| Question | Answer |
| Marco Polo | Marco Polo was an Italian trader who traveled to China and later wrote about his trip. During his time in China he served as a government official in Kublai Khan's court. |
| interest | Interest is a fee that borrowers pay for the use of someone else's money. |
| Cosimo de Medici | Cosimo de Medici was an Italian banker and leader of Florence who wanted to make Florence the world's greatest city. He helped bring about the Renaissance with his actions. |
| Renaissnce | The Renaissance, meaning rebirth," is a period of rebirth and creativity the followed the Europe's Middle Ages. |
| humanism | Humanism is the study of history, literature, public speaking, and art (also known as the humanities) that led to a new way of thinking in Europe in the late 1300s. |
| Dante Alighieri | Dante was an Italian Renaissance poet who wrote The Divine Comedy in the Italian language. He showed that Italian is as great as Latin. |
| Niccolo Machiavelli | Machiavelli was an Italian writer and politician who wrote The Prince in which he advised leaders on how to rule. |
| perspective | Perspective is a method of showing a three-dimensional scene on a flat surface so that it looks real. |
| Michelangelo | Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance artist who designed buildings, wrote poetry, and created sculptures and paintings. |
| Leonardo da Vinci | Leonardo was a genius of the Renaissance and also a painter, sculptor, inventor, engineer, town planner, and mapmaker. |
| Petrarch | Petrarch was an early Italian Renaissance scholar who wrote about the importance of knowing history. |
| Johann Gutenberg | Johann Gutenburg was a German printer. He developed a printing press that used movable type. |
| Christian humanism | Christian humanism is the combination of humanist and religious ideas. |
| Desiderius Erasmus | Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch priest who published In Praise of Folly in which he criticized corrupt clergy. His criticisms helped inspired the Protestant Reformation. |
| Albrecht Durer | Albrecht Durer was a German Renaissance artist. He is famous for his prints and woodcuts. |
| Miguel de Cervantes | Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish writer. He wrote Don Quixote. |
| William Shakespeare | William Shakespeare was a very famous English Renaissance writer and playwright. He is considered by many to be the greatest English writer of all time. |
| classical | Something classical refers to the cultures of ancient Greece or Rome. |
| affect | To affect means to change or influence. |
| Reformation | Reformation is a reform movement against the Roman Catholic Church that began in 1517; it resulted in the creation of Protestant churches. |
| indulgence | An indulgence is a document given by the pope that excused a person from penalties for sins he or she have committed. |
| purgatory | In Catholic teaching, purgatory is a place where souls go to before they go to heaven. |
| Martin Luther | Martin Luther was a German priest credited with starting the Reformation. He nailed a list of complaints about the Catholic Church to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. |
| Protestants | Protestants are Christians who protested against the Catholic Church. |
| John Calvin | John Calvin was a Christian reformer. He taught about predestination, living good lives, and obeying God's laws. |
| King Henry VIII | Henry VIII was King of England. He split with the Catholic Church and declared himself head of the Church of England, or Anglican Church. |
| Catholic Reformation | Catholic Reformation was the effort of the late 1500s and 1600s to reform the Catholic Church from within; also called the Counter Reformation. |
| Ignatius of Loyola | Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish noble and a saint. he founded the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. |
| Jesuits | Jesuits are members of a Catholic religious order created to serve the pope and the church. |
| Francis Xavier | Francis Xavier was a Jesuit priest and missionary. He introduced Catholicism to parts of India and Japan. |
| Huguenots | Huguenot was a French Protestant. |
| Edict of Nantes | Edict of Nantes was a decree issued in 1598 by King Henry IV that granted religious freedom in most of France. |
| Thirty Years' War | The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars from 1618 to 1648 that involved many of the countries of Europe. |
| congregation | A congregation was an assembly of people who belong to a church. |
| federalism | Federalism is the sharing of power between local governments and a strong central government. |
| method | A method is a way of doing something. |
| agreement | An agreement is a decision reached by two or more people or groups. |
| Scientific Revolution | The Scientific Revolution is a series of events that led to the birth of modern science; it lasted from about 1540 to 1700. |
| science | Science is a particular way of gaining knowledge about the world. |
| theories | Theories are explanations that a scientist develops based on facts. |
| Ptolemy | Ptolemy was an Ancient Greek astronomer and geographer who studied the skies and made maps of the Mediterrnean region. |
| rationalists | Rationalists are people who look at the world in a reasonable and logical way. |
| alchemy | Alchemy is a forerunner of chemistry. |
| Nicolaus Copernicus | Micolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer who wrote the book On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres. His book helped begin the Scientific Revolution. |
| Tycho Brahe | Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer of the Scientific Revolution who emphasized the importance of careful observation. |
| Johannes Kepler | Johanns Kepler was a German astronomer who proved that the planets orbit the sun. |
| Galileo Galilei | Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist. He was the first scientist to routinely use experiments to test theories. He was place on trial for supporting theories that contradicted Church teachings. |
| Sir Isaac Newton | Isaac Newton was an English scientist who studied and simplified the work of earlier scientists. He identified four laws that explained how the physical world works. |
| barometer | A barometer is a scientific instrument that measures air pressure. |
| Francis Bacon | Francis Bacon was an English philosopher. He argued that science could be pursued in a systematic, logical fashion. His ideas helped develop the scientific method. |
| Rene Descartes | Rene Descartes was a French philosopher who believed that nothing should be accepted as true if it had not been proven. His ideas helped develop the scientific method. |
| scienctific method | The scientific method is a step-by-step method for performing experiments and other scientific research. |
| hypothesis | A hypothesis is a solution that a scientist proposes to solve a problem. |
| logical | Something logical is reasoned or well thought out. |
| procedure | A procedure is a series of steps taken to accomplish a task. |
| principles | Principles are basic beliefs, rules, or laws. |
