Virginia Standards of Learning World History and Geography since 1500

Question 1

In the 1300s and 1400s, where did the Renaissance first take hold?

Accepted Answer

Italian trading cities such as Florence

Question 2

What did Renaissance humanism ask educated people to take seriously?

Accepted Answer

Classical literature and the capacity of people to reason and create

Question 3

What change did Gutenberg's press bring to Europe after the 1450s?

Accepted Answer

It multiplied books and carried religious and scholarly arguments farther.

Question 4

Why do historians treat Leonardo da Vinci as a symbol of the Renaissance?

Accepted Answer

He combined painting with close studies of anatomy, water, and machines.

Question 5

Around 1500, which pattern best describes where the major religions were strongest?

Accepted Answer

Christianity was strongest in Europe, Islam in the Middle East and North Africa, Hinduism in India, and Buddhism in East and Southeast Asia.

Question 6

What did the Ottoman seizure of Constantinople in 1453 give the empire?

Accepted Answer

A capital on the Bosporus controlling passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean

Question 7

What did Ming China do about long ocean voyages after Zheng He's expeditions?

Accepted Answer

It ended the great treasure fleets and tightened limits on private sea trade.

Question 8

Which empire, founded in the 1500s, ruled much of India from courts that drew on Persian and Indian traditions?

Accepted Answer

The Mughal Empire, based in cities such as Delhi and Agra

Question 9

Which West African empire controlled cities of the gold and salt trade and supported scholarship at Timbuktu around 1500?

Accepted Answer

The Songhai Empire

Question 10

Where was the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, and what kind of power did it exercise?

Accepted Answer

On a lake island in the Valley of Mexico, at the center of a tribute empire

Question 11

How did the Inca hold together an empire stretched along the Andes?

Accepted Answer

They built roads, storehouses, and terraces and required labor from subject communities.

Question 12

What geographic pattern made regular trading voyages possible across the Indian Ocean?

Accepted Answer

Monsoon winds that reversed direction with the seasons

Question 13

What practice did Martin Luther attack in 1517 when he posted his arguments at Wittenberg?

Accepted Answer

The sale of indulgences as a way to reduce punishment for sin

Question 14

Which teaching stood at the center of Luther's break with Rome?

Accepted Answer

Salvation came through faith, and scripture outranked the sale of church favors.

Question 15

What idea is most closely tied to John Calvin's reform in Geneva?

Accepted Answer

Predestination, the belief that God had already chosen who would be saved

Question 16

Why did Henry VIII pull the English church away from the pope in the 1530s?

Accepted Answer

The pope refused to annul his marriage, and Henry wanted a male heir and control of the church.

Question 17

What was the result of the Spanish Armada's attack on England in 1588?

Accepted Answer

English ships and storms broke the invasion, and England stayed independent.

Question 18

What did the Council of Trent accomplish for the Catholic Church?

Accepted Answer

It restated Catholic doctrine and demanded reform of abuses such as poorly trained clergy.

Question 19

What did the Peace of Westphalia settle in 1648?

Accepted Answer

It ended the Thirty Years' War and let princes in the empire choose their state's Christian church.

Question 20

Why did Bartolomeu Dias's 1488 voyage around the Cape of Good Hope matter to Portugal?

Accepted Answer

It showed that ships could pass the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean.

Question 21

What did Vasco da Gama accomplish for Portugal in 1498?

Accepted Answer

He reached the Indian port of Calicut by sailing around Africa.

Question 22

Which description of Columbus's 1492 voyage is accurate?

Accepted Answer

Sailing for Spain, he reached Caribbean islands already inhabited, which he believed were near Asia.

Question 23

What did Ferdinand Magellan's expedition achieve between 1519 and 1522?

Accepted Answer

Survivors completed the first voyage around the world, though Magellan was killed in the Philippines.

Question 24

Which combination best explains how Hernan Cortes overthrew Aztec rule in 1521?

Accepted Answer

Steel weapons, horses, epidemic disease, and Indigenous allies who resented Aztec tribute

Question 25

What advantage did Francisco Pizarro exploit when he seized the Inca ruler Atahualpa in 1532?

Accepted Answer

A civil war had split the empire, so a small Spanish force could capture the emperor during that crisis.

Question 26

What was the encomienda in Spanish America?

Accepted Answer

A grant letting a colonist demand labor and tribute from Indigenous people

Question 27

What was one major effect of horses arriving in the Americas after 1492?

Accepted Answer

Horses spread widely and reshaped travel, hunting, and warfare for many Indigenous nations.

Question 28

How did the potato, first domesticated in the Andes, change life in Europe?

Accepted Answer

It produced dense calories on cool, poor soils and supported population growth.

Question 29

Why did diseases such as smallpox hit Indigenous Americans so hard in the 1500s?

Accepted Answer

Communities in the Americas had no previous exposure, so epidemics killed a large share of many of them.

Question 30

What was the Middle Passage?

Accepted Answer

The forced ocean crossing that carried enslaved Africans to the Americas

Question 31

Which pattern best matches the Atlantic trading system of the 1600s and 1700s?

Accepted Answer

European goods went to Africa, enslaved people were shipped to the Americas, and sugar and tobacco went back to Europe.

Question 32

What did mercantilist governments expect their colonies to do?

