
• The system was good for bringing an intelligent class, but did not weed out selfish or corrupt officials; poetry and Confucianism was also not always helpful in collecting taxes / supervising canal repairs.
• Ch’ang-an was T’ang’s capital. Evening drums sounded a curfew. It was organized;  walls aligned with the compass. Armies guarded the Great Silk Road, which linked China to the west. China was more open to foreign trade/influence during the T’ang years than any other time.
• Every educated person was expected to write poems. Images from nature, single moment, and brief.
• Li Po and Tu Fu were the most celebrated poets. Li Po’s were about the pleasures of life, while Tu Fu praised orderliness and the Confucian virtues
• Taxes brought hardship to the people but failed to meet the rising costs of government. Peasants fled their villages and formed bandit gangs. Arabs defeated the Chinese at the Battle of Talas. The T’ang dynasty took over, but lost control of the distant parts of  China and began turning away from foreign contacts. It didn’t last long.
• Sung T’ai-tsu started the Sung dynasty. The military declined. They lost to ths Hsia (N) and Tatars. He appeased the Hsia with silver, silk, and tea and the Tatars with silver and silk.
• The Tatars ended up capturing K’ai-feng, the Sung capital. The emperor was prisoner, but his family fled to Hangchow (S). There were no nightly curfews there. Thee was a lot of noise.
• There were two forms of money: “thousand cash” (copper coins with square holes in the center) and paper money. Silk and porcelain were pwnage trading goods.
• The Sung dynasty is marked by painting. They did not use brightly colored paints – they used black.
• The Chinese invented: printing blocks (like stamping on ink), movable type (Pi Sheng), the magnetic compass (magnetized needle floating in a bowl of water) – used to make houses face south and at sea, and gunpowder (fireworks) – also made hand-grenade and small rockets.
• The Sung dynasty lost to the Tatars and the Mongols.
• The Mongols conquered much of the Islamic empire, from the Pacific Ocean to the Adriatic Sea) – west to Russia, east to China, and south to the Himalayas.
• The Mongols’ homeland was north of China’s Great Wall – a steppe. They have been called Huns, Tatars, or Mongols. They lived on horseback and camped in felt circular tents. Mare’s milk was the staple. They were warriors, covering great distances while living off the land. He wielded a bow.
• The Mongols had lived in organized groups led by a khan. Temujin, or Genghis Khan, united all of these separate groups. His father was murdered but he became a minor chieftain. He fought for power, once slaughtering every person in the defeated group who was taller than a cart axle.
• Genghis Khan meant “Ruler of all between the oceans”. He conquered most of Asia. He was a brilliant organizer, grouping his warriors in armies of 10000 and brigades of 1000 and companies of 100 and platoons of 10. Each group had its own commander, so the army could carry out orders swiftly. He always used spies to find out enemy weaknesses before battling them. He used cruelty as a weapon, terrifying his enemies. Many towns surrendered without a fight.
• Genghis’s grandson’s overthrew the Abbasids (Persia), burned Baghdad, conquered Kievan Russia, terrorized eastern Europe, and defeated China’s Sung dynasty (Kublai).
• There were 4 khans – central steppes (Turkestan), Persia, Russia – these owed loyalty to the Great Khan.
• Kublai Khan liked living in cities (Khanbalik / Peking) contrary to old Mongols. He failed to conquer Japan because of a kamikaze even though he had the biggest naval fleet of the time. The Mongols made central Asia safe for trade/travel again.
• Marco Polo was made a trusted official of the Mongol government for 17 years. He returned to Venice but was captured by Genoa. He told his tales in Prison.
• Yuan-chang freed China from the Mongols. He joined one of the secret groups resisting the Mongols. He named himself Ming T’ai-tsu (Grand Progenitor).
• South China grew rice and centered on seaports along the East China Sea and along the Yangtze River. The N. was considered the true heartland of China (Han / T’ang) Ming T’ai-tsu built his capital at Nanking.
• Yung-Lo ruled from Khanbalik and renamed it Peking. It was laid out in the traditional manner of a Chinese walled city. Inside the Imperial City was the Forbidden City (pagoda-like towers). Ming Scholars brought China’s scholar-officials back. He opened public elementary schools. Printing books made learning easier to obtain in China. China had higher literacy rate. Yung-Lo commissioned an encyclopedia of worthy Chinese writings from past ages.
• Yung-Lo supported naval expansion/exploration. China became the greatest naval power in the world. The Grand Fleet were a bunch of huge treasure ships. Cheng Ho led the fleet on its seventh voyage into the Indian Ocean. He pursued diplomatic, commercial, and scientific objectives (s. Asia / e. Africa), expanded China’s trade, and surveyed new sea routes, collected rare animals, and searched for new foods. He brought back cargoes of rare treasures that would please the emperor/amuse the elegant ladies of the imperial court. He was doing this when the Portuguese had begun to explore Africa.
• China’s naval expansion ended when Cheng Ho died, as there could possibly have been no other voice for naval expansion. Rulers thought that naval expansion was frivolous and wasteful. The Chinese also probably thought their goods as superior. China became isolated while European nations expanded and grew.
• Ming officials were corrupt. Government had heavy taxes, but was out of money. Famine caused starvation and banditry. N. E. of China was Manchuria (Manchus). They had a kingdom modeled after China. Peasant and Manchu revolt/invasion combined to bring down the Ming dynasty. The last Ming emperor hanged himself.
• The Manchus formed the Ch’ing Dynasty. They tried to keep themselves separate from Chinese people, assigning government positions to Manchus without exams. There was no intermarriage. Chinese men braided their hair into a long pigtail.

 

World history notes and summaries

 

