Nothing in this section is new. Every date, comparison, and piece of evidence here already appeared in its unit. This section exists to make that material retrievable under time, not to teach it again.
Master timeline: c. 1200-present
Dates are grouped by unit for retrieval, not presented as a single undifferentiated list to memorize in order.
Unit 1 (c. 1200-1450). Song dynasty, 960-1279. Mali’s rise, c. 1235. Yuan dynasty, 1271-1368. Mansa Musa’s hajj, 1324-1325.
Unit 2 (c. 1200-1450). Chinggis Khan proclaimed Great Khan, 1206. Mongols sack Baghdad, 1258. Black Death, c. 1347-1353 in Europe and the Mediterranean. Ming dynasty begins, 1368. Malacca rises, c. 1400-1450.
Unit 3 (1450-1750). Ottoman polity’s traditional founding, 1299 (background, predates this unit’s 1450 start). Ottoman capture of Constantinople, 1453. Safavid dynasty established, 1501. Battle of Çaldıran, 1514. Ottomans conquer Mamluk Egypt, 1517. Babur’s victory at Panipat / Mughal founding, 1526. Hong Taiji proclaims the Great Qing, 1636. Manchu forces take Beijing / Qing rule begins, 1644. Akbar’s reign, 1556-1605 (a reign spanning multiple decades, placed here for retrieval alongside the Mughal founding it followed).
Unit 4 (1450-1750). Columbus reaches the Caribbean, 1492. Da Gama reaches India by sea, 1498. Portuguese seize Goa, 1510. Portuguese capture Malacca, 1511. Fall of Tenochtitlan, 1521. Spanish conquest of Inca accelerates, 1530s. Transpacific galleon route begins, 1565. Manila established as Spanish colonial capital, 1571. English East India Company chartered, 1600. Dutch East India Company chartered, 1602. British slave-trade abolition (later period, shown here as eventual outcome of this era’s Atlantic slave trade), 1807; slavery abolition in most of the British Empire, 1833-1838.
Unit 5 (1750-1900). Glorious Revolution / English Bill of Rights, 1688-1689. Britain’s First Industrial Revolution begins, c. 1760s (continuing to c. 1830s). U.S. Declaration of Independence, 1776. French Revolution begins / Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789. Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804. Latin American independence wars, 1810s-1820s. London Protocol recognizes Greek independence, 1830. London Conference establishes the Kingdom of Greece, 1832. Tanzimat era begins, 1839. 1848 revolutions / Communist Manifesto. Russian serf emancipation, 1861. Meiji Restoration, 1868. Suez Canal opens, 1869. Iwakura Mission, 1871-1873. Trans-Siberian Railway begins, 1891.
Unit 6 (1750-1900). First Opium War, 1839-1842. Indian Rebellion, 1857. British Crown Raj begins, 1858. High imperialism’s accelerating phase begins, 1880s (continuing to 1914). Berlin Conference, 1884-1885. Battle of Adwa, 1896. Lalla Zaynab’s dispute, 1897.
Unit 7 (1900-present). First Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895 (background, predates this unit’s c. 1900 start). Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905. Mexican Revolution begins, 1910. Qing dynasty collapses, 1911. World War I, 1914-1918. Russian revolutions, 1917 (occurring during World War I, not after it). Treaty of Versailles / League of Nations, 1919. Great Depression begins, 1929. Japan seizes Manchuria, 1931. Hitler becomes German chancellor, 1933. Full-scale Sino-Japanese War, 1937. World War II, 1939-1945. Atomic bombings / United Nations founded, 1945. Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted, 1948.
Unit 8 (1900-present). Indian independence and partition, 1947. Truman Doctrine / containment begins, 1947. NATO founded, 1949. People’s Republic of China established, 1949. Korean War, 1950-1953. Warsaw Pact founded, 1955. Ghanaian independence, 1957. Great Leap Forward, 1958-1962. Non-Aligned Movement’s first summit at Belgrade, 1961. Mandela’s Rivonia Trial speech, 1964. Non-Aligned Movement’s Algiers economic declaration, 1973. United Nations Declaration on the New International Economic Order, 1974. Deng-era reforms begin, 1978. Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-1989. Berlin Wall falls, 1989. German reunification, 1990. Soviet Union dissolves, 1991.
