[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.

An example of Ancient Assyria’s ferocity in war includes the campaigns of Assyrian king, [BLANK-1]. In the ninth century B.C.E., during his campaigns against Zamua, his soldiers slew the inhabitants of villages, destroyed the villages, and burned the villages and crops with fire.

Under the system of feudalism, vassals would be awarded for their service with a fiefdom – usually a landed estate known as a manor. The economic power of the warrior class rested on this manorial system, and peasants often worked the fields under a system known as manorialism. Commoners who were personally free but were bound to the land and unable to leave were known as [BLANK-1].