At the turn of the 19th century, the British seized control of Cape Town, and British colonists began to flow into South Africa. The original Dutch colonists who traveled inland from the coast to establish farms became known as the "Boers". The Germans controlled colonies to the North of South Africa and would eventually lose them after World War I, and while America had heavy ties politically to South Africa, especially in the mid-19th century and beyond, it wasn't directly in control.

The Safavid Dynasty ruled over territory in modern-day Iran for much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Safavids are considered one of the “modern Persian Empires.”

Suleiman the Magnificent is one of the most famous and accomplished of the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman expanded Ottoman control into southeastern Europe; he improved the Ottoman legal system and modernized the military; and he was a renowned patron of the arts. The height of the Ottoman Empire’s power and prestige is thought to have occurred during his reign. He was relatively tolerant of other religions, and allowed people to practice their religions freely in the Ottoman Empire.

The Netherlands, France, and England were the three European nations who most extensively settled land in North America. English and Dutch colonies could be found all along the eastern seaboard in the seventeenth century. Many French colonies were established in modern-day Canada in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Not to mention the later French establishment of New Orleans and the Louisiana territory.

French colonies in North America were mostly founded in modern-day Canada. Unlike the Spanish who established profitable plantations in the Caribbean and Latin America and the Dutch and British who established permanent settlements on the eastern seaboard of the modern-day United States, the earliest French settlers were fur traders who made their business in the north of the continent. The state of Quebec, in modern-day Canada, is a reminder of the once pervasive French influence in north America.

Pachacuti ruled over the Kingdom of Cusco in the fifteenth century, which, through the development of infrastructure and rapid military conquest, he developed into the Inca Empire. By the time of the arrival of the Spanish, a century later, the Inca Empire had expanded to control much of the western coast of South America and the Andean mountain range.

The Inca Empire grew rapidly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century, the Inca had conquered a territory stretching more than three thousand miles in just a few generations. The Inca Empire was, however, dismantled by the Spanish even more quickly than it arose.

Huayna Capac and Pachacuti are the two most famous rulers of the Inca Empire. Huayna Capac ruled for more than fifty years and was the last great emperor before the arrival of the Spanish. Pachacuti is known for taking the small Kingdom of Cusco and transforming it, through military conquest, into the Inca Empire.

The correct answer is "powerful landed nobility" because, having defeated the other tribal leaders, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was able to rule arbitrarily as a single individual without being tempered by a landed nobility.

The Inca Empire was founded in 1438. The vast majority of Inca territory was conquered by the Spanish by 1533; therefore, the Inca Empire lasted for ninety-five years, a little less than a century.