A protégé of his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Pico della Mirandola was a youthful prodigy and an example of humanist thought during the Italian Renaissance. In 1486, his most notable work, [BLANK-1], made an impassioned summary of peoples’ positive qualities and capacities for learning

[BLANK-1] occurred between 1315 and 1317 and was the result of poor harvests due to climate change and the Little Ice Age. It was a Malthusian Crisis that not only led to massive death in Europe, but also greatly weakened the immune system of survivors who would be devastated by the Great Death around thirty years later.

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:Ch’oe Ch’unghonChinggis KhanFujiwara MichinagaInfernoThe Medieval ChessboardQutb-ud-dinThe Secret History of the MongolsShen GuaThe Srivijayan EmpireThe Tale of Genji

[BLANK-1] is one of the greatest and most famous works of art in the world. It was sculpted by Michelangelo during the Italian Renaissance and exemplified the artist’s (and the movement’s) insistence that human beings have great dignity and are worthy of admiration and contemplation. Counter to the biblical basis for the theme of the sculpture, Michelangelo designed his subject to be a muscular, powerful, and full-formed adult. He used a beautiful, but flawed, block of marble for the sculpture that had been infamous in Florence for its tricky air pockets (making it subject to cracking). Michelangelo showed his immense skill as an artist by incorporating the imperfections in the marble and using them to form veins, ligaments, and sinew for his sculpture.

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.