The Gupta Empire in India saw a cultural flowering, particularly in art and literature. One of India’s greatest literary minds, Kalidasa (ca. 380-450), wrote both plays and poetry (much like William Shakespeare more than a thousand years later). His most famous work was a play called [BLANK-1] which is considered among India’s greatest cultural works.

[BLANK-1] authorized The Massacre at Béziers in 1209, an event that resulted in the deaths of roughly 20,000 men, women, and children. The victims of this massacre were called Cathars. They were a minority Christian sect located primarily in Southern France who believed that the Old and New Testament spoke of different gods. According to this sect, the creator god of Genesis was cruel, violent, vindictive, and capricious – they believed he was Satan himself. The New Testament god, according to this faith, was the Christian God, Jehovah: typified by kindness, mercy, love, and forgiveness.

[BLANK-1] ruled a southern Chinese dynasty, founding it in 960 and ruling until his death in 976. He was a charismatic general who was loved by his troops and had been elevated to the role of emperor. He feared that such a thing could happen again, however, and took great steps to avoid generals rising through the ranks. He did this by placing armies under the control of the central government and by rotating generals from army to army.

[BLANK-1] was the most important political, social, and economic feature of a Greek polis (city-state). This feature, common to every polis, was a public square of market with porticoes, shops, public buildings, and courts. In addition to daily shopping, urban Greeks would find entertainment, public debate and discourse, and conduct business in this area.

In the third century B.C.E., a Daoist thinker named [BLANK-1] argued that people would be better off if they knew less, gave up tools, renounced writing, and stopped envying neighbors. He preached submissiveness and emphasized the mystical power of yielding over action and the power of silence over speaking.

[BLANK-1] was a city-state notable for its high rate of death during the Black Death, as chronicled by Giovanni Boccaccio’s account of the plague. It was also the most important site of the Italian Renaissance, home to artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Filippo Brunelleschi, and controlled by the powerful Medici family.

In 1427-1428, the Mexica ruler, [BLANK-1] waged war against the Tepanec Alliance and defeated them. This effectively established the Aztec Empire.

[BLANK-1] came about around 1200 in Europe as an effort to limit violence and instill social order among knights. This code emphasized values such as bravery, honor, generosity, graciousness, mercy, and gallantry toward women.

[BLANK-1] was a governmental model that developed in Ancient Greece. It typically occurred in periods of distress or unrest, when one man took over all power of the government in a polis. Although this one man held all the power of the government, he was not necessarily cruel or unjust, and sometimes used his power to benefit average citizens.

The complicated political relations between England and France were exacerbated when the Norman, William the Conqueror, defeated Harold Godwinson at [BLANK-1] in 1066 and claimed the English throne (essentially giving control of the English kingdom to a Frenchman). William was fortunate, as Harold Godwinson’s army had been depleted during a major battle against his brother and Norway’s King Harald Hardrada in the previous weeks.