World History Chapter 12 Lessons 4 and 5 Notes

• Japan means “origin of the sun” (jin peh)
• The nearest Asian mainland part is Korea.
• Japan’s largest of its 3000 islands are: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu
• The first historic mention of Japan in Chinese writings was in AD 300. The early Japanese didn’t have a writing system, so they had no historic records of their own.
• Clans controlled their own territories in Japan (descended from same ancestor).
• The Yamato clan was the leading clan. (emperors of Japan who had no real power over Japan – winners of the clan wars gained control of the emperor and ruled in his name).
• Yamato said that the sun goddess was their ancestor. Other people worshiped other kami (nature gods). This religion, Japan’s first, was Shinto (the way of the gods).
• Koreans brought Buddhism to Japan, where it coexisted with Shintoism.
• Prince Shotoku sent a group of people to study the T’ang dynasty at Chang-an
• The Japanese adopted Chinese writing and painting and roofs. But they couldn’t keep the keep the scholar-official way of government because Japanese still held noble birth in high regard.
• The Japanese built Nara on Honshu to imitate the Chinese. In the 800s, the Japanese broke from the T’ang court.
• Kammu built Heian (Kyoto). There were nobles, the “dwellers among the clouds”. Men and women used cosmetics heavily. Women and men flirted by exchanging poems of romance.
• The women writers of the Heian court were more noteworthy than the males because they were held in high esteem and wrote in kana. Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji.
• The feudal system developed in Japan. The warriors were samurai (those who serve), who lived by bushido (way of the warrior). He had absolute courage and loyalty.
• The Minamato won against the Taira (Honshu). Yorimoto was named shogun (“supreme general of the emperor’s army”). He was like a military dictator – officials, judges, taxes, armies, and roads.
• The Minamato founded the Kamakura shogunate. They worked with the local lords, who were given almost a free hand to rule his own province if he served the shogun loyally. They turned back Kublai Khan’s 2 naval invasions, but couldn’t pay the samurai so they lost prestige and power.
• Daimyo (“great name”), most powerful feudal lords, became nearly independent rulers. Peasants and samurai took up arms, and bandless samurai roamed.
• In the Age of the Country at War, rival armies repeatedly attacked/burned Kyoto. Disorder spread. Pirates burned their own coast and southern China.
• The first Europeans to arrive in Japan were Portuguese. Japan accepted them since they had no strong central government barring/limiting contact with Europeans. They called the Portuguese nampan (southern barbarians). For a bit, the Japanese daimyo thought it was stylish to be like the Europeans.
• Japanese saw the European guns and their craftsmen made the guns.
• Francis Xavier baptized hundreds of converts in Japan. Catholic missionaries saw the Japanese cleanliness.
• Nobunaga used firearms to defeat armies 10x larger than his own. He controlled Tokyo but not Japan. He was assassinated, then replaced by Hideyoshi, who killed the assassin.
• Hideyoshi is regarded as the greatest of the founding fathers. He won control over the Kyoto shogunate. He was never shogun. He ordered a “sword hunt”, where peasants surrendered swords. He crushed any daimyo who defied him and tried to conquer Ming China but was defeated in Korea. He threatened Christians with banishment.
• Ieyasu defeated people at the Battle of Sekigahara. He moved the capital to Edo. He required that the daimyo spend at least ½ their time at Edo. He founded the Tokugawa Shogunate.
• In Ieyasu’s time, Spain conquered the Philippines. He banned Christianity in Japan and banned all Europeans except the Dutch at Nagasaki.
• Japan fell behind in science, technology, and military power, but had a long stable period and a rich and creative culture.
• Zen Buddhists seek spiritual enlighment through meditation – strict discipline of mind and body.
• Japanese followed the Sung dynasty paintings. The greatest master of this style was Sesshu, who was also a Zen monk. Nature played a great role in Japanese art and Zen meditation. Gardens had symbolic meaning, but were very simple.

 

World History Chapter 13 Notes

• The Taj Mahal had a towering dome and four minarets (slender towers). It was built by Shah Jahan to honor his dead queen Mumtaz Mahal.
• Shah Jahan was imprisoned by one of his sons; he had a mirror that was angled so that the emperor good gaze at the reflection of the Taj Mahal.
• When the Mauryan dynasty ended, invaders from Persia, Afghanistan, and c. Asia attacked northern India.
• Chandra Gupta was crowned king of the upper Ganges Valley. The Gupta dynasty ruled until 467. Samudra, the Poet King and “exterminator of all other kings,” extended the kingdom to the mouth of the Ganges River.
• Chandra Gupta II’s empire stretched across Northern India. The Guptas left few written histories since to Hindus, the passage of worldly time from past to present was unimportant. Indians told their past in itihas (“so it was told”). They did not emphasize dates.
• Most of the written history comes from Chinese monks, like Fa-Hsien, who traveled to India to study Buddhism. The government supported free hospitals. He could travel safely as a stranger.
• Learning thrived during the Gupta period. Brahmin people attended school from 9 – 30. The university at Nalanda was famous. There were many advances in science, like inoculation (cow pox prevents smallpox, 1000 years before Europeans), surgery (sterilization, set broken bones, plastic surgery – ears and noses), and a number system (Hindu mathematicians). They understood zero and had a symbol for infinity.
• The greatest literature of India was drama. Shakuntala, written by Kalidasa, was about a king ho loses all memory of his wife. Kalidasa did not write tragedies. Indian dramas focused on eight pure emotions, rasas : laughter, sad, pride, love, anger, fear, loathing, wonder, and a mix.
• Huns made the Gupta empire shrink. Rajputs from c. Asia crossed the Hindu Kush and settled in NW India. India became a land of small kingdoms, ruled by Rajput warrior-kings. The Rajputs converted to Hinduism as Kshatriyas.
• Rajput men lived by a code of honor and bravery. A woman’s highest virtue was devotion to her husband (ex: suttee – burn with her dead husband’s body).
• Three gods in Hinduism: Brahman the Creator, Shiva the Destroyer, and Vishnu the Preserver. Hindu priests said that Buddha was a reincarnation of Vishnu.
• Islam was the newest religion in the 700s. Arab Muslims conquered a lot of the Indus River valley when the Arabs were also conquering Spain.
• Mahmud (Turkish) became sultan of Ghazni (e. Afghanistan). He sacked India’s cities for 17 successive years. They massacred and enslaved thousands; the Rajputs resisted, but their elephants could not go against the Turkish cavalry.
• Muhammad Ghuri was defeated, then returned and conquered city after city. A lot of n. India was conquered by Turkish armies and ruled by them from Delhi. This began the Delhi sultanate. The Turkish were Muslim and treated the Hindus as conquered. The Turkish rulers, though cruel, protected India from the Mongols.
• Tamerlane came from Turkestan. He was descended from Genghis Khan. His capital was in Samarkand, and he terrorized w. Asia. He took over Delhi, and though he was Muslim, he massacred both Hindus and Muslims. He weakened the Delhi sultanate. After he died, nothing remained of his conquests. His successors were weaker than him. Rajputs strengthened their Hindu states, and India became a bunch of rival states and kingdoms again.
• Babur ended the Delhi sultanate. He conquered India with cannon and firepower. He conquered Delhi and Agra. He established the Mughal (Mongol) empire in India. Mughal rule became a byword for wealth and imperial splendor.
• Akbar, Babur’s son, then ruled India when his dad fell down a flight of palace stairs. He fought countless battles against Rajputs and conquered almost all n. India and a lot of the Deccan. Mughals were Muslims. He spared the Rajputs’ lives and invited them to help rule. He married a Rajput princess and entrusted Hindus with high government offices. He removed the special Hindu taxes and stressed fairness. Taxes were dropped in famine. When he became an adult, he stopped believing that Islam was the only true faith. He made a new religion, Din Ilahi (Divine Faith) that combined Hindu, Christianity, and Islam.
• Jahangir (“world-grasper”), married Nur Jahan, the most powerful woman in India’s history (before modern times); she was the true ruler of the empire.
• Aurangzeb and his dad Shah Jahan turned away from Akbar’s policies. Aurangzeb tried to make the empire into Islamic state. He ordered the destruction of Hindu temples and taxed non-Muslims more heavily and removed Hindus from high governmental positions.
• The wealth had a lot of stuff. The poor was the exact opposite, like mud houses with thatched roofs.
• The Muslims’ monotheism kept them from being absorbed by the Hindu majority. Hindus began to dress like Muslims (veil). N. Hindus adopted purdah (keep women in seclusion – no public or meet socially with any outside-family man)
• Some Hindus converted to Islam (equality of all believers).
• Nanak tried to blend Hinduism with Islam – monotheism with mystical union with God. His followers were Sikhs (“disciples”).
• Many Sikh males had the last name Singh (lion) and women had Kaur (lioness).
• Vasco da Gama arrived in India after sailing around Africa. His arrival marked a turning point in India’s history – after 1500, control of the seas became the key to controlling India. The Mughals weren’t really interested in building warships, which proved to be their downfall. The spices Da Gama took back from his voyage were sold in Europe for 27x their price.
• The Portuguese set up strong bases at strategic points all along the major Asian sea lanes. Albuquerque seized Goa (w. India) in 1510. The next year, his fleet sailed to the East Indies and occupied Malacca (Malay peninsula), then Hormuz. From these and Zanzibar (e. Africa), the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean trade.
• Southeast Asia is east of India across the Bay of Bengal. It includes Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Brunei.
• Many groups of people passed through Southeast Asia on routes linking Asia and the Pacific islands. So the region has a lot of languages/cultures. Like Burma, which has 100.
• On the main peninsula, five rivers flow from the north and cut valleys to the sea. Between the valleys rise hills and mountains. Southeast Asia lies on the most direct sea route between India and China. The key to political power is control of trade routes and harbors (pirates – fleets to protect merchants, who were charged high fees)
• Indian traders were attracted to the gold, fragrant woods, precious jewels, and spices of the Malay Peninsula.
• Buddhist missionaries were active in Gupa times. Hinduism also spread( Shiva, Vishnu); the caste system never became important. Indian influence spread to most areas of culture, like poets writing in Sanskrit (gods/warriors). Architecture. Music and dancing. Brahmins (royal officials).
• Trade furthered cultural contacts; some Indians settled permanently.
• Khmers built the longest-lasting empire of the region, coming from n. Cambodia and moving south along the Mekong River.
• Jayavarman II was the greatest Khmer king. Its greatest time was the Angkor period, named after their capital. There was a temple to Vishnu, Angkor Wat. Women had high status in the Khmer empire. They ran market stalls and those who were well educated (upper class) sometimes served as royal judges.
• Only women were allowed within the palace, so the king had only women guards and servants.
• After the Angkor period, the Khmers declined. The Mongols sacked Hanoi, Vietnam in 1257. The Khmers fell to the Thais (borders of China), who grew stronger as the Khmers grew weaker.
• Muslim traders from Arabia/India introduced Islam. Islam spread into Indonesia.
• Only Vietnam fell under China’s rule, and thus was heavily influenced by China. The Vietnamese never thought of themselves as Chinese, keeping their own language and customs, and frequently rebelling against their Chinese rulers. Vietnam broke away during China’s T’ang dynasty.

