Why did Ghana, Mali, and Songhai become powerful?
They depended exclusively on coastal fishing villages with no overland trade and no Saharan caravan ties They ruled from Constantinople and commanded Byzantine fleets dominating eastern Mediterranean sea lanes They controlled important West African trade routes, especially gold and salt moving across the Sahara They invented the Roman Republic and modeled their government on the Senate and elected consular system
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Why is Mansa Musa remembered?
He wrote the Ninety-Five Theses challenging indulgences and nailed them to the Wittenberg church door in 1517 He led the Mongol armies into China, founding the Yuan dynasty and opening the Silk Road to European trade He founded the Byzantine Empire, moving the Roman capital eastward and commissioning the Hagia Sophia He ruled Mali, made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca, displayed great wealth, and supported learning in places such as Timbuktu
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What made Timbuktu important in medieval Mali?
A Viking shipyard in Normandy where longboats were built for raids on English monasteries and Irish towns It became a center of trade, Islamic learning, manuscript culture, and scholarship in West Africa A Roman military camp established by Julius Caesar during his campaigns in North Africa around 46 BC A Chinese imperial capital rivaling Constantinople, housing civil service examination halls and royal archives
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What was Great Zimbabwe?
A major stone-built city and trading center in southeastern Africa connected to regional and Indian Ocean exchange A Mayan calendar text inscribed on stone stelae recording dynastic histories and astronomical observations A Spanish sailing route from Seville to the Caribbean, mapped by pilots after Columbus's 1492 voyage A Byzantine church council held to resolve doctrinal disputes about the nature of Christ and the use of icons
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What was Songhai known for?
A large West African empire that controlled trade cities such as Gao and Timbuktu after Mali's power declined A Viking colony in North America called Vinland, established briefly by Leif Erikson around the year 1000 A Roman law code compiled under Emperor Justinian to preserve centuries of legal precedent for Byzantium A Japanese courtly era centered on Kyoto, celebrated for refined poetry, ritual, and aristocratic culture
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What were Maya city-states known for?
The Magna Carta, a charter limiting royal power signed in England that inspired constitutional government worldwide The Abbasid House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars translated Greek, Persian, and Indian scientific texts A single empire ruled from Cuzco with roads, storehouses, and quipu record-keeping across the Andean highlands Urban centers, writing, mathematics, calendars, astronomy, and temple architecture in Mesoamerica
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What was the Aztec Empire centered on?
The Grand Canal and civil service exams of Song dynasty China, which sustained a prosperous urban economy Tenochtitlan, a powerful city in central Mexico that ruled through tribute and military alliances Baghdad and its House of Wisdom, where Abbasid scholars translated Greek philosophy and advanced mathematics Cuzco, the Inca capital high in the Andes from which stone roads and relay runners connected distant provinces
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How did the Inca govern a large Andean empire?
A parliament modeled on English precedent, with elected nobles debating taxation and justice in an assembly Exclusively ocean-going trade ships that carried tribute from coastal cities to the capital at Cuzco by sea A civil service exam written in Latin that selected colonial administrators for service across the Andean highlands They used roads, storehouses, local administrators, and quipu record keeping to manage mountain territories
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Maya scribes developed one of the few fully developed writing systems in the pre-Columbian Americas. Why do historians consider this achievement especially significant?
Hint: Think about what a durable writing system allows a civilization to preserve that oral tradition alone cannot.
It functioned only as decoration on temples and carried no grammatical or historical content It was borrowed directly from Chinese characters brought across the Pacific by Song dynasty traders It was developed after European contact, based on the Latin alphabet taught by Spanish missionaries It let Maya civilization record dynastic histories, astronomical calculations, and religious ritual in lasting form, giving historians a written record independent of oral tradition
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