Deck 1: Mapping Global Frontiers

Question 1

Between 1346 and 1350 the Black Death ravaged Europe, killing about how many people?

A) 1 million people (1.5 percent of population)
B) 3 million people (4 percent of population)
C) 18 million people (25 percent of population)
D) 36 million people (50 percent of population)

Answer 1

36 million people (50 percent of population)

Question 2

What conditions enabled the cultural Renaissance to emerge in the wake of the Black Death?

A) An end to the century-long war between France and England, decreased trade with Asia, and steady birthrates
B) An improved climate, a higher standard of living for the surviving populations, and rising birthrates
C) A decreased emphasis on agricultural commerce, the consolidation of smaller city-states into larger territories, and religious toleration
D) A dry climate, the Middle Eastern slave trade, and a decreased reliance on other cultures for scientific knowledge

Answer 2

An improved climate, a higher standard of living for the surviving populations, and rising birthrates

Question 3

What forces brought about the decline of the Mayan Civilization?

A) Flood
B) Drought
C) War
D) Lack of innovation

Answer 3

Drought

Question 4

As slaves to Mexica merchants, what kind of work did many young Indian women spend their time doing?

A) Agricultural work
B) Factory work
C) Housecleaning
D) Child care

Question 5

What was the key to Incan survival in the Andes Mountains along the Pacific coast?

A) Advanced fishing techniques
B) Invention of the wheel
C) Cultivation of valleys
D) Diversity of people

Question 6

What region had the most extensive network of slave-trading centers in the medieval period?

A) West Africa
B) Europe
C) Middle East
D) Caribbean

Question 7

Starting in the sixteenth century, Europeans formed an image of Africa based on captives from which region of the continent?

A) West
B) North
C) South
D) Central

Question 8

How did the Aztecs', Mayans', and Incas' commercial practices influence the development of their transportation systems?

A) Because they lacked horses, their trading caravans were drawn by other humans.
B) They did not trade with communities outside of their respective civilizations, which made it unnecessary to develop small boats for river travel.
C) Because they carried out most of their commerce overland or along rivers and coastlines, they did not need to build seagoing boats.
D) They did not have settlements outside of their major cities, which made it unnecessary to build complex roadways.

Question 9

Why did the first American settlers cross the Bering Strait into the North American continent?

A) They tracked the migratory patterns of birds.
B) They sought a freshwater supply.
C) They were driven from their own land.
D) They were following herds of oxen and rhinoceroses.

Question 10

How many people lived in North America when European explorers landed there in the sixteenth century?

A) Fewer than 6,000
B) About 60,000
C) Over 6 million
D) About 60 million

Question 11

What crop enabled the expansion of the Hopewell people, an advanced Native American culture that developed around the Mississippi River?

A) Tobacco
B) Corn
C) Rice
D) Wheat

Question 12

How did the Universalis Cosmographia, by Martin Waldseemüller and Mathias Ringmann, differ from previous maps of the world?

A) It depicted Earth as round.
B) It was the first map to use Latin geographical terms.
C) It provided the first reliable sailing directions to the Americas.
D) It was the first European map to depict the Americas and Asia as separate.

Question 13

In their 1507 map and globe entitled Universalis Cosmographia, Martin Waldseemüller and Mathias Ringmann had a body of land between the African and Asian continents estimating the geography of what we know know to be

A) India.
B) The Americas.
C) Europe.
D) Hawaii.

Question 14

Mayan astronomers were known for the development of a system for

A) determining the rise and fall of the tides.
B) predicting eclipses of the sun and moon.
C) calculating the distance between Earth and moon.
D) measuring distance between stars.

Question 15

Why did the diet of the first North Americans change about 10,000 years ago?

A) The animals they hunted in Asia did not follow them to North America, so they needed to find new sources of food.
B) North Americans adopted agricultural systems, allowing them to replace meat with vegetables as the main foods in their diet.
C) North Americans were unable to migrate far enough inland to find hunting grounds, so they adapted to the resources available at the coast.
D) Mammoths and other large game disappeared from their habitat, causing North Americans to rely on smaller game, fish, and plant foods to survive.

Question 16

Where was Beringia, the land bridge that enabled the settlement of the Americas between 16,000 and 14,000 b.c.e.?

A) Between Siberia and Alaska
B) Between North America and South America
C) Between Canada and Iceland
D) Between Mexico and the Caribbean

Question 17

Which European explorer introduced coal and spices to Europe after traveling to China in the 1270s?

A) Marco Polo
B) Henry the Navigator
C) Bartolomeu Dias
D) Vasco da Gama

Question 18

What materials did the Mayans use to protect themselves from Spanish invaders in the 1500s?

A) Animal-hide armor and rocks
B) Cotton armor and wooden arrows
C) Wooden armor and steel swords
D) Steel armor and guns

Question 19

What Native American people built the capital Tenochtitlán on the site of present-day Mexico City?

A) Aztecs
B) Incas
C) Mayans
D) Iroquois

Question 20

Who first migrated to and populated the Americas over 13,000 years ago?

A) Africans
B) Europeans
C) Australians
D) Asians

Question 21

What European power claimed rights to the Philippine Islands?

A) England
B) France
C) Netherlands
D) Spain

Question 22

What is the name historians have given to the transfer of flora, fauna, and disease from Europe to the Americas that resulted in the deaths of millions of native people?

