The Berlin Conference occurred in 1885 and was primarily concerned with dividing up the African territory amongst the European powers. It occurred at the height of the last era of European Imperialism. It also, notably, coincided with the rise of Germany and the growing aspirations of Leopold II of Belgium.

The United States defeated the waning Spanish empire in the Spanish-American War in 1898. As a result of the war, the United States briefly gained control over Cuba and the Philippines and somewhat permanently gained control of Puerto Rico and Guam. Many historians consider the Spanish-American War to be the moment where America emerged as the dominant imperial and global power of the twentieth century. Hawaii was annexed by the United States around the same time, in 1897, but would remain a territory until 1959, when a national referendum voted to join the United States as the fiftieth state in the Union.

The Suez Canal was built in Egypt by the British and the French in the nineteenth century. The motivation behind building the Suez Canal becomes immediately apparent when viewing a map. Before the canal was built, a ship sailing from India to Europe had to go around the whole continent of Africa, but the Suez Canal allows ships to sail directly from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, cutting down the journey's distance by more than half.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a rapid occupation of the African continent by the European powers. Of the five countries mentioned in the answer choices, South Africa was occupied first by the Dutch, then the British; Algeria by the French; Ghana by the British; and the Congo by the Belgians. Only Ethiopia, under the skilled leadership of Haile Selassie, remained free of European control.

Difficulty in collecting taxes was a major contributing factor to the fall of both the Han and Roman empires. In the Roman Empire, wealthy land owners avoided paying taxes, and tax collectors were often driven away by the private armies of these wealthy landowners. In the Han Empire, scholar officials were not required to pay taxes, and an increase in population led to smaller family farm operations, which in turn made it more difficult for people—especially in the peasant class—to pay taxes.

While the population increase in the Han Empire contributed to its collapse, the collapse of the Roman Empire was partially attributable to population decreases caused by plagues.

Invasion by the Huns and the Visigoths took place only in the Roman Empire, not in the Han Empire.

The Balkan region, like much of Europe and indeed the world, underwent a period of massive growth in nationalist self-identification in the nineteenth century. At the time, the Balkan region was primarily controlled by the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, and both empires were profoundly affected by the uprising.

These types of questions are designed to test whether you can contextualize various important events within the larger scope of human history. Let us tackle this problem by putting all these various events in the order they occurred. First, the death of Alexander the Great occurred in the early classical period, circa 323 BCE; the Plague of Justinian occurred in 541 CE; the Crusades took place over a few hundred years from approximately 1100 to 1400 and were primarily intended to “retake” the Holy Land of Jerusalem from Arab “invaders”; the Signing of the Magna Carta took place in 1215 and is often cited as the beginning of English democracy, although it was really a means by which the Lords and Barons gained slightly more power for themselves at the expense of the desperate King John II; the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre occurred in 1572 and was a targeted religious massacre directed against the Huguenots (French Protestants) by the Catholic population of Paris and much of France; the unification of Germany took place in 1871; World War One was waged from 1914 to 1918; World War Two was waged from 1939 to 1945; and the fall of the Soviet Union occurred in 1990.

The British Empire is the largest empire in human history. The empire covered more than 33,700,000 km² (13,012,000 sq mi) and comprised over 20% of the surface area of the Earth.

At the height of it's power in the thirteenth century the Mongolian Empire stretched all the way from eastern China to eastern Europe, down to the Middle East and northern India. At the time it was the biggest empire ever seen in world history. The term Pax Mongolica refers to the period of relative peace, security, and prosperity that prevailed following Mongolian conquest of most of Eurasia. Trade and the exchange of ideas was facilitated greatly by the uniform rule of much of the world.

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher most commonly associated with the creation of the modern movement of utilitarianism. The primary tenet of utilitarianism is that morality and law should be grounded in ensuring the most happiness for the most amount of people. “It is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people that is the measure of right and wrong.”