World History and Geography Study List
NATION DEVELOPMENT
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1. Nationalism/Patriotism - It is a spirit among people that began to emerge during the Hundred Years’ War during the 15th century. It is the feeling of loyalty by people to their country over all others. Their culture and interests is above all others.
2. Nation - It is a group of people in a geographic area who have the same strong government and usually speak the same language, have the same religion, traditions and ways of life.
3. Bourgeoisie - They were “people of the town.” They were people who gained wealth through business rather than war or farming. They ranked higher than serfs but lower than the nobility on the social scale. They were middle class.
4. Causes of Improved Government - They are the dislike of the bourgeoisies for the lack of law and order during the later Middle Ages; citizens became unhappy with feudal obligations and the many differing legal systems of nobles and Church; and they desire wanted trade and commerce to be consistently safeguarded.
5. Nation Building Practices of Strong Kings - They are the ways kings extended their powers and built nations. First the king gained power at the expense of the Church and nobles. Then the king would collect taxes from the growing merchant class in exchange for providing protection and at the same time got their support & more independence from the nobles. As kings gained power, they strengthened their governments and extended the stretch of their influence.
Video: “The Vikings: King Harold is Killed”
6. Harold II - He was the Earl of Wessex who was crowned King of England in 1066 after Edward the Confessor died in 1066. Two other rulers who said they had a greater inheritance right challenged him for his throne. He defeated one and was killed by the other.
7. Harold Hardraada - When he was a teenager he fought for Olaf and managed to escape the defeat and find refuge in Russia. He fought as a mercenary soldier for the Byzantine Empire before returning to Norway where he became king. In 1066 he invaded England in his effort to claim the throne of that kingdom, but he was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and his army defeated.
8. William the Conqueror - He was the Duke of Normandy and a descendant of Vikings. He also claimed the English throne in 1066. The Bayeux Tapestry records his preparation of a 700-ship fleet and invasion of England. He defeated the Anglo-Saxon army at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and became the King of England since both his rivals were now dead.
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9. The Importance of William the Conqueror - It was what William did after he conquered England. He centralized feudalism, making all the nobles his directs vassals and giving them fiefs, he required all freemen to bear arms for the king so he didn’t have to depend on his nobles’ armies, and he gained control over revenue from the taxable wealth through his census and record keeping in the Domesday Book.
10. Henry II - He was one of the most important early kings of England. He founded the Plantagenet dynasty. He set his goal of uniting all England under his rule and being the source of justice and protection. He reformed the legal system to do this. His fight with the Church and the murder of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, over this prevented his goal of unity from being achieved.
11. Common Law - It is the name given to England’s King Henry II’s royal law that was applied equally to all people in England. It is law based on custom, court decisions and is the basis of law used today in England, United States, etc.
12. Circuit Courts - They were the sending of judges on regular tours all over the country. Henry II did this and his traveling judges made the law fairer by using the royal law combined with local custom to improve the quality of judicial decisions. These judges, being strangers, were less prone to favoritism and bribery. The king, being the source of justice thus became more powerful.
13. Juries - They were of two types. The original type was where a group of men went before a royal judge to accuse someone of breaking the law. They did not decide guilt. The modern Grand Jury system comes from this practice. The other type was where a group of men heard evidence during a trial and then decided guilt or innocence.
14. King John - He was a Plantagenet and youngest son of Henry II and brother of Richard I, the Lion-Hearted, who became king of England in 1199. He lost some French duchies held since William the Conqueror. He disputed with Pope Innocent III over who would be Archbishop of Canterbury and lost when the pope deposed him in 1212. He gave in and accepted his kingdom back from the Pope as a fief in 1213 and had to pay annual tribute. He invaded France in 1214 and was defeated. Upon return to England, in 1215, he was forced to sign the Magna Carta by his barons at Runnymede. He died in 1216 while fighting his barons in his attempt to defeat the Magna Carta. He was called John Lackland.
15. Magna Carta - It was the great charter that limited King John of England’s power and protected the nobles’ feudal rights. Its historical importance is in three principles: 1) Even the King should obey the law, 2) Even the King can be forced to obey the law, and 3) there is equal justice under the law. This document later led to additional rights and freedoms for the English people.
16. Parliament - It was started as the great national council called by Edward I to approve extra taxes. It was made up of representatives elected from around England, great nobles and Churchmen. In time, the Church withdrew, the nobles became the House of Lords and the elected representatives the House of Commons. It became a lawmaking body over time as it held back money from the king until the king signed demands that wrongs be corrected.
17. Wars of the Roses - They were thirty years of wars between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the English throne from 1455 to 1485. These wars ended with the winning of the throne by Lancaster’s Henry Tudor, his marriage to a York heiress and the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.