 

World history notes and summaries

 

World History Chapter 14 Les. 1 and 2 Notes

• Nile cataracts limited contacts between Egypt and land south of Sahara (sub-Saharan) Africa.
• Africa is the second largest continent after Asia, 20% of Earth’s land surface.
• There are five distinct regions.
• The northern and southern coasts are bordered with fertile land. They have moderate rainfall/warm temperatures and have hot / dry summers. They are dense.
• Deserts make up 1/3 of African land. Sahara and Kalahari and Africa’s two largest deserts. The Sahara is from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Sahra means “desert” in Arabic. The Sahara is mostly a wasteland of scattered rocks/pebbles. It has about 90 inhabited oases. Caravans usually took about 2 months to cross it.
• Dry grasslands are close to the deserts and inland from the east coast with a semiarid climate. It’s only good for grazing. This climate has drought, which causes people and animals to suffer. Overgrazing is bad. The light soil dries out and begins to turn to desert, desertification. This is greatest in the Sahel, which lies south of the Sahara and reaching from the Atlantic to Ethiopia.
• Savannas (tall grass plains) cover 2/5ths of the continent. Rainy seasons alternate with dry ones. Farming is difficult because heavy rains can strip minerals from the soil. Then the dry season comes, and the ground turns hard and dusty. Savannas support the largest share of Africa’s population. Farmers could raise millet (grain) and rice.
• The rain forest straddles the equator. It makes up about 1/5th of the continent. The Zaire river, 2nd longest, twists slowly through it. There is little undergrowth in Africa’s rain forest’s floors. This is partly because of the mahogany/teak trees that form a canopy, which prevents 98% of sunlight.
• The deadliest forest animal is the tsetse fly, which hosts trypanosomes, which is deadly to livestock and possibly humans (sleeping). Historians think that its presence forced Muslim missionaries/traders to avoid the rain forest to protect their horses/camels. They also prevented farmers from using cattle/donkeys/horses.
• Sub-saharan Africa is mostly a high plateau that drops to a coastal plain. Its altitude offsets the heat of the tropics. The edge is a barrier. Its rivers surge over dangerous rapids/falls before reaching the sea. Its coastline is very smooth with few deep harbors or bays. Distances and deserts and rain forests limit travel and trade.
• Nok (c. Nigeria) arose. They were skilled farmers and learned to use iron to make tools and developed art. Maybe early Bantus migrated from Nok to the southeast.
• The first major kingdom of sub-Saharan Africa was Kush, in the middle region of the Nile valley. It was dominated by Egypt for 1000 years. Egyptians raided and occupied Kush. They taught the Kushites of their culture through trade.
• Kushites adopted god-king, hieroglyphs, and pyramids.
• Piankhi conquered Egypt and became its 25th dynasty. But later on, a Kushite king provoked Assyrian rulers who wanted to conquer Egypt. Bronze + stone proved no match against iron. The Assyrians conquered Egypt.
• The Kushites moved to Meroe near the Nile, which was far enough from Egypt and near enough to the red sea for the trade among Africa/Arabia/India.
• Meroe had a lot of iron ore, so it became a major manufacturer of iron weapons/tools. Merchants transported the goods to the Red Sea and exchanged the goods for jewelry, cloth, lamps, and bottles. Mineral wealth from Meroe and luxury goods from India/Arabia. They had nice palaces and pyramids. They wore gold jewelry and collected pottery.
• Axum (King Ezana) conquered Kush. Axum was the capital of Ethiopia (e. Africa). It was rich because of controlling trade between the African interior/Red Sea (Persians/Arabs). Axum was Christian – Ethiopia was not conquered so it wasn’t converted. The Arab conquests ended the contact between Ethiopia’s kings and w. Europe and the Byzantines.
• Alvares journeyed into the Ethiopian Highlands and found churches that were hollowed out of solid rock (Lalibela). They were carved into bedrock below ground.
• Trade was a vital factor in the growth of cities on the coast of Kenya and Tanzania. More than 35 African city-states like Malindi, Mombasa, and Zanzibar, prospered along the East African coast. Most came from inland Africa and spoke languages from Bantu. On the coast were Arab Muslims who fled their homeland to escape political enemies.
• Bantu and Arab intermarried and formed Swahili – “people of the coast”. Islam became the major religion of the coastal cities. The language was mostly Bantu first. Most of the Swahili lived by farming, fishing, and trading. Their houses were mud. The Swahili ports had vessels from Arabia, India, and China.
• The most common ships in Swahili ports were dhows (triangular-sailed). It was large to carry profitable stuff and sturdy enough to brave the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean.
• Arabs acted as middlemen in the Indian Ocean (Asia -> Africa) like in the ports of Kilwa, Mombasa, and Milindi
• A lot of the gold and ivory in the Swahili trade came from Zimbabwe, between Zambezi and Limpopo. Its location provided protection from Muslim influence. Its rulers built Great Zimbabwe – “stone enclosure”/”dwelling of the chief”. They are stone structures that towered over the savanna. Its power was shattered by the arrival of the Portuguese.
• The wealth of the savanna empires was based on gold and salt. The gold came from a forest region south of the savanna and Senegal rivers. They dug gold from shafts or sifted it from streams. At least 2/3rd of the world’s gold came from Africa. The Sahara contained lots of salt.
• Traders carried salt from the Taghaza to the Sahara by camel caravan. Gold was brought north from the forests. The Merchants met in trading centers *like Jenne and Timbuktu. Tax collectors watched them exchange goods.
• Kings taxed the gold-salt trade in exchange for royal guards keeping peace in the markets. Officials made sure that all traders weighed goods fairly and did business lawfully.
• The silent trade was near the Niger River. Arab traders piled salt there and pounded on drums, which invited the gold merchants. They’d ride off a few miles and the gold people would come. Gold would come and leave some salt and come back. Then the Arabs would come and decide if enough gold had been offered. If not, they beat their drums again.
• The trade routes lay across the savanna farmed by the Soninke people. The Soninke King, the Ghana, demanded a heavy tax in gold/salt from the Arab traders. The Ghana demanded taxes/gifts from the chiefs of surrounding lands in exchange for letting them in peace to rule their own people.
• Ghana’s king’s strength depicted the size of Ghana’s territory. Most of history was controlling land the size of Texas.
• Al-Bakri depicted Ghana. Only the king could own gold nuggets, which kept prices from falling. Ghana was chief priest, judge, and military commander.
• Ghana’s northern borders were conquered by Muslim Berbers from the Almoravid kingdom. The gold-salt trade was badly disrupted by the war. Ghana never regained its power.
• Miners found new gold deposits in the east, so the most important trade routes always shifted eastward. Mandingo controlled the gold trade, ruled by Sumanguru. He had high taxes and cruel advisers. Sumanguru spared Sundiata, the 12th son of a rival, because he was badly crippled.
• Many warriors joined Sundiata. Sundiata killed Sumanguru. Sundiata moved the capital to Niami and promoted agriculture and reestablished the gold-salt trade, starting the Mali empire.
• Mansa Musa was Muslim. He made a pilgrimage to Mecca. Mali was a powerful empire, with a 100,000 man army (10,000 cavalry) that maintained order and protected Mali from attack. Royal officials were fair and efficient.
• Ibn Battuta visited Sulayman, who visited every country in the Islamic world. You could travel safely without fear of crime. Mali insisted that their children study the Koran. The trade routes shifted east again. The Songhai replaced the Mandingo as controllers of the trade routes.
• The Songhai had two good kings – Sunni Ali (ruthless conqueror) and Askia Muhammad, who set up an efficient tax system and chose able officials. Timbuktu flourished; it had a famous university. El Mansur conquered the Songhai with guns.
• The collapse of the Songhai brought an end to the 1000 year period where powerful savanna states ruling w. Africa. The center of political/economic influence shifted to the forest kingdoms that developed along the Niger River delta (like Benin).
• Family organization was central. They were organized in lineage, who believed they were descended from a common ancestor. It included dead people and to-be people. Sometimes lineages tok the place of kings/rulers, like Tiv. They were very loyal. They helped members, negotiated marriages, and supported members, and had religious duties.
• Women worked – planting and harvesting (sometimes commerce/trade). Men usually dominated government, but women could become the head of state. Sometimes children traced their ancestors matrilineally. Young men inherited land/wealth from their mother’s brothers.
• Religion blended monotheism and polytheism. Above the lesser gods was a Supreme Spirit, thought to be too powerful and distant to listen to human needs.
• Spirits of ancestors was important – they were guardians of traditions/values/laws. They could make trouble or bring good fortune depending on the family’s honor.
• The diviner called on good/evil spirits for aid when there was an illness or a village and used religious rituals to cure sickness or deal with anger.
• Muslim traders brought the Muslim religion to many parts of sub-saharan Africa. African religions survived also.
• Arts linked religion, politics, and everyday life. Artists used wood. They worked metal (gold/bronze) sculpture.
• Yoruba tribe made famous African sculptures. Ife (forest) made bronze heads that were wonderfully natural and lifelike. A second Yoruba group formed Benin, which made bronze plaques that hung in the palace of the oba (king). (People commonly seen at royal court)
• Polyrhythmic music. Dancers wore masks to honor spirits/family ancestors. They bound a community and enabled it to pass on its heritage.
• Most African languages had no writing systems. Griots were the record keepers. They memorized the great deeds of past kings, family histories, and important events. Young griots studied with the older ones.

