Blog

Victory at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, a major triumph for Henry V during the Hundred Years’ War, was largely achieved because [BLANK-1] were able to effectively counter the French cavalry in muddy conditions on the battlefield.

[BLANK-1] chronicles the Japanese civil war waged between the Minamoto and Taira clans, but is written from the perspective of the losing Taira clan. It was not written by one author, but rather countless authors, poets, and bards who added their own embellishments or additions as the story was retold. It was ultimately compiled around the middle of the thirteenth century. The story includes the battle at Dan No Ura as well as details about the suicide of the Japanese child-emperor and the Lady Nii.

Written in the early decades of the 1000s by a Lady of the Court of Heian Japan, Murasaki Shikibu, [BLANK-1] is Japan’s most celebrated literary achievement. It provided valuable insight into court life in the Heian Period, and particularly highlighted women’s perspectives and their place at court. In the story, Murasaki provided an elite woman’s perspective on marriage, advising wives not to cause a commotion over a slight disagreement with her husband, but to drop subtle hints of her displeasure if the husband’s actions have offended her.

Part 2 Short Answer ID Terms (30%): A short answer ID should briefly address the basic journalistic questions: who or what, when, where, and why. Be sure to discuss the historical significance – this is the most important part of your ID term. Each answer should be written in a paragraph of at least 4-5 sentences. Do not leave any portion of the five options you choose blank – it is best to write something, even if you must guess somewhat. Partial credit is better than nothing.Answer FIVE (5) of the following terms:The Aztec Warrior AristocracyThe Children’s CrusadeChinggis KhanCourtly LoveKhipuMongol WarfareOlmec Religious BeliefsSaladinThe Song DynastyZhu Xi

A former nun named Katharina von Bora converted to Lutheranism and became the first member of a new religious position: [BLANK-1]. She and others like her were expected to exemplify respectability.

[BLANK-1] was one of the most celebrated artists and thinkers of the Italian Renaissance. He was known as a Renaissance Man because he excelled in multiple artistic forms: painting, drawing, and engineering. He worked in Florence (the center of Renaissance genius) and effectively established a unique style in his artwork. He proposed a number of engineering models (including a flying machine similar to the helicopter – an invention that wouldn’t exist for another 600 years) and expressed a fascination with anatomy and anatomical perspective (his sketches of human organs suggest that either he or an assistant resorted to grave robbing in order to effectively understand the human body and his sketch, “Vitruvian Man” is celebrated for creating “perfect proportions” for the human body in artwork). He is known for his celebrated paintings, “The Mona Lisa,” “The Last Supper,” “Madonna of the Rocks,” and “Lady with an Ermine.”

Joan of Arc was a vassal to the Dauphin, the uncrowned king of France known as [BLANK-1], during the Hundred Years’ War. The Dauphin gave Joan command of armies that led to the liberation of Orléans and Reims. These victories allowed the Dauphin to be crowned King of France and paved the way for French victory in the lengthy war. This king, however, sacrificed Joan of Arc like a pawn. When she was captured by Burgundians, they offered to ransom her to the king. Despite all she had done for the king, he did not want to pay the money for her ransom – a decision that led to her death. As king, this man revived the monarchy and France after the dreadful 116-year long Hundred Years’ War. He reorganized the royal council, strengthened royal finances, and created the first permanent royal army anywhere in Europe.

Pre-Columbian American civilizations had no draft animals, so there were limitations to agriculture, however, [BLANK-1] were used as important pack animals in the mountainous regions of Andean societies.

During the Kamakura Shogunate, Buddhism was spread to ordinary Japanese people by energetic preachers. One new sect of Buddhism was [BLANK-1] named after the preacher who lived from 1133-1212 and who argued that paradise could be reached through simple faith in the Buddha and repeating the name of the Buddha Amitabha. This was also known as Pure Land Buddhism.

The Black Death was a destabilizing event in Europe and significantly altered the social behavior of the people it affected. The Florentine Humanist Giovanni Boccaccio the crisis in his Effects of the Black Death in Florence (ca. 1352). His account of the plague described a sense of normlessness or lack of social mores among the populace and a complete collapse of social structures – an effect that later historians and social scientists would term [BLANK-1]. Boccaccio described husbands abandoning wives, parents abandoning their children, strangers wandering into random houses, people fleeing into the hillsides, merrymaking and bacchanalia in some corners of the city and cloistered shut-ins in other corners. Women laughing at funerals and losing all modesty in regard to exposing their bodies were among the social mores broken during the time of the plague.