Accepted Answer

Send raw materials, buy the home country's goods, and help it pile up gold and silver

Question 33

Why did the silver mines at Potosi, high in the Andes, matter far beyond Peru?

Accepted Answer

The silver paid for Spanish power and moved through European and Asian markets, including large shipments toward China.

Question 34

How did Louis XIV of France display and justify absolute rule?

Accepted Answer

He claimed authority from God, built Versailles, and drew nobles into court life under his eye.

Question 35

What was Peter the Great trying to change by building St. Petersburg?

Accepted Answer

He wanted a Baltic outlet and a capital that would pull Russian elites toward European ships, dress, and administration.

Question 36

What changed in England because of the Glorious Revolution of 1688?

Accepted Answer

William and Mary took the throne on Parliament's terms, and the crown became limited.

Question 37

Which argument from John Locke later showed up in revolutions?

Accepted Answer

People have rights to life, liberty, and property, and they may replace a government that breaks that trust.

Question 38

What safeguard did Montesquieu recommend in The Spirit of the Laws?

Accepted Answer

Legislative, executive, and judicial powers should be separated so that no branch dominates.

Question 39

What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau mean by the social contract?

Accepted Answer

Rightful authority comes from the people, who obey laws that express their general will.

Question 40

Why was France's old social order a cause of revolution by 1789?

Accepted Answer

The clergy and nobles kept privileges, while the Third Estate paid most taxes and held little power.

Question 41

Why did the fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, become a revolutionary symbol?

Accepted Answer

A Paris crowd seized a royal fortress and its gunpowder, showing that the king could be defied in his own capital.

Question 42

What was the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution?

Accepted Answer

A 1793-1794 campaign, led by Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, that executed supposed enemies

Question 43

What did Napoleon's civil code change in the lands under his influence?

Accepted Answer

It gave male citizens equality before the law and protected property, while leaving husbands authority in the family.

Question 44

What ended Napoleon's return to power in 1815?

Accepted Answer

Defeat at Waterloo by British, Dutch, and Prussian forces, then exile on St. Helena

Question 45

What was the main aim of the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815?

Accepted Answer

To restore a balance of power, contain France, and return legitimate monarchs to European thrones

Question 46

What had the revolution in the French colony of Saint-Domingue achieved by 1804?

Accepted Answer

Enslaved people overthrew French rule, and Haiti became independent under leaders of African descent.

Question 47

What did Miguel Hidalgo start in Mexico in 1810?

Accepted Answer

The Grito de Dolores, a call to revolt against Spanish rule that opened Mexico's independence struggle

Question 48

What did Simon Bolivar accomplish in northern South America?

Accepted Answer

He led campaigns that broke Spanish rule in the north and tried to unite several new republics.

Question 49

How did Jose de San Martin contribute to independence in southern South America?

Accepted Answer

He trained an army in Argentina, crossed the Andes, and helped free Chile before entering Peru.

Question 50

Why did many creole leaders in Spanish America resent the colonial government?

Accepted Answer

American-born people of Spanish descent were often blocked from the top posts kept for men born in Spain.

Question 51

Where did the Industrial Revolution begin?

Accepted Answer

Britain

Question 52

Which geographic advantages helped Britain industrialize ahead of its neighbors?

Accepted Answer

Coal and iron nearby, plus rivers and harbors that linked mills to markets

Question 53

How did the factory system differ from cottage industry?

Accepted Answer

Workers entered a building where powered machines, set hours, and divided tasks replaced home spinning.

Question 54

Why did James Watt's improved steam engine matter to where industry could grow?

Accepted Answer

Coal-fired steam turned machines, so a mill no longer had to sit beside a waterfall.

Question 55

What happened to towns such as Manchester as textile mills multiplied?

Accepted Answer

People crowded into fast-growing towns where long shifts, smoke, and weak sanitation spread disease.

Question 56

What kind of economy did Adam Smith defend in The Wealth of Nations?

Accepted Answer

A market economy in which private owners seek profit and competition guides production

Question 57

What did Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels claim in the Communist Manifesto?

Accepted Answer

History is a class struggle, and industrial workers would overthrow the owners of capital.

Question 58

Why did industrial workers form labor unions in the nineteenth century?

Accepted Answer

To bargain together for wages, hours, and safer mills when one worker had little leverage

Question 59

How did Otto von Bismarck unify most of the German states?

Accepted Answer

He used Prussian industry and short wars, then proclaimed the German Empire in 1871 after defeating France.

Question 60

What was Giuseppe Garibaldi's part in the unification of Italy?

Accepted Answer

His Red Shirts took Sicily and southern Italy, then handed them to the king of Piedmont-Sardinia.

Question 61

What did European diplomats do at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885?

Accepted Answer

They set rules for claiming African land, including real occupation, without African states as members of the meeting.

Question 62

How did Ethiopia avoid colonization during the scramble for Africa?

Accepted Answer

Emperor Menelik II modernized his army and defeated Italy at Adwa in 1896.

Question 63

What lasting change followed the Indian Rebellion of 1857?

Accepted Answer

Britain ended East India Company rule and governed India directly as the Raj.

Question 64

What did Britain force on China at the end of the Opium War in 1842?

Accepted Answer

The Treaty of Nanjing, which ceded Hong Kong, opened ports, and began a run of unequal treaties