 

World history notes and summaries

 

Chapter 14 Lessons 3-4 Notes

• People did not know about the Americas and vice versa because of oceans.
• North America is the 3rd largest continent. It stretches from the Arctic Ocean to Panama’s border with Columbia. It includes the Aleutians and the West Indies.
• Its largest mountains are the Rockies (Alaska à Mexico).
• South America is smaller and is farther east. It has the Andes, 2nd largest mountains. The Amazon contains more water than the next 6 largest rivers.

The first Americans came from Asia.

• Ice ages, long period of cold climate, helped shape the landscape/history of N.A.
• Glacier absorbed water, causing the ocean water levels to drop. Certain lands were exposed.
• Beringia appeared in the Bering Strait and connected Asia with N. America. Siberian hunters followed caribou and bison over the land bridge.

à Farmers learned how to raise corn.

• The first Americans were hunter-gatherers. They developed methods for agriculture.
• Americans in the Tehuacan Valley learned how to plant/harvest corn. It is a particularly productive crop. The crops they grew provided a stable food supply.

Many cultures developed in North America.

• The Anasazi (Ancient Ones) lived in the valleys/canyons of the American southwest.
• They lived in pueblos (villages) along the Chaco Canyon in NW New Mexico. Pueblo Bonito was the most important one. The Anasazi quarried sandstone from canyon walls with human labor and used mudlike mortar to construct walls.
• There was a drought around 1200 and the Anasazi vanished.
• The Hopewell built a culture in s. Ohio. The Ohio River provided a central route for trade. They carved stones into pipes shaped like animals and hammered sheets of copper into eagles and sliced mica into bird claws.
• The Hopewell buried many of their finest products inside earthen mounds. The Hopewell declined and disappeared.
• The Mississippians settled along the Mississippi River. They grew corn, squash, and beans.
• Cahokia became the Mississippians’ main center of culture. It was located near the joining of the MS and Ohio rivers, where traders crisscrossed. The ruler was an agriculture leader (announce time for planting/harvesting) and had absolute power.
• Wars, disease, and overpopulation ended Cahokia.

Great civilizations arose in the Americas.

• Alva discovered the unopened coffin of an ancient Peruvian ruler. They were the richest treasures yet found in the Western Hemisphere. People said it was “New World King Tut.”
• Alva and his team of archaeologists now work in Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru.

Andean civilizations began along the coast.

• Peruvian people’s civilizations were based on fishing since its coastline is bordered by desert. The Humboldt Current is filled with plankton that provide food for fish.
• Chavin was based upon a jaguar god. It was named after the town where the chief temple to the god was found. It declined in 100 BC but laid a foundation for the Moche.

The Moche built a wealthy empire.

• The Moche built an extensive system of irrigation canals that turned the desert into farmlands (corn, avocado, peanuts). The desert is broken by rivers that are fed by rainfall in the Andes.
• An elite-class of warrior-priests rose to power, living and worshipping in pyramid-shaped temples over rivers. They were wealthy.
• The Moche never had a written language; we know about Moche life from their pottery drawings. They reveal that the Moche had a powerful army and show healing patients, weaving cloth, and musicians playing pipes.
• The Moche mysteriously declined after 700 AD.

The Inca unified the Andes.

