Students will be asked to provide responses of at least three paragraphs each to four questions that the instructor will choose from the following list:

1. How did Augustus Caesar achieve supremacy and what did his subsequent regime indicate about the nature of power in Rome?

2. Compare and contrast the militancy of Islam and Christianity during the period from 600-1000. Be sure to refer to, among other things, Pope Urban II's call for a Crusade at the end of the eleventh century.

3. Was the reign of Emperor Charles V successful?

4. Why did the Thirty Years' War happen, and who were its principal winners and losers?