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Empires Expand

Teacher Resources

Driving Question: How and why did various land-based empires develop and expand from 1450 to 1750 CE?

Large land-based empires exerted control over vast regions of Afro-Eurasia during this period. While empires certainly weren’t new, the land-based empires covered in this lesson ruled over diverse peoples and large geographic areas. So, how did these empires ensure that their subjects obeyed the empire’s rules?

Learning Objectives:

  1. Evaluate the similarities and differences between how and why various land-based empires, such as the Manchu, Mughal, Ottoman, and Safavid, developed and expanded from 1450 to 1750.
  2. Investigate the role of various technological innovations, such as gunpowder, on the formation of land-based empires.
  3. Assess how political and religious disputes led to conflict between empires.
  4. Use the historical reasoning process of comparison to analyze the similarities and differences between various land-based empires.
  5. Use the historical thinking practice of claim testing to learn how to analyze the quality of evidence used to support claims.
  6. Use graphic biographies as microhistories to support, extend, or challenge the overarching narratives from this region. 

Vocab Terms:

  • boyar
  • cosmopolitan
  • imam
  • Janissary
  • Reformation
  • Shia
  • Sunni
  • tsar
STEP 1

Opener: Empires Expand

STEP 2

Gunpowder Empires

Having a strategy is important means to achieving your objectives. The most successful strategies may take a multi-pronged approach, making them even more effective.

STEP 3

Comparison: Empires

Why are some empires successful while others fail? You will compare the functionality of empires and answer this question.

STEP 4

Graphic Biography: Khanzada Begum

In this lesson you’ve learned about many empires, all of which were ruled by men. Khanzada Begum was a Timurid noblewoman who played an important role in the Mughal Dynasty, demonstrating how the household and the state often overlapped.

STEP 5

Claim Testing: Evidence

You’ve probably realized that evidence is crucial—both for making your own claims and testing the claims of others. But be careful: Some evidence is better than others.

STEP 6

Europe: Exception or Variety?

Was Europe just a part of Eurasia, or was it something more? This article compares European empires with those of Asia.

STEP 7

Closer: Empires Expand

Moroccan Sultan Mawläy ‘Abd al-Mälik had his hands full defending his kingdom against multiple threats—Ottoman Sultans, Christian Europeans, and even his own relatives!!