High School World History Quiz: Corroborating Sources

Source A (Ottoman Court Record, 1453): "By the grace of Allah, Sultan Mehmed has conquered Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire. The city's defenses were breached by our great cannons, and the emperor died fighting bravely."

Source B (Genoese Merchant Letter, 1453): "The Turks have taken the city after a siege of 54 days. Their massive cannon broke through the walls near the Gate of St. Romanus. Many Christians fled by sea, but trade continues under new management."

Source C (Greek Chronicle, 1460): "The city fell when the Genoese abandoned their posts at the wall. Emperor Constantine died as a true Roman, but he was betrayed by foreign mercenaries who cared only for gold."

What military and political facts do these sources corroborate, and where do they present conflicting explanations for the outcome?

Source A (Egyptian Nationalist Newspaper, 1956): "President Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal represents the triumph of Arab independence over Western imperialism. Egypt will use canal revenues to build the Aswan Dam and modernize our nation."

Source B (British Foreign Office Memo, 1956): "Nasser's seizure of the canal violates international agreements and threatens the free passage of ships carrying vital oil supplies to Europe. Military intervention may be necessary to protect British interests."

Source C (UN Security Council Records, 1956): "The crisis began when the United States and Britain withdrew funding for the Aswan Dam project, prompting Egypt to nationalize the canal company to secure alternative financing for development projects."

What sequence of events do these sources corroborate, and how do they differ in their interpretation of the legal and political justifications for each side's actions?

Source A: Pope Urban II, calling for the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont, 1095.

"Your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help. For, as most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them… They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians… Let this be your war-cry in combat: 'It is the will of God!' All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested."

Source B: From a chronicle by Guibert of Nogent, a French monk writing about people preparing for the First Crusade, circa 1108.

"In the midst of this universal turmoil, there was a great famine. The wealthy were oppressing the poor. Many, with a feigned purpose of a pilgrimage, were selling their lands and possessions at a low price. Others, who were not their own masters but were bound to the service of lords, seized the opportunity to escape. Many were motivated by a desire to see new lands or to acquire lordship in the East, where they might become rich."

When analyzed together, these sources suggest that the motivations of those who joined the First Crusade

Source A: A chronicle from a monastery in Flanders, circa 1349.

"In the year of our Lord 1348, a great mortality began to spread over the world. It is believed by many that the Jews, in their wickedness, have poisoned the wells and springs, seeking to destroy all of Christendom. In many towns, the people have risen up and, with righteous fury, have burned them in their homes or put them to the sword. It is a just punishment for those who have brought this calamity upon us."

Source B: The medical faculty of the University of Paris, in a report to the King of France, 1348.

"We, the masters of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, after diligent inquiry, have concluded that the distant and primary cause of this pestilence was a major conjunction of three planets in the sign of Aquarius. This celestial event has caused a deadly corruption of the air, a 'miasma,' which enters the body through breath and pores. We advise the lighting of aromatic fires and the avoidance of bathing to protect oneself."

What do these two sources, taken together, reveal about the ways 14th-century Europeans attempted to explain the Black Death?

Source A: Galileo Galilei, in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615.

"I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages, but from sense-experiences and necessary demonstrations… The Holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word, the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned."

Source B: From the judgment of the Roman Inquisition against Galileo Galilei, 1633.

"The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture. The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and moves, and even with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false in philosophy and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith. We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure."

The central conflict illustrated by these two documents is a disagreement over

Source A: An imperial rescript issued by the Meiji Emperor of Japan, 1868.

"The Shogunate has ignored the orders of the Throne, and has brought injury to the people. Our policy is to restore the ancient imperial rule, to uphold the national honor, and to satisfy the heart of our people. We shall sweep away the abuses of ages past and seek knowledge throughout the world, so that we may strengthen the foundations of the Empire. We call upon our loyal subjects to aid us in expelling the barbarians."

Source B: An excerpt from the Charter Oath, issued by the Meiji Emperor, 1868.

"1. Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters decided by public discussion.

1. All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out the administration of the state.

2. Evil customs of the past shall be broken off and everything based upon the just laws of Nature.

3. Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule."

A historian comparing these two documents, issued in the same year, would most likely be struck by the tension between the

Source A: A Spanish missionary in Mexico, writing in the 16th century.

"God has blessed this land through our efforts. Where once there was idolatry, there is now the true faith. We have brought with us the gifts of civilization: wheat for bread, cattle for meat and labor, and the noble horse for transport. The natives have learned new crafts and agricultural methods which have improved their lives and brought them from barbarism to a more orderly existence."

Source B: A modern demographic study of central Mexico in the 16th century.

"The arrival of Europeans initiated a catastrophic demographic collapse. Lacking immunity to Old World diseases, indigenous populations were devastated by successive epidemics of smallpox, measles, and influenza. Some estimates suggest that the population of central Mexico fell from over 15 million in 1519 to less than 2 million by 1580, a decline of nearly 90 percent. This was arguably the greatest human mortality event in history."