• After Moche collapsed, a number of groups divided Peru into small states. The Inca ruled over Cuzco, a small town.
• Pachacuti and his son Topa conquer an empire that stretched for 2500 miles along S. America’s western coast.
• The emperor claimed that he was the living Son of the Sun and possessed absolute authority.
• Teams of runners relayed official messages – 150 mi. day, carrying quipu, a series of knotted strings. The quipu tallied births, crops, herds, and deaths. Only specialists could decipher the strings/knots.
• The Inca developed special methods of farming, like terraces to prevent erosion Corn and potatoes were the two main crops. Potatoes are native to the Andes and yields almost twice as much food as an acre of grain.

Cuzco became the Inca capital.

• All Inca roads lead to Cuzco. It was a religious/political center and took the shape of a gigantic puma. Huge fortress on rocky hill. Magnificent palace. Royal robes from bat fur and hummingbird feathers.
• Cuzco’s most splendid building – Temple of the Sun – was dedicated to the sun god Inti and that gold and silver should be used to glorify their gods – sheets of gold that reflected the sun’s rays.
• 20-foot-wide highway was carved through steep mountain walls. They believed that their city was the “navel of the world.”

The Olmec built a civilization.

• The Olmec settled in the rain forest of Mexico’s Gulf Coast. They slashed/burned trees to clear land for settlements. They carved jade that were half jaguar/half human. They built many ceremonial centers containing large pyramids surrounded by altars.
• There were 13 colossal stone heads weighing up to 20 tons each.

The Maya built great cities.

• The Maya settled in the rainforests of Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula. They built at least 80 independent cities, built to uphold ritual and rule.
• A warlord and an aristocracy of priests and nobles governed each city. They wore golden jaguar skins and headdresses topped with quetzal feathers. They sometimes wore a belt containing enemy skulls.
• Cacao beans served as the Mayan currency.
• Five pyramids dominated Tikal, the most important Mayan city. They believed that each day was a living god whose behavior could be predicted.
• 260-day religious calendar consisting of 20 13-day months and a 365-day solar calendar consisted of 18 20-day months with a separate period of 5 days . These calendars were used to help determine when to plant, attack enemies, or crown new rulers. They were based on observation of the planets, sun, and moon.  They understood the concept for 0.
• The Maya invented 800 glyphs to record their history. They disappeared.

Teotihuacan (the abode of the gods) rose and fell.

• They lived in the Valley of Mexico (NE of Mexico City). They were located near obsidian. It was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. There was a Pyramid of the Sun.
• It abruptly declined early in the 8th century.

The Aztec rose to power.

• They were warlike invaders. The war god Huitzilopochtili ordered them to build a city where an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its mouth. They saw it in Lake Texcoco. They then built Tenochtitlan – the place of the prickly-pear cactus.
• The Aztec king was taking tribute from their neighbors that they conquered.
• Tenochtitlan was built on small islands in Lake Texcoco, and causeways connected the city with the mainland.
• The Aztec king was a religious and political leader. The Aztec thought that the sun needed human blood to survive, and if they didn’t, it would stop shining and all life would perish. The kings and high priests prevented this by sacrificing their captives.

 

World history notes and summaries

Chapter 21 Notes

The French monarchy faced a crisis.

• France in 1789 was one of the most powerful European nations. It owed its debt to the extravagance of the king (such as Marie Antoinette paying 100,000 / year for clothes) and funding the American revolution.
• There was much competition in trades, especially with Britain (Hundred Years War, Norman invasion).
• Enlightenment ideals had popped up about liberty and freedom. The people called for this liberty and freedom, especially since the American Revolution proved that you could win a war over Enlightenment ideals.
• Benjamin Franklin speaks to French scholars about the Enlightenment.
• King Louis XVI didn’t believe in torturing political prisoners, so there were only 7 prisoners (dissenters) in prison at the time of the breakin of the Bastille.

The Old Regime had three estates.

• The French were divided into 3 large social classes (estates). They met as the Estates General.
• First Estate – Roman Catholic clergy (High positions)
• They held about 10% of all the land in France. Archbishops, bishops, and abbots were enormously wealthy, although parish priests were poor.
•  They paid direct taxes, but gave the government a “free gift” of 2% of their income.
• Second Estate – nobles
• They were less than 2% of the population, but owned about 20% of the land. They held all the highest offices in the church, the army, the government, and the law.
• They also did not pay taxes.
• Third Estate – commoners
• There were three groups: The bourgeoisie, the urban lower classes, and the peasant farmers.
• The third class paid the taxes, including the gabelle (salt), taille (land), corvee (forced labor on roads), mill (grain), and rent to the landlord. They also paid feudal dues to nobles, tithes to the church, and royal taxes to the king’s agent.
• The bourgeoisie were members of the upper middle class, like lawyers, doctors, and bankers. Some of them were as rich as nobles.
• These people wore culottes, tight-fitting knee breeches.
• They were treated as peasants by the law. They wanted social status and political power equal to their wealth.
• The urban lower classes, like tanners, peddlers, and cooks, were poorer than the bourgeoisie.
• They were called the sans-culottes, since they didn’t wear knee breeches; rather, they wore loose-fitting trousers.
• The poor people often went hungry.
• They mostly ate 3 pounds of bread a day. If bread costs rose, then they stole what they needed.
• During this time in France, there was a famine: grain harvests failed, and the bread prices doubled.

Louis XVI was a weak ruler.

• He was good-hearted, generous, but very indecisive.
• His wife, Marie Antoinette, came from Austria, France’s longtime enemy. She also spent extravagantly on gowns.
• Louis wanted to avoid bankruptcy by taxing the nobles, who refused to pay taxes unless the king called a meeting of the Estates General, which had not met since 1614.

The National Assembly took power.

• Each estate had one vote, for or against a given proposal. The First and Second Estates could therefore outvote the Third Estate; however, no law would be passed since the decision had to be unanimous.
• The Third Estate demanded for all three estates together and have all their members’ votes count equally.
• The king ordered the estates to follow the old rules.
• Sieyes was the leading spokesman for their view point. He said to change the Third Estate’s name to the National Assembly, which would pass laws and reforms in the name of the French people.
• The Third Estate made a Tennis Court Oath in an indoor tennis court, where they would continue to meet as the National Assembly until the government was more fair.

Parisians stormed the Bastille.

• Relenting to the Third Estate, he ordered the entire Estates General to meet as one lawmaking body. He also sent orders for his mercenary Swiss troops to march toward Paris, since he could no longer trust French soldiers.
• The bourgeoisie feared that the King was doing this to break them up. They wanted to protect themselves, so the Bastille was stormed because it had a supply of gunpowder, enough to defend Paris and the National Assembly.
• The fall of Bastille forced Louis to not call the troops anymore. It reduced the king’s power and saved the National Assembly. It was also a symbolic act of revolution for the French people.

The Great Fear swept France.

• Rumors circulated; rebellion came from Paris to the countryside. People thought that nobles were hiring brigands to terrorize the peasants.
• The Great Fear, a wave of panic, made peasants band together. However, they became brigands themselves, breaking into nobles’ houses and tearing up the legal papers that made them pay feudal dues. They also burned the houses.
• The anger turned against the king and queen. Women demanded that Louis and Marie Antoinette come to Paris to do something about the bread. They went to the palace of Versailles.
• Louis came out, and never returned to the palace again.

The Assembly adopted many reforms.