A) Curse of Columbus
B) Columbian Exchange
C) Columbian Genocide
D) Plague of Columbus

Question 23

Which Spanish explorer achieved a reputation for brutality and gained his wealth by trading in Indian slaves and looting native treasures?

A) Diego de Velasquez
B) Panfilo de Narvaez
C) Christopher Columbus
D) Hernando de Soto

Question 24

What did Columbus hope to achieve by taking captured Indians back to Spain?

A) He wanted to prove that he actually found people on his voyage.
B) He wished to convert them to Christianity.
C) He wanted to teach them Spanish.
D) He planned to sell them as slaves.

Question 25

Why did the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés and his Spanish counterparts decide to go to war with the Aztecs and their leader, Montezuma?

A) The Aztecs had advanced technology that the Spanish wanted.
B) The Aztecs did not have an army to organize a response.
C) The Aztecs had gold and other riches.
D) The Aztecs were not Christian.

Question 26

In what part of the Americas did the Arawak and Taino tribes live when the Spanish explorers arrived in the sixteenth century?

A) Central America
B) The Caribbean
C) South America
D) North America

Question 27

In the sixteenth century, which society was organized along matrilineal lines?

A) Turkish
B) Spanish
C) African
D) Portuguese

Question 28

Who authorized Cortés to attack Native Americans and claim their land?

A) The Spanish crown hoping to expand its reach.
B) A warring Native American tribe put him up to it.
C) He claimed to be divinely inspired.
D) He decided to do it on his own.

Question 29

What happened to people in smaller farming and herding societies of western and central Africa when they were conquered by expanding kingdoms?

A) Members were sold to Spanish slavers for profit.
B) Members were kept as domestic workers for the warrior king.
C) Members were generally killed so as to preserve the precious food supply.
D) Members were sold as slaves within Africa for profit.

Question 30

Who sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, demonstrating the possibility of traveling from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean?

A) Bartolomeu Dias
B) Vasco da Gama
C) Prince Henry
D) Erik the Red

Question 31

When he set out to sail across the Atlantic on his "Enterprise of the Indies," what was Columbus's chief occupation?

A) Sea captain
B) Prince
C) Businessman
D) Navigator

Question 32

Weak monarchies and religious and political strife in both France and England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led to which country's domination of the Americas?

A) Spain
B) Holland
C) Mexico
D) Portugal

Question 33

Who financed England's earliest ventures to North America?

A) Banks
B) Military leaders
C) Noblemen
D) The Anglican Church

Question 34

What development marked the expansion of the slave trade from West Africa?

A) The construction of bigger ships with more spacious cargo areas
B) The construction of Elmina Castle
C) The influx of funds from the Dutch
D) The discovery of the Far East

Question 35

Why did the French first abandon the settlement of Quebec?

A) War with Indians
B) War with English
C) Harsh weather
D) Lack of resources

Question 36

How did Columbus's crew and the native inhabitants of the Americas communicate with one another?

A) Although they didn't speak the same language, they were able to communicate using visual cues and gestures.
B) They all spoke Spanish because it was the dominant language at the time.
C) They all spoke English because it was the dominant language at the time.
D) Columbus knew some native symbols from his earlier travels.

Question 37

What civilization developed the ability to print with wood blocks, leading to the widespread use of woodcut pictures throughout Europe in the fifteenth century?

A) Malian
B) Incans
C) Chinese
D) Germans

Question 38

From what European country did the ill-fated settlers of Roanoke come?

A) England
B) Spain
C) France
D) Portugal

Question 39

Why did Christopher Columbus's crew nearly mutiny on his voyage from Spain?

A) They did not see land after more than four weeks at sea.
B) They did not have any water to drink.
C) They did not have a plan for dealing with Indians.
D) There was no citrus left aboard the ship to fight scurvy.

Question 40

The first Europeans to discover lands in the western Atlantic were

A) Spanish.
B) English.
C) Dutch.
D) Norsemen.

Question 41

Why were some church officials against the Spanish pillaging and plundering of the Americas?

A) Killing Native Americans was against the First Commandment.
B) Stealing from Native Americans was a sin.
C) Native Americans were not converting to Catholicism.
D) Native Americans were holy people with close ties to the spirit world.

Question 42

What region of Africa was deeply influenced by Islam and characterized by significant urbanization and an extensive network of trading centers?

A) South Africa
B) East Africa
C) North Africa
D) West Africa

Question 43

For whom was the territory of Virginia named?

A) Queen Elizabeth
B) Queen Mary
C) The Virgin Mary
D) Virgil the poet

Question 44

In what economic sector did many of sixteenth-century Spain's poor find employment?

A) Factories
B) Dock work
C) Army
D) Navy

Question 45

What share of their loot did Spanish explorers have to turn over to the crown for taxes?

A) About 5 percent of the take
B) A flat rate based on the size of the ship
C) About 20 percent of the take
D) About 50 percent of the take

Question 46

What luxury item from the Far East lured European traders to its shores for centuries?

A) Spices
B) Sugar
C) Tea
D) Coffee

Question 47

How did Tlaxcalan artists portray Malintzin?

A) As a wife of Cortés
B) As a slave of Cortés
C) As a traitor to her people
D) As a powerful diplomat