The evidence presented in Source B most directly challenges the argument in Source A regarding the

Source A: From the records of a Han Dynasty court official, describing trade with Central Asia, circa 1st century BCE.

"The Son of Heaven, hearing of the fine horses of the Ferghana valley, sent an embassy with a thousand pieces of gold and a golden horse to request them. The people of Ferghana, however, refused. Enraged, the Emperor dispatched an army to compel them. After a great campaign, the people of Ferghana were forced to deliver three thousand of their superior 'heavenly horses' for the use of the imperial cavalry."

Source B: An archeological report on a 1st-century CE tomb of a wealthy individual, excavated along the Silk Road in the Tarim Basin (modern western China).

"The tomb contains a rich array of grave goods that testify to the cosmopolitan nature of the region. Alongside intricately woven Chinese silks were found fragments of Roman glassware, beads of lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, and a small bronze statue displaying clear artistic influences from Gandharan Buddhist traditions originating in India."

What aspect of the Silk Road exchange is highlighted by Source B but not by Source A?

Source A: The Pact of Umar, a treaty between early Muslim conquerors and the Christians of Syria, codified in the 7th-9th centuries.

"We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, churches, or convents. We shall not repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins. We shall show respect for Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit. We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. In return for this, you grant us security for our lives, our property, and our churches, on condition that we pay the jizya [poll tax] from our own hands in a state of humiliation."

Source B: From the account of a Christian bishop in Egypt, writing in the 8th century.

"The governor, in his greed, has doubled the tax upon our community, a sum we cannot possibly pay. He has seized the lands of our monastery, claiming they were not covered by the original treaty. Furthermore, his soldiers have torn down the new walls we built to repair our main church, stating that we violated the pact. We live in fear, for the protection we were promised seems to depend entirely on the whim of the local ruler."

Comparing these two sources on the status of non-Muslims in the early Islamic empire suggests that

Source A: An editorial in the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, October 1958.

"A new miracle has appeared on the horizon of the East. The reports of autumn harvests from all parts of the country show that the total output of grain this year will be more than double that of last year. The brilliant success of the people's communes has smashed the slanders of the bourgeois rightists. Under the wise leadership of Chairman Mao, our nation is leaping forward into a future of unprecedented prosperity and abundance for all."

Source B: A summary of findings by historian Frank Dikötter, based on analysis of local Communist Party archives, published in 2010.

"The pressure to meet impossibly high quotas led cadres to submit fabricated production figures. In reality, moving peasants into communes and forcing them into inefficient backyard steel production led to a catastrophic decline in grain output. Combined with the state's procurement of what little grain there was, this resulted in a massive famine. Demographic analysis of provincial archives shows excess mortality of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962."

The account in Source B most fundamentally challenges the claims made in Source A regarding the

Source A: Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, signed June 28, 1919.

"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

Source B: A speech by a German politician from the Social Democratic Party to the National Assembly, May 1919.

"We are to accept sole guilt for the war. Such a confession in my mouth would be a lie. We are not without fault, but we emphatically deny that Germany alone is guilty. This is not a peace treaty that is being offered, but a diktat—a dictated peace—forced upon a disarmed and helpless nation. This 'war guilt' clause is a matter of national honor, and to sign it under duress would be a permanent source of shame and resentment for our people."

The perspective in Source B helps a historian understand that a significant part of the German objection to Article 231 was based on

Source A: An excerpt from a report by a British factory owner to a parliamentary committee, 1832.

"The employment of children in our mills is not only a benefit to their families, providing a necessary income, but it is a kindness to the children themselves. It keeps them from the idleness and vice that are found on the streets. They learn the valuable habits of discipline and industry from a young age, which prepares them for a productive adult life. Their work is light and requires little strength."

Source B: Testimony of a former child laborer to the same parliamentary committee, 1832.

"I was seven years old when I began work. We worked from six in the morning until eight at night. The dust and heat were suffocating. I frequently saw children beaten by the overseer if they slowed down. My younger sister had her hand crushed in the machinery. We never saw our parents, as they worked different shifts. The wages were barely enough to buy bread. It was not a life; it was slavery."

The most significant point of disagreement between these two accounts concerns whether factory employment

Source A: From the journal of a European slave trader, 1754.

"The trade in negroes is a difficult but profitable venture, ordained by Providence. We bring these heathen souls from a land of barbarism and idolatry into the light of Christian civilization, where they may learn obedience and industry on the plantations. Their bodies may be enslaved, but their souls are given the chance for salvation, a far greater prize. We conduct our business with as much humanity as the circumstances permit."

Source B: From the narrative of Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved person, 1789.

"O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn from our country and friends to toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us."

The central contradiction between these two sources revolves around the

Source A: From a speech by a European politician, circa 1885.

"We must assert our position in Africa. It is our duty as a superior race to civilize the inferior peoples. We must bring them the light of Christianity, the benefits of our commerce, and the stability of our governance. This is not a matter of profit, but a sacred mission, a burden we must shoulder for the betterment of mankind."

