Western Civilization I / Unit 14 WC1 1320 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading a Map of Charles V's Lands and the Ottoman Empire
The idea
The exam's sixteenth-century map shades the Habsburg inheritance or the Ottoman Empire and asks what a region is or why two shaded blocks touch. The method for the Habsburgs is inheritance by marriage: Spain from Isabella and Ferdinand, the Netherlands and Burgundy from Mary of Burgundy, Austria from the Habsburg line, plus the New World. The method for the Ottomans is conquest by reign: Anatolia and the Balkans by fourteen fifty-three, Egypt and the holy cities under Selim, Hungary and Mesopotamia under Suleiman.
In practice
Four questions. A shaded block of scattered territories across Europe under one ruler with no common border: the Habsburg inheritance, marriage not conquest. A shaded block from the Danube to the Nile: the Ottomans after Selim. A city on the Danube where the two blocks meet in fifteen twenty-nine: Vienna. A shaded Iran separate from both: the Safavids, Shia against Sunni. A fifth: the line through France separating Habsburg Spain from Habsburg Netherlands is the reason France fought Charles V on two fronts.
Where people slip
After fifteen fifty-six the Habsburg block splits into Spanish and Austrian branches, so a map's date decides whether one ruler or two holds it. And the Ottoman frontier moved: Hungary is Ottoman after fifteen twenty-six, not before.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it