The World Of The Fifteenth Century

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Paleolithic Persistence

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The continuance of gathering and hunting societies in substantial areas of the world despite the millennia of agricultural advance

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Benin

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Territorial state that emerged by the fifteenth century in the region that is now southern Nigeria; ruled by a warrior king who consolidated his state through widespread conquest.

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igbo

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People whose lands were east of the Niger River in what is now southern Nigeria in West Africa; they built a complex society that rejected kingship and centralized statehood and relied on other institutions to provide social coherence.

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iroquois

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Confederation of five Iroquois peoples in what is now New York State; the loose alliance was based on the Great Law of Peace, and agreement to settle disputes peacefully through a council of clan leaders.

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Timur

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Great city of West Africa, noted in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries as a center of Islamic scholarship

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Fulbe

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West Africa's largest pastoral society, whose members gradually adopted Islam and took on a religious leadership role that lead to the creation of a number of new states.

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Ming Dynasty China

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Chinese dynasty that succeeded the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols; noted for its return to traditional Chinese ways and restoration of the land after the destructiveness of the Mongols.

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Zheng He

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Great Chinese admiral who commanded a fleet of more than 300 ships in a series of voyages of contact and exploration that began in 1405.

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European Renaissance

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A "rebirth" of classical learning that is most often associated with the cultural blooming of Italy and that includednot just a rediscovery of Greek learning, but also major developments in art, as well as growing secularism in society.

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Ottoman Empire

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Major Islamic state centered on Anatolia that came to include the Balkans, the Near East, and much of North Africa.

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Seizure of Constantinople (1443)

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Constantinople, the capital and almost the only outpost left of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the army of the Ottoman sultan Mehed II "the Conqueror" in 1453, an event marked as the end of Christian Byzantium.

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Safavid Empire

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Major Turkic empire of Persia founded in the early sixteenth century, notable for its efforts to convert its populace to Shia Islam.

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Songhay Empire

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Major Islamic state of West Africa that formed in the second half of the fifteenth century.

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Timbuktu

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is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated 20 km (12 mi) north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali. It had a population of 54,453 in the 2009 census.
Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, Timbuktu flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves.

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Mughal Empire

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One of the most successful empires of India, a state founded by an Islamized Turkic group that invaded India in 1526; the Mughals' rule was noted for their efforts to create partnerships betweem Hindus and Muslims

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Malacca

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Muslim port city that came to prominence on the waterway between Sumatra and Malaya in the fifteenth century C.E.; it was the springboard for the spread of a syncretic form of Islam throughout the region.

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Aztec Empire

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Major state that developed in what is now Mexico in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; dominated by seminomadic Mexica, who had migrate into the region from northern Mexico.

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Inca Empire

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The Western Hemisphere's largest imperial state in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; built by a relatively small community of Quechua-speaking people, the empire stretched some 2,500 miles along the Andes Mountains.