• “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” became the slogan of the revolution.
• The Assembly adopted A Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. It stated that Mean are born and remain free and equal and rights and guaranteed citizens equal justice and freedom of speech.
• The Assembly created a limited, constitutional monarchy like the British government. An elected assembly held the lawmaking power. The king and his ministers held the executive power to enforce laws.
• France was divided into 83 districts (departments). A council of locally elected officials administered each department.
• The Catholic Church lost its lands and political independence. The government took over church lands. Property owners elected priests and paid as state officials. This made the French peasantry rally, driving a wedge between the peasants and the bourgeoisie.
• The king tried to escape to the Austrian Netherlands, but a postmaster recognized him from paper money and made the king go back under guard. The king thus discredited himself and the plan for the constitutional monarchy.
• The National Assembly stepped down (after completing its new constitution) and was followed by the Legislative Assembly.

France was split into factions.

• The Legislative assembly split together into three general groups which sat together in its own part of the meeting hall.
• On the right were the conservatives, the left the radicals, and in the middle the moderates (centrists).
• There were people on the extreme right, hoping to undo the revolution and restore the Old Regime – émigrés (nobles who had fled during the peasant uprisings). They lived abroad.
• On the extreme left, sans-culottes set up a new city government with representatives from each of Paris’s 48 sections (Paris Commune).
• France went to war with Austria.

• Marie Antoinette’s brother threatened to attack France.
• Radicals hoped that the war would give them a chance to spread their revolution across all of Europe. They declared war, and then Prussia joined Austria against France.
• Prussia threatened to destroy Paris if the revolutionaries harmed the royal family, which provoked a mob, who attacked the palace where the royal couple was staying. They imprisoned the couple in a stone tower.
• The Legislative Assembly set aside the Constitution of 1791 and declared the king deposed. It called for the election of a new legislature, the National Convention.
• A French army defeated the Austrians and Prussians.

The radicals executed Louis XVI.

• The middle class joined political clubs, the most radical of which was the Jacobin Club, which wanted to remove the king and establish a republic.
• Georges Danton was a leader of the Paris Commune and part of the Jacobin club, who had a talent for speechmaking. Jean Paul Marat was thin and high-strung; however, he edited a newspaper called The Friend of the People, which called for 5-6 hundred heads cut off to rid France of the revolution’s enemies.
• The National Convension abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic. Male citizens could vote and hold office. They found Louis XVI guilty of treason and beheaded him.

France created a citizen-army.

• British, Spain, Portugal, and Prussia formed the first coalition.
• The Convention drafted men between the ages of 18 and 40 into the army. Women could not form their own regiments, but fought beside men in French armies.
• European armies were made of mercenaries, but the new French army was patriotic.

Robespierre began the Terror.

• The Jacobins had enemies within France – peasants who didn’t want the beheading of the king, priests who would not accept control, and rival leaders.
• Maximilen Robespierre “the Incorruptible” never enriched himself at the public expense, dressing in the old style.
• He tried to build a Republic of Virtue, trying to wipe out every trace of France’s monarchy and nobility. For example, families named Leroy (king) had to change their names.
• Decks of cards had liberties, equalities, and fraternities in place of face cards.
• They divided the year into 12 months of 30 days and gave each month a new reasonable name (like October à Brumaire/Fog Month). The calendar had no Sundays because religion was “old-fashioned and dangerous”.
• The Paris Commune closed all churches in the city, and France soon followed.
• Robespierre formed the Committee of Public Safety and decided who should be judged an enemy of the republic. He tried and guillotined people. Marie Antoinette was beheaded.
• The enemies who troubled Robespierre were fellow revolutionaries who challenged his leadership, liked Danton. People with flimsy charges were also killed.

Robespierre fell from power.

• Members of the National Convention knew that they weren’t safe. They turned against Robespierre and demanded his arrest. No one tried to save him, and he too was guillotined.
• This was called the Thermidorian reaction (Thermidor = heat = July).

Moderates ruled in the Directory.

• Moderate leaders of the National Convention drafted a new constitution, which put power in the hands of the upper bourgeoisie. It called for a 2 hour legislature and an executive body of five men (Directory).
• They were corrupt, but gave France order. They also found Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon rose through the army.

• He was born in Corsica, where French troops had invaded. He was sent to a military school outside Paris where he was snubbed.
• He became a lieutenant and joined the army of the revolution. His gunners and he caused thousands of royalists to flee the palace where the National Convention met.
• Bonaparte won battle after battle against Austria and Sardinia. He conquered Milan and made it the capital of an Italian republic dominated by France.

--> Napoleon seized power in France.

• Napoleon occupied one chamber of the Directory with 500 of his troops and drove out its members. They voted to end the Directory and turned over power to 3 officials (consuls).
• He had dictatorial powers as the First Consul of the French Republic (coup – seizure of power).

A Second Coalition attacked France.

• Bonaparte’s Italian campaign forced Austria and Prussia to make peace, although British navy continued its attacks against French shipping.
• The Second Coalition was made: Britain, Austria, and Russia.
• The Austrians and Russians made peace.
• The British signed a peace treaty at Amiens.

Napoleon became emperor.

• The Three Consuls held a plebiscite, an election where all citizens vote yes/no, in order to approve a new constitution. They voted overwhelmingly for Bonaparte’s, which gave all real power to him.
• He held another plebiscite that made him consul for life, and then another to make himself emperor: he was crowned in Notre Dame Cathedral.

Napoleon restored order.

• He became Emperor Napoleon I, an absolute monarchy. He kept many of the changes of the revolution.
• He balanced the government’s budget and set up a national bank. People could buy bread.
• Emigres returned to France, and they were welcomed as long as they behaved themselves politically. He promoted officials according to merit.
• He signed a concordat with Pope Pius VII. He recognized Catholicism as the fait of the majority of Frenchmen. The government appointed Catholic bishops, but the bishops could appoint parish priests. There was freedom of religion.
• The pope stopped trying to take lands that the revolution had taken from the church and accepted the policy of religious tolerance.
• The Napoleonic Code abolished the three estates and granted equal rights before the law to everyone. Women could not hold property and restored slavery in the Caribbean. It applied to everyone but Napoleon.

Napoleon extended France’s power.

• He took over part of Italy, set up a puppet government in Switzerland, and threatened Great Britain, who declared war.
• He wanted to “modernize” all of Europe.
• A Third Coalition – Russia, Britain, Austria, Sweden, and Prussia, was formed.
• In the Battle of Ulm, the French trapped Austrians and entered Vienna.
• In the Battle of Austerlitz, he pwned Russians and Austrians, forcing the Austrian emperor to make peace.
• In the battle of Jena, he pwned Prussia and occupied Berlin.
• In the Battle of Friedland , he pwned the Russians. Czar Alexander I, grandson of Catherine the Great, agreed to divide Europe between them (Peace of Tilsit), allowing Napoelon to dominate Europe as east as Poland.
• In the Battle of Trafalgar, he lost against Admiral Horatio Nelson at sea. He did not invade Britain as a result.

Napoleon dominated Europe.

• The only major European countries outside Napoleon’s power were Britain, the Ottoman empire, Russia, and Sweden.
• Napoleon annexed lands to France, including the Dutch republic and Italian states.
• There were lands independent in name but controlled by him, like Spain, Warsaw, and some German-speaking kingdoms in Central Europe (The Holy Roman Emperor was forced to step down). They had their traditional capitals.
• Russia, Prussia, and Austria were loosely attached to France.

Napoleon set up the Continental System.

• First misjudgment: cut off all trade with retain. He said that no state could import British goods, setting up a blockade. However, smugglers managed to bring in cargo from Britain; it merely weakened trade.
• Britain responded with its own blockade; they stopped ships and forced them to sail to a British port to be searched/taxed. They were better than the French at this. This angered Americans and caused the War of 1812.

