Gunpowder Empires Part I

Based on your understanding of the reading and the videos, take bulleted notes on the following:

• The general background of peoples populating the gunpowder empires.
• The role of women in society (e.g. harem politics).
• Factors leading the rise of the gunpowder empires.
• Examples of continuity and change between the Ottoman empires and the central Asian empires from Period 3 (600-1450 C.E.).

Absolutism in Russia

Based on your understanding of the reading and the videos, take bulleted notes on the following:

• Ways in which Russian society differed from Western Europe.
• How the early Russian Czars attempted to control the nobility.  
• How Peter the Great expanded and Westernized Russia
• The extent to which Catherine the Great was influenced by Enlightenment ideas.

The Trans-Atlantic Slaver Trade

Based on your understanding of the reading and the videos, take notes on the following:

• How the Eurasian slave trade (e.g. African and Islamic) differed from trans-Atlantic slave trade.
• The conditions of the trans-Atlantic voyage for slaves
• How the slave trade effected African economies and societies.
• How a unique "African American" culture developed in the Americas.

Africa in the Colonial Era

Based on your understanding of the reading, take bulleted notes on the following:

• Examples showing the success of African societies before the rise of the slave trade.
• What caused the decline of various African societies in the early modern era.
• The early development of the slave trade in West Africa (focusing on the role of Portugal)

Rise of Western Europe, Part I

Based on your understanding of the reading, take bulleted notes on the following:

•  Martin Luther's major grievances with the Catholic Church
• How Luther's ideas spread so quickly.
• Other forms of Protestantism (Calvinism, Anglicanism)
• How the Catholic church attempted reform (The Catholic Counterreformation)
• Reactions against the Protestant reformation (witch-hunts, religious wars).

Pre-Columbian Americas

Based on your understanding of the reading and the videos, take bulleted notes on the following:

-Reasons for/path of migration to the Americas.
-Economic, political, and social (including religion) structure of Mexican societies (focus on the Aztecs).
-Examples of diversity throughout North American indigenous societies.
-Economic, political, and social (including religion) structure of the Incas.

Mongols

Based on your understanding of the reading and the videos, take bulleted notes on the following:

• Mongol military technologies and strategies
• How Mongols ruled conquered territory
• How Mongol rule affected the connections between East and West
• Compare/contrast Mongols with one other medieval invader (e.g. Vikings, Seljuk Turks, Umayyads, Abbasids, etc.)