1. what factors led to the downfall of the empires of ghana, mali, and songhai? 2. compare the economic, political, and social developments in east, west, and south africa. 3. how did the legacies of the olmec, zapotec, and chavin cultures impact mesoamerican and south american civilizations? 4. describe the roles of people in the maya, inca, and aztec societies. 5. compare the key economic, cultural, and political characteristics of the major civilizations of meso and south america. 6. what was the impact of the significant meso and south american rulers? 7. what were the effects of transportation, trade, communication, science, and technology on the preservation and diffusion of culture? 8. what was the impact of the columbian exchange on europe, africa, asia, and the americas?

in his book, the riddle of the rosetta stone, james giblin talks about how there was a young british polymath and physician named thomas young who made a lot of advances on the deciphering of the rosetta stone. he says that even though young made a lot of mistakes because he was working under false assumptions, he also made huge contributions like deciphering three out of the seven symbols (more than anyone else before him). young published his findings and continued his good work but he wasn't able to progress much further due to some unfavorable situations, he still laid the basis for many other scholars and of course for the man who has been generally known to have deciphered it, jean-françois champollion

when world war i broke out across europe in 1914, president woodrow wilson proclaimed the united states would remain neutral, and many americans supported this policy of nonintervention. however, public opinion about neutrality started to change after the sinking of the british ocean liner lusitania by a german u-boat in 1915; almost 2,000 people perished, including 128 americans. along with news of the zimmerman telegram threatening an alliance between germany and mexico, wilson asked congress for a declaration of war against germany. the u.s. officially entered the conflict on april 6, 1917.