Guerillas fought the French in Spain.

• Second misjudgment: Make the brother the king of Spain.
• Spanish guerillas used hit-and-run tactics to fight the French army. Britain sent troops.
• Napoleon lost 300,000 men in his Peninsular War.
• Nationalism rose up in conquered countries.

Napoleon invaded Russia.

• Third misjudgment: Invade Russia because the Czar kept selling grain to Britain.
• Napoleon’s Grand Army, which consisted of people from all over Europe, went into Russia, but no Russian army came.
• The Czar made the troops retreat toward Moscow and burned grain fields and slaughtered livestock (scorched-earth policy).
• Moscow was burned. The army stayed in the city for 5 weeks, but the czar never made peace. Russian raiders attacked his army in the snow. Only 10,000 soldiers remained.

A coalition defeated Napoleon.

• Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden joined forces in the Grand Alliance.
• He raised another army and faced his enemies outside Leipzig. He lost the Battle of Leipzig (Battle of Nations), his army lost, and his empire crumbled.
• Alexander I drew up surrender, which banished Napoleon to Elba off the Italian coast.

Napoleon returned briefly.

• Louis XVIII returned to the throne. Napoleon escaped from Elba and rallied the French. Volunteers came into his army, and he was emperor of France. The king fled to the border.
• The Duke of Wellington’s army is attacked near the village of Waterloo. The Prussians come as backups.
• This ended Napoleon’s last bid for power (Hundred Days).
• The British shipped Napoleon to St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where Napoleon wrote his memoirs and then died of a stomach ailment.

 

World history notes and summaries

 

World History Chapter 22 Notes

• Middlesbrough was one of the towns that the Industrial Revolution, a period of increased output of goods made by machines and new inventions, changed.
• The period before the Industrial Revolution was noted by handmade goods/labor.
• Waterpower used to be used for tiny grain mills. Steam engines replaced waterpower.
• Industrialization, the process of developing machine production of goods, had detriments and benefits.
• The Industrial Revolution began in the 1760s in the lowland parts of e. England and s. Scotland.

Changes in farming led the way.

• The agriculture revolution joined the Industrial revolution.
• The enclosure movement – Wealthy landowners bought up small farms. Then they rented fields to tenant farmers who worked the land. They sometimes fenced it. This was called enclosure. The villagers who shared fields were traditional.
• However, the landlord experimented. They applied a scientific approach to farming, keeping records of their methods. They could then compare annual harvests.
• Jethro Tull invented the seed drill, which let farmers sow seeds in well-spaced rows at specific depths instead of scattering it.
• Crop rotation – Turnip (Charles) Townshend found that crop rotation, such as wheat, and then turnips, which wore out and restored the soil respectively, made fallow fields obsolete.
• Improved livestock – Robert Bakewell only let his best animals breed, increasing the weight and taste of his sheep. The average weight of a slaughter steer doubled in 86 years from 370 to 840 pounds. Sheep rose from 28 to 100.
• Effects on population – Better livestock + Rising crop production = more food, more nutrition
• However, at the same time, many small farmers were forced off the land. They went to the colonies or into the cities.

A rise in population helped industry.

• The population of Europe began to rapidly increase. It doubled in just one century, though it was very slow before.
• There are some debated causes. New farming methods increased supply and improved health. Edward Jenner discovered a smallpox vaccine. Large supplies and better living conditions meant that people lived longer and married younger.
• The population explosion as probably not a direct cause of the Industrial Revolution. It rose in Ireland also, where there was little industrialization.
• There was increase in demand and also a sprout in extra workers.

Great Britain had many advantages.

• Abundant natural resources – Waterpower and coal (new machines) and iron ore (machines/tools/buildings) was abundant. England was the first to utilize their natural resources.
• A favorable geography – It had many fine harbors and was an island. Overseas trade gave access to raw materials/markets. A wealthy class of shipowners/merchants also sprouted; they had money to fund projects.
• A favorable climate for new ideas – The Royal Society in London was a club for the exchange of scientific ideas/practical inventions. Smaller clubs sprang up, like the Lunar Society in Birmingham, which met at the full moon. Businessmen were willing to invest in the manufacture of new inventions.
• A good banking system – Making loans was most important. They lent out money at reasonable interest rates. This encouraged businessmen to invest in better machinery, build new factories, and expand.
• Political stability – No war was fought on British soil, and people did not have to worry about a hostile army destroying their property. The British government favored economic growth. Merchants/etc had influence in Parliament. The government had laws supporting domestic/foreign investment.

Britain led in the rise of industry. Inventions revolutionized the textile industry.

• Britain had been one of the leading sheepraising areas in the world. Raw wool and wool were Britain’s major trade goods. They were produced by hands.
• Linen was made from the fiber of the flax plant. It was lighter weight.
• Cotton was light and durable and easy to care for. It was high in demand.
• Spinners and weavers worked at these fabrics by hand. Merchants tried to find ways to speed up spinning and weaving, for cotton’s price was relatively high.

One invention led to another.

• John Kay made the flying shuttle, a boat-shaped piece that let a weaver work 2x.
• James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, which let one spinner work more than one thread at a time.
• Richard Arkwright’s water frame used fast-flowing streams to drive spinning wheels.
• Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule combined the spinning jenny and water frame. It made stronger, finer, and more yarn than the other machines.
• The large and expensive water frames and spinning mules were set up in factories, large buildings. They were built near streams.
• Edmund Cartwright’s power loom sped up weaving since spinning was fast.
• A lot of England’s cotton came from the southern US (VA, GA, NC, SC).
• Eli Whitney’s cotton gin picked and cleaned 10x as much cotton as before.
• Raw cotton – 9000 à 987000 bales; cotton cloth – 40 mil yards à 2 bil yards

Watt improved the steam engine.

• Every factory had to be near running water, which was far from raw materials, workers, or markets.
• Coal miners were already using steam powered pumps to remove water from deep mine shafts. (Newcomen engine). It was slow and took a lot of fuel.
• James Watt made the steam engine work much better and more efficiently with less fuel. He joined with Matthew Boulton, a fellow entrepreneur, a person who organizes, manages, and takes on the risks of a business.

Industry grew and spread to new lands.

• Horse-drawn carts delivered mechanical wonders to the factories.

Engineers built roads and canals.

• Before the Industrial Revolution, the cheapest and most reliable way to travel in England was by water. It had good harbors and many navigable rivers. Barges floated up and down the rivers of England.
• A barge could carry more than a horse-drawn cart.
• However, there was only one way to take the goods across the land between rivers: unload boats, put goods into wagons, drive the wagons to the next river, and then load the cargo again.
• The British built a network of canals, human-wade waterways.
• John McAdam built roadbeds with a layer of large stones (drainage) and then put a smoothed layer of crushed rocks. Heavy wagons could travel over them in rainy weather.

The Railway Age began.

• The biggest change in transportation came with the use of steam power. (Steam engine on wheels – railroad locomotive)
• Richard Trevithick made an engine both small and powerful. He won a bet against a Wales mine owner that his locomotive hauled 10 tons of iron over 10 miles of track.
• Stephenson built 20 engines for mine operators (n. England). He began work on the world’s first railroad line, from the Yorkshire coalfields to the port of Stockton (North Sea). It opened with 4 locomotives.
• The entrepreneurs of n. England were especially interested. They wanted a railroad connecting Liverpool (NW) with Manchester (heart of spinning/weaving).
• The Rocket, designed by Stephenson and his son, was the best locomotive for use on this n. England line (> 24 mph).

