During the reign of Yongle, China conducted a series of naval voyages throughout the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. If history had played out differently, this might have led to a Chinese — instead of European — colonization of the Americas. However, after Yongle’s death, the Ming rulers turned away from exploration and naval colonization and focused on internal matters and the threats presented by nomadic barbarians on their borders.

Louis XIV moved the capital to the new opulent palace of Versailles in 1682, where it remained until the royal family was forced to return to Paris in 1789 at the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles remains a powerful symbol of the 'absolute monarchy' period of French political history. 

After the fall of the Ashikaga Shogunate (and, indeed, during their last century of power as well) Japan entered into a brief state of extreme decentralization and chaos. This period of time is often called the Japanese Warring States period, due to its similarity with the period of time of the same name in Chinese history. This condition persisted for a short time until the Tokugawa Shogunate was founded in Edo, by Tokugawa Ieyasu, in 1603.

The Japanese authorities allowed for the Dutch to have a trading post on the small island of Dejima because they did not fear the potential for Dutch colonization of Japan.

Japan had no relationship with France until after the industrial revolution.

The Portuguese and Spanish were some of the first Europeans to enter Japan in the 1600s, but the Japanese quickly expelled them when their influence was seen as corrosive and precipitating an invasion and colonization effort.

During the sukoku period, Japan had no relationship with Italy; it was only after the Meiji Restoration that Japanese-Italian relations began.

In nineteenth-century Europe the political philosophies of conservatism and liberalism emerged and dominated political discourse. Conservatives favored very gradual change over time, they abhorred any challenges to the status quo and favored the preservation of traditional power systems. Liberals, on the other hand, favored radical change in a relatively short period of time and the replacement of traditional power systems. These terms are still in use today, although their meaning has changed slightly over time. 

Prussia emerged as the most powerful of the German states in the eighteenth century and only grew in power in the nineteenth century after a series of successful wars against France and Austria. It was under Prussian leadership, specifically the leadership of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, that German unification was achieved in 1871.

The correct answer is the drawing of artificial borders because the question asks about the pre-colonial period and the drawing of artificial borders took place after the pre-colonial period. Abundant land, low population density, and wars fought over the control of people were all factors that contributed to the lack of centralized states in most of Africa. 

The French monarchy and government, led by King Louis XVI, was in a very difficult financial spot in the 1780s. The national treasury was basically depleted, the national debt was increasing at an alarming rate, and the government found itself unable to collect enough taxes and/or revenues to remedy the situation. To make matters worse, France’s financial crisis was not at all new – the country had been experiencing ongoing economic instability ever since the 1760s. At first, King Louis XVI and his financial advisors had attempted to stop the economy’s downward spiral but when neither the King, his advisors, nor the nobility could agree on a solution, the King (whether out of panic or confused apathy) retreated. Louis XVI secluded himself within his palace, continually fired and hired and re-hired advisors, and essentially abdicated from any attempts to resolve his nation’s financial crisis. Unsurprisingly, this approach only made the economic situation even worse and so finally, the new royal Minister of Finance, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, met with the Assembly of Notables (top-ranking clergy and aristocrats) to take matters into their own hands. But by this point, the Notables had lost all patience with the King’s tentativeness and no longer trusted him or Calonne. So, the Notables forced the King to reconvene the Estates General, an archaic legislative institution which hadn’t met at all over the last one hundred and seventy-three years! This might seem counterintuitive – why summon an essentially defunct legislative body? – but this measure speaks volumes as to the dire extent of the Notables, the King, and the entire French government’s desperation.

The French Estates General was comprised of three groups: the First, Second, and Third Estates (each Estate can be compared to a congressional section within a modern legislative body). Over the course of the late 1780s and early 1790s, the Third Estate would emerge as the single most influential sociopolitical force in pre-Revolutionary France.

The three sections of the Estates General were structured and separated according to social class. The First Estate was entirely made up of members of the clergy, while the Second Estate was comprised of hereditary aristocrats. In theory, the Third Estate was supposed to include representatives from every other sector and class of the French population, but that was inherently impossible in a society as rigidly classist as France. Instead, the Third Estate ended up being filled by prosperous professionals (such as lawyers and doctors), mid-ranking career military men, and wealthy tradesmen, merchants, and other well-off businessmen. This was hardly a representative sample of the general French population, but nevertheless, the Third Estate more accurately strove to represent their fellow countrymen than did the self-centric members of either the First or Second Estates.