Unit 9 (1900-present). Bretton Woods conference, 1944. IMF operations begin, 1947. GATT enters into force, 1948. World Health Assembly calls for smallpox eradication, 1958; WHO programme launches, 1959; intensified programme begins, 1967; eradication certified, December 1979; eradication formally declared, May 1980. Public and commercial internet expands rapidly, 1990s. WTO begins operating, 1995.
Comparison dimensions for AP World History
Every unit’s comparison task required naming a shared dimension before comparing. This list compiles those dimensions by type, so you can recognize which dimension a new prompt is actually asking about.
Methods of incorporating governed or conquered populations. Mexica tribute versus Inca provincial administration (Unit 1). Ottoman devshirme versus Akbar’s alliance with Rajput elites (Unit 3).
Sources of political authority or revenue. Song examination bureaucracy versus Mali’s trade control (Unit 1). Trade-based authority (Mali, Great Zimbabwe) versus conquest-based authority (Delhi Sultanate) (Unit 1).
Role of religious or belief systems in legitimacy. Confucianism, Islam, Christianity, and Indigenous belief systems across Unit 1’s states. Ottoman Sunni accommodation versus Safavid Shi’a promotion versus Mughal alliance-based tolerance (Unit 3).
Degree of centralized versus decentralized authority. Song China versus fragmented medieval Europe (Unit 1).
Method of establishing imperial control. Portuguese port-based control versus Spanish territorial conquest (Unit 4). Formal colonial rule versus informal empire, such as China’s treaty-port system (Unit 6).
Degree of government direction in industrialization. Britain’s private-capital-driven industrialization versus Meiji Japan’s and Russia’s state-directed industrialization (Unit 5).
Trigger versus structural cause. Sarajevo assassination within preexisting alliance and rivalry conditions (Unit 7). Manchuria’s 1931 seizure as a separate, earlier expansionist sequence from Germany’s 1930s escalation (Unit 7).
Method of political or social resistance. Armed rebellion (1857) versus institutional petition-based resistance (Lalla Zaynab, 1897) (Unit 6). Mandela’s formal legal-proceeding speech versus Lalla Zaynab’s petitions, both working through existing institutions (Units 6 and 8, cross-unit).
Evidence bank: historical facts and the claims they support
A fact is not useful on the exam until you know what it proves. This bank groups high-value evidence by function, not by unit, so you can find evidence for a task rather than a topic.
Evidence for "trade generated political authority." Mali’s control of trans-Saharan gold-salt routes. Great Zimbabwe’s Indian Ocean connections. Mansa Musa’s 1324-1325 hajj.
Evidence for "administrative selection tied power to something other than birth." Song China’s examination bureaucracy. The Ottoman devshirme system.
Evidence for "technology enabled but did not guarantee expansion." The Battle of Çaldıran, 1514 (comparable gunpowder technology on both sides). The Battle of Adwa, 1896 (Ethiopian victory despite European industrial military advantage).
Evidence for "connectivity carried costs alongside benefits." The Black Death’s spread via connected trade routes, c. 1347-1353. Old World disease-driven Indigenous demographic collapse after 1492.
Evidence for "economic participation and political rights changed at different paces." Women’s expanded factory labor alongside persistent legal and political exclusion (Unit 5).
Evidence for "a trigger operated within deeper structural conditions." The Sarajevo assassination, 1914. Japan’s 1931 Manchuria seizure predating Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland by eight years.
Evidence for "formal independence did not end economic dependence." The neo-colonial critique (Unit 9). Newly independent states’ continued commodity dependence and inherited colonial borders (Unit 8).
Evidence for "international cooperation produced uneven outcomes." Smallpox eradication’s near-universal success, declared 1980 (certified December 1979), versus HIV/AIDS’s demonstrated unequal access (Unit 9).
Chronology errors to check before exam day
These are errors this book has flagged repeatedly because they recur: placing a state’s institutions before that state existed (Yuan before 1271, Safavids before 1501), merging two distinct events separated by years or decades (NATO/Warsaw Pact, Berlin Wall/reunification/Soviet dissolution, GATT/WTO), and treating a single date as a global endpoint when the actual process was staggered (slavery’s abolition across different empires and states).
Readiness check before the full practice exams
You should now be able to place any major development from this book into its correct period and region, state what any major piece of evidence proves, and name the comparison dimension a prompt is actually asking about before you start writing. The two practice exams that follow test all of this under full exam conditions, with no more review material between now and the end of the book.