I. Unit Framing: Why 1750?

The NYS curriculum starts the Regents content at 1750 because that year functions as a hinge. By 1750 the world was already deeply interconnected through global trade, dominated not by Europe alone but by several powerful empires across Eurasia, and organized around belief systems and political structures that had been in place for centuries. The next 250 years are the story of how that pre-modern equilibrium was broken apart and reorganized by revolution, industrialization, imperialism, and total war.

This unit is therefore the baseline. Every later unit asks you to compare what came after to what existed in 1750. If you understand the four pillars of this unit (belief systems, major empires, economic systems, and political systems) you have the frame of reference the rest of the course requires.

Strategic insight: The Regents exam consistently rewards students who can recognize that in 1750 the most powerful empires in the world were Asian (Qing China, Mughal India, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Japan), not European. This is the single most important conceptual move in the unit because it sets up the dramatic reversal during industrialization and imperialism.

Essential question for this unit: How did belief systems, political structures, and economic systems organize the world in 1750, and what tensions within that order made later transformation possible?