• Bataan Death March during World War II, the forced march of Filipino and American prisoners of war under brutal conditions by the Japanese military

• Battle of Tours battle in 732 in which the Christian Franks led by Charles Martel defeated Muslim armies and stopped the Muslim advance into Europe

• Bedouin a desert-dwelling Arab nomad

• Benedictine Rule rules drawn up in 530 by Benedict, a monk, regulating monastic life. The Rule emphasizes obedience, poverty, and chastity and divides the day into periods of worship, work, and study.

• Biafra region of southeastern Nigeria that launched a failed bid for independence from Nigeria in 1966, launching a bloody war

• biotechnology the application of biological research to industry, engineering, and technology

• bishop high-ranking Church official with authority over a local area, or diocese

• Black Death an epidemic of the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the 1300s

• Black Shirt any member of the militant combat squads of Italian Fascists set up under Mussolini

• blitzkrieg lightning war

• bloc a group of nations acting together in support of one another

• Boer War a war in which Great Britain defeated the Boers of South Africa

• Boers Dutch people who settled in Cape Town, Africa, and eventually migrated inland

• bourgeoisie the middle class

• Boxer Uprising anti-foreign movement in China from 1898–1900

• boyar landowning noble in Russia under the tsars

• boycott refuse to buy

• brahman in the belief system established in Aryan India, the single spiritual power that resides in all things

• bureaucracy system of government that includes different job functions and levels of authority

• bushido code of conduct for samurai during the feudal period in Japan

C

• cabinet parliamentary advisors to the king who originally met in a small room, or “cabinet”

• cahier notebook used during the French Revolution to record grievances

• Cahokia in Illinois, the largest earthwork of the Mississippian culture, c. A.D. 700

• calculus a branch of mathematics in which calculations are made using special symbolic notations; developed by Isaac Newton

• caliph successor to Muhammad as political and religious leader of the Muslims

• calligraphy the art of producing beautiful handwriting

• canon law body of laws of a church

• canonize recognize a person as a saint

• Cape Town seaport city and legislative capital of South Africa; first Dutch colony in Africa

• capital money or wealth used to invest in business or enterprise

• capital offense crime punishable by death

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