Ibn Sina, sometimes also called Avicenna, lived during the Islamic Golden Age of the tenth and eleventh centuries. He is most notable for his contributions to medicine and philosophy, particularly for authoring The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, which were widely influential in Arab and European society for several centuries.

The first universities appeared in European society in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, during the High Middle Ages. The universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford are three of the earliest known universities in European history.

A Madrasa is a university, college, or other educational institution in the Islamic world. Often times Madrasas might involve solely religious education, other times they might involve a varied and secular curriculum. Madrasas were established throughout the Middle East and North Africa during the height of Islamic power and cultural influence in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.

Contrary to popular belief Opium was brought to China by European and Middle Eastern merchants during the Tang. It did not become popular as a recreational drug until the Ming era. Gunpowder, paper-making, block printing, and the compass were all introduced to European society following interaction with Chinese merchants.

The evolution of firearms depends on many factors, including the quality of powder and different trigger mechanisms, but "pike and shot" was a stalwart concept for military planners throughout the 17th century.

Muskets, and the earlier arquebuses, were not lethal for only one shot to influence many battles; to justify the cost, musketeers had to fire multiple shots.

Because muskets are muzzle loading, they are difficult to reload with blades attached.

Disguising firearms as pikes may have occurred in individual battles, but it was never a major component of warfare.

Some of the earliest firearms used in Europe included anti-cavalry mortars, but this was hundreds of years earlier than the 17th century, and was too unreliable to sufficiently protect musketeers from cavalry.

The Meiji Restoration refers to the moment in 1868 when the authority of the Emperor of Japan was renewed over the authority of the Shogunate, which had effectively ruled Japan since 1603. Due to authoritarian disputes with lesser nobles, the Shogun was pushed out of a position of power. In the process of taking back power, the Meiji Emperor also sought to rapidly industrialize and modernize the nation, creating a western style industry, military, and government.

Heliocentrism-the idea that the Earth and the other planets in the solar system revolve around the Sun-was popularized by the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1543. Prior to this the theory of geocentrism-the idea that the Sun and the other planets revolved around the Earth-was popular, but several ancient Greeks and Medieval Arab scholars proposed ideas similar to Copernicus' heliocentism. 

Native groups domesticated many different animal species, such as llama in the Andean region, centuries before the contact with Columbus and his crew in 1492. Technologies like domesticated horses and steel armor gave Europeans advantage in battle with Native groups, even when the Europeans were outnumbered. It should be noted, however, that historians believe that the most important cause for the massive number of fatalities among Native peoples after contact with Europeans was due to exposure to European diseases like small pox. Native peoples had never been exposed to these diseases and, consequently, had no natural resistance to them. 

Galileo was not the first astronomer to argue that the Earth and the other planets revolved around the Sun, but he defended the idea in several of his writings. Galileo's advocacy for heliocentrism put him at odds with Church officials who feared that acceptance of the idea would lead to doubts about the truth of Christianity, since passages in the Bible claimed that the Earth was unmovable. Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to recant his previous advocacy of heliocentrism, and he was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. 

Gutenberg's printing press made it much easier to create a large number of copies of written works. Use of the printing press allowed the ideas of Martin Luther and his supporters to spread rapidly. The printing press also allowed a much larger number of literate people to own their own copies of the Bible, which they could interpret without intervention from Catholic clergy.