Source B: From a private letter by a European colonial administrator in Africa to his brother, circa 1885.

"The competition with the Belgians for the rubber-rich territories is becoming fierce. Securing the river basin is critical for our national interest, as it will provide a direct route to the interior's resources and prevent our rivals from establishing a strategic foothold. I have been instructed to secure treaties with local chiefs by any means necessary before our competitors do."

How does the perspective in Source B complicate the argument presented in Source A?

Source A: From a Persian chronicler, Juvayni, writing in the mid-13th century about the Mongol invasion of his homeland.

"In the twinkling of an eye, that flourishing region was laid waste and became the abode of the owl and the raven; and in the place of the palaces, only the traces of their foundations remained… With one stroke a world which billowed with fertility was laid desolate, and the remnants of its inhabitants were slain. Where there had been a thousand, there remained not a hundred."

Source B: From the account of Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant who traveled through the Mongol Empire in the late 13th century.

"Travelers are safe throughout the empire, for the Great Khan has posted guards at regular intervals. Merchants can move freely and transport their goods from one end of the domain to the other without fear. The currency system is standardized, making commerce easier than ever before. Great cities, once destroyed, have been rebuilt and are now thriving centers of exchange for goods from Cathay to the Levant."

A historian studying the economic impact of the Mongol conquests would most likely use these two sources to illustrate a debate concerning

Source A: Excerpt from Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses, published in 1517.

"5. The Pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority or that of the canons.

1. They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.

2. Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters."

Source B: Excerpt from Martin Luther's Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants, published in 1525.

"For the pope is a maddened wolf, against whom the whole world is in arms… I have more fear of my own people than of him. It is not proper for a Christian to be a rebel… I have now handed the pope over to his own law, and I have washed my hands of him. It is a divine and just verdict against him that other rebels should arise against him, besides myself."

How do these sources, when read together, inform a historian's understanding of Martin Luther's objectives?

Source A: From Pericles' Funeral Oration, as recorded by the historian Thucydides, circa 431 BCE.

"Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses."

Source B: An excerpt from a modern world history textbook.

"While Athenian democracy was radical in its time, its concept of citizenship was highly restrictive. Only adult males who had completed their military training and whose parents were both Athenian citizens could vote or hold office. This excluded women, slaves, and foreign residents (metics), who together constituted a significant majority of the total population residing in Athens."

How does the information in Source B impact the interpretation of Pericles' claim in Source A that "power is in the hands... of the whole people"?

Source A: Maximilien Robespierre, in a speech to the National Convention, February 1794.

"If the spring of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the spring of popular government in revolution is at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue. It is less a special principle than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to our country's most urgent needs. The government of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."

Source B: A letter from a representative-on-mission in the French provinces to the Committee of Public Safety, late 1793.

"Citizen Colleagues, I must report that the revolutionary tribunal here has become an instrument of personal vengeance. Accusations are made without evidence, and executions are carried out with a haste that prevents any just defense. This is not strengthening the Republic; it is turning the populace against it. Good patriots live in fear, while scoundrels use the Terror to settle old scores. We are creating more enemies than we are destroying."

The argument in Source B directly challenges the central claim in Source A by suggesting that the Reign of Terror

Source A: Vladimir Lenin, speaking in April 1917.

"In our attitude towards the war, which on Russia's part remains a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of the Provisional Government, not the slightest concession is permissible. We must explain to the masses that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies is the only possible form of revolutionary government… No support for the Provisional Government; the utter falsity of all its promises must be made clear. All power to the Soviets!"

Source B: A diary entry from a member of the Menshevik party, a rival socialist group, written in November 1917.

"The Bolsheviks have completed their coup d'état. They have arrested the Provisional Government and seized power through military force, not through the will of the people or the consent of the all-Russian Soviet. This is a betrayal of the revolution. They have isolated themselves from every other democratic and socialist party. A civil war is now inevitable, and the blame will rest solely on them."

While both sources agree that the Bolsheviks took action to overthrow the Provisional Government, they offer conflicting interpretations regarding the

Source A: An excerpt from Oration on the Dignity of Man by Pico della Mirandola, an Italian Renaissance humanist, 1486.

"We have given you, O Adam, no fixed seat, no form of your own, no gift peculiar to you, so that you may have and possess, as you wish, that seat, that form, those gifts which you yourself shall desire. All other beings are constrained within the limits of laws prescribed by Us. You, who are confined by no limits, shall determine for yourself your own nature, in accordance with your own free will, in whose hand We have placed you."

Source B: From a poem written by Michelangelo, an Italian Renaissance artist, circa 1554.

"Now I know how wrong was the fantasy that made art my idol and my king. My soul, turning to your love, O Lord, that opens its arms on the cross to take us in, can find no peace. The painting and sculpture that once calmed my spirit now weigh it down. My one hope is in your divine mercy. My frail and foolish love of art has passed; my final love is for You."

Taken together, these two sources best support which of the following conclusions about the European Renaissance?