Railroads spread across England.

• The Liverpool-Manchester Railway (1830) was an immediate success. Passengers traveled between the two cities. Freight trains carried more goods than canals + road coaches combined.
• Britishi began building new lines all over. They linked almost all the major cities/towns of Britain.
• The owners of canals and freight wagon lines were driven out of business by the “iron horse”.
• Breakdowns, accidents, and delays were frequent. At first, passengers traveled in open cars exposed to the elements and soot.
• Railroads offered faster and more reliable transportation.

Railroads had far-reaching effects.

• Railroads encouraged further industrial growth (fast/cheap transportation for raw materials and products). Factories could be built all over the place and not near raw materials.
• Railroads provided millions of new jobs (leveling hills, laying track, digging tunnels, building bridges). It boosted demand for coal and iron.
• Railroads gave a further boost to progress in agriculture. Farmers could send milk and other products to distant cities. Fresh fish could be sold in cities far from sea.
• Railroads had enormous influence on the attitudes that ordinary people had about travel. Before: Only when necessary! Then: Reasonably cheap transportation! Then: Country people could take jobs in distant cities because they could regularly visit home.
• Railroads began to open up a new world of travel for enjoyment, like seaside resorts like Brighton (S) and Blackpool (NW).

Industrialization spread to other countries.

• Britain wanted to keep the secrets of industrialization to itself, so it was unlawful for engineers, mechanics, and toolmakers to leave the country, so the Industrial Revolution did not spread.
• The spread to the US – Samuel Slater, a mill worker, disguised himself as a farmer and went to the US. He built a spinning machine and then Moses Brown built a factory to house Slater’s machines in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
• Early factories in the US made only thread and then given to home staying weavers. Later, mills combined spinning (thread) and weaving (cloth).
• The spread to Europe – France was disrupted by the Revolution and Napoleonic wars. British goods flooded European markets because they were way cheap. Even in India, it was cheaper to pick the cotton in India, have it worked on in England, and then shipped back to India rather than having cotton produced in India.
• Belgium had supplies of coal and fine waterways. William Cockerill left England illegally and built cotton-spinning machines in Belgium under French rule. Later, his sons built factories turning out machinery.

Britain led the world in industry.

• Britain accounted for 70% of Europe’s cotton cloth production. It produced most of world iron and coal. Britain had more railroad lines than France, Russia, Austria, Belgium, and the Italian states combined. (6084 miles)
• British exports increased a lot. Britain was called the “workshop of the world”.

Industry changed ways of life.

• More people could heat their homes with coal (Wales) and eat Scottish beef. They had more clothing.

More people lived in cities.

• People moved from rural areas to cities. Many urban areas doubled; some areas like Glasgow and Berlin tripled or quadrupled.
• Factories developed in clusters since entrepreneurs built near sources of power (coal in s. Wales and Clyde River valley, Scotland). The biggest centers developed in England.
• London remained the most important city in Great Britain. It was Europe’s largest city (2x as much as Paris). Manchester challenged London’s leadership.

Problems arose as cities grew. (Manchester)

• Smoke and soot clung to cities. Smoke from mills and factories blot the air. The streets are unpaved, though only the larger streets are cleaned occasionally. They collect a lot of waste. In courtyards, pigs keep pigs that root as much as they can.
• Gasworks, bone works, breweries, and tanneries add odors. The Irwell River was filled with junk.
• Manchester became the center for expanding British cotton industry because it was close to Liverpool, where US raw cotton came, and that the town had abundant sources of power (streams from the Pennines).
• Manchester was built almost overnight, with no plans or sanitary codes or building controls. In the 1830s it got its municipal government.
• In Alderey Edge, well-to-do merchants and factory owners lived.
• Sickness, like cholera, was rampant. The average life span for working-class people was 17 years.
• In the 1840s, streets were paved and drains installed, with city parks (3).

The Industrial Revolution changed working conditions.

• People continued to go to cities because country life was also harsh. The cities had plenty of jobs and regular wages without having to worry about crop failures.
• Families in the country worked from dawn to dusk. They worked as a unit at farm tasks and home industries. In factories, work depended on bells because owners wanted their machines running for as long as possible. Usually workers worked 14 hrs / day for 6 days / week. It was the same work for the whole year.
• Factories were not well-lit or clean. People got injured on the jobs. The most dangerous were the coal mines, with frequent accidents, damp conditions, and constant breathing of coal dust (= 10 years shorter life span).

Children suffered in mills and mines.

• In the country, children worked alongside their parents, while in factories, they worked separately. Overseers oversaw children, some of whom were 6.
• Children were useful in the mines (small size = move in narrow shafts/tunnels). Many were trappers, keeping the ventilation shafts in the mines clear.
• Orphans were employed for room and board. They were barely fed properly. They might sleep on straw beside the machines.
• Samuel Coulson vouched for his daughter; in 1831 Parliament set up a committee to investigate abuses of child labor.
• The Factory Act of 1833 prohibited children < 9 to be hired. 9-13 = up to 8 hours a day. 14-18 = up to 12 hours a day. The Mines Act of 1842 also placed similar limits on mining children.
• Children worked because money was essential. Poor parents hardly considered another choice but to make their kids work.

The middle class expanded.

• Wealth spread among factory owners, shippers, and merchants (middle class). They changed the social structure. They bought large estates and lived in high style.
• Landowners and aristocrats, the old top people, looked down on the middle class.
• An upper middle class, government employees, doctors, lawyers, and managers, arose. A lower middle class like overseers and skilled workers also arose.

Class tensions arose.

• laissez-faire government – Many business leaders believed that the gap between rich and poor was an inevitable result of progress. The government should only wage war and upload law/order at home. Government should take a hands-off attitude toward economic/social conditions.
• This policy, the laissez-faire, was set by Adam Smith and popular among the upper/upper middle classes, which controlled the Parliament.
• In the early 1800s, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote. Working people = no vote/hold office. Most Parliament members came from rural parts of the country.
• Mob demonstrations and riots were common in industrial cities.
• Soldiers killed 11 and injured hundreds when 50,000 people gathered at St. Peter’s fields outside Manchester.
• The beginning of unions – Workers joined together in unions, which spoke for all the workers in a particular trade. They bargained for better working conditions and higher wages. If refused, the union members could strike (refuse to work).
• The first unions formed were those whose special skills gave them extra bargaining power, like carpenters and spinners, who could not easily be replaced. The government denied the workers’ right to form unions. They were not legally recognized, but they were tolerated after 1825.
• Continuing tensions – The Social problems were worst at England. It reached Belgium, Germany, and other parts of Europe. Class tensions and factory abuses remained a major problem, as said by Alexis de Tocqueville “Gentlemen, I believe that at this very hour we are sleeping on a volcano.”

 

Sources :

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Chapter%204%20Lessons%201%20and%202.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Chapter%204%20Lessons%203%20and%204%20Notes.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Ch.%2012%20Les.%201-3.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Chapter%2012%20Lessons%204%20and%205%20Notes.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Chapter%2013%20Notes.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Chapter%2014%20Les%201-2.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/world%20history%20ch.%2014%20Les.%203-4.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Chapter%2021%20Notes.doc

http://www.freewebs.com/altara2s/World%20History%20Chapter%2022%20Notes.doc

 

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