• European Community an international organization dedicated to establishing free trade among its European member nations

• European Union an international organization made up of over two dozen European nations, with a common currency and common policies and laws

• excommunication exclusion from the Roman Catholic Church as a penalty for refusing to obey Church law

• expansionism policy of increasing the amount of territory a government holds

• extraterritoriality right of foreigners to be protected by the laws of their own nation

F

• faction dissenting group of people

• famine a severe shortage of food in which large numbers of people starve

• fascism any centralized, authoritarian government system that is not communist whose policies glorify the state over the individual and are destructive to basic human rights

• federal republic government in which power is divided between the national, or federal, government and the states

• Federal Reserve central banking system of the United States, which regulates banks

• Fertile Crescent region of the Middle East in which civilizations first arose

• feudal contract exchange of pledges between lords and vassals

• feudalism loosely organized system of government in which local lords governed their own lands but owed military service and other support to a greater lord

• fief in medieval Europe, an estate granted by a lord to a vassal in exchange for service and loyalty

• filial piety respect for parents

• finance the management of money matters including the circulation of money, loans, investments, and banking

• First Sino-Japanese War conflict between China and Japan in 1894–1895 over control of Korea

• Flanders a region that included parts of presentday northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands; was an important industrial and financial center of northern Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance

• flapper in the United States and Europe in the 1920s, a rebellious young woman

• Florence a city in the Tuscany region of northern Italy that was the center of the Italian Renaissance

• flying buttresses stone supports on the outside of a building that allowed builders to construct higher, thinner walls that contained large stained-glass windows

• Four Noble Truths as taught by the Buddha, the four basic beliefs that form the foundation of Buddhism

• Fourteen Points list of terms for resolving WWI and future wars outlined by American President Woodrow Wilson in January 1918

• Franks a Germanic tribe that conquered presentday France and neighboring lands in the 400s

• free trade trade between countries without quotas, tariffs, or other restrictions

• French and Indian War war between Britain and France in the Americas that happened from 1754 to 1763; it was part of a global war called the Seven Years' War

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