18. Robin Hood - He may have been real or maybe not. The legend about him has him living in Sherwood Forest stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. His archenemy is the sheriff of Nottingham. His time period is set in the years of the Third Crusade when Richard the Lion-Hearted was in the Holy Land and John ruled England.
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19. Louis the Fat or Louis VI - He was the first French Capetian king, 1108-1137, to show he was stronger than the nobles. He gained control over his royal lands and put down the barons around Paris who threatened his power. This started the expansion of France toward becoming a nation. His grandson won some English lands in France from King John.
20. Hundred Years’ War - It was the English attempt to gain control of France from 1337 to 1453. The English in 1346 won at Crecy, then at Calais in 1347 and later in 1415 at Agincourt to retake Normandy. From 1429 to 1431 the English suffered reversals at the hands of Joan of Arc. After 1431 the English were fighting a lost cause and by 1453 they only held Calais.
21. Flanders - It was the region in what is now France, Belgium and the Netherlands which was the center of the northern trade system. It was also an important market for English wool. The English attempt to control this region plus the English attempt to claim the throne of France after the last Captain king died caused the Hundred Years’ War to start in 1337.
22. Battle of Crecy - It is a famous battle of the Hundred Years’ War. It was fought in August 1346. The use of the new longbow was a vital help to the English for heir victory over the French Knights. The French were mired in the mud and killed by the thousands by the English longbow.
23. Battle of Agincourt - It was a famous battle of the Hundred Year’s War that occurred in 1415 in Flanders, which allowed the English King Henry V to take back Normandy (lost by King John) from the French. The French were mired in the mud and killed by the thousands by the English longbow.
24. Joan of Arc - She was a simple country girl who was a Shepherd. She followed her voices to the Dauphin and was given the right to lead an army to save Orleans, which she did. Before she could drive the English out of France, she was captured and tried as a witch and burned at the stake. Her love for France and her courage helped France develop a national spirit.
25. Orleans - It was a French city besieged by the English. A French country girl without military training led an army and succeeded in breaking the siege and saving this city for France in May 1429.
26. Charles VII - He was known as the Dauphin. He became King of France because a country girl who had visions confirmed he had the right to rule. He was crowned King of France in July 1429.
27. Rouen - It was the French city where Joan of Arc was burned alive at the stake, after being convicted of witchcraft and heresy. This happened in 1430. It is located on the Seine River northwest of Paris.
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28. Iberian Peninsula - It is the landform south of the Pyrenees Mountains in Europe. It is here the Visigoths settled during the German invasion of the Roman Empire. Their kingdom lasted until 711 when the Moors conquered them. This landform had the Muslim kingdom of Cordova holding much of it during the Middle Ages and today the modern nations of Spain and Portugal.
29. Alphonso I or Alfonso I - His father was the French knight Henry of Burgundy who helped the king of Leon and Castile reconquer Toledo from the Moors in 1085. The father was given Portugal as a fief. He succeeded his father as count of Portugal. In 1128, he seized power from his mother who had been regent since the year of his birth, 1112. He fought Leon/Castle for ten years and succeeded in making Portugal an independent kingdom in 1139. He captured Lisbon in 1147. In 1171 and 1184 he won big victories over the Moors.
30. Reconquista - It was a war lasting over 700 years. The Christians of the Iberian Peninsula fought to regain the peninsula after the Muslims conquered most of it in 711. The Christians under Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada in 1492. Spain won the war and the Moors were driven out.
31. Inquisition - It was the medieval procedure for discovering and punishing heretics. Ferdinand and Isabella revived it in their quest for religious conformity that they thought necessary for national unity. After torture they burned thousands at the stake and in 1492 expelled all Spanish Jews. These actions enhanced the power of the Spanish crown, but caused many talented and educated people to flee the land of persecution.
32. Otto the Great - He became one of the strongest kings of Germany. He first defeated the Magyars/Hungarians, in 955, then moved eastward into Slavic lands. (Modern Germany is 60% former Slav territory.) He made a mistake that had effects for centuries. Instead of making himself supreme over all nobles in Germany, he married the widow of the former Italian king and declared himself king of Italy. In 962, he became Holy Roman Emperor. This “empire” stayed a loose collection of nations and was for centuries and expensive distraction causing both Germany and Italy to stay a collection of free cities and tiny feudal states.
33. Holy Roman Empire - It was created by Charlemagne and firmly re-established by Otto the Great in 962 and eventually ended about 1000 years later in 1918. It was a loose organization of nations ruled by German kings for much of the time. A French writer wrote that its three-word name didn’t fit what this empire was really like.