GACE History (6-12) (721) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Primary source

A document, artifact, or record created during the event or by a participant, offering direct evidence but still requiring sourcing and contextualization.

Secondary source

A later work that interprets or analyzes primary sources, such as a scholarly book or textbook, and depends on the evidence and methods it cites.

Historical corroboration

Comparing independent sources that address the same question to identify agreement, disagreement, and gaps, thereby strengthening or weakening a historical claim.

Contextualization

Placing a source or event in its original political, social, economic, and cultural setting to interpret meaning accurately rather than judging it by present standards.

Claim-evidence reasoning

A historical argument states a defensible claim and supports it with relevant, cited evidence while acknowledging counterevidence and explaining why the evidence warrants the conclusion.

Neolithic Revolution

The transition from foraging to farming and settled communities beginning around 10,000 BCE, enabling food surpluses, specialization, social hierarchy, and population growth.

Silk Roads

Overland trade networks linking China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe that exchanged goods, technologies, religions, and diseases, especially during the classical and medieval periods.

Columbian Exchange

The post-1492 transfer of crops, livestock, people, and diseases between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia, reshaping diets, populations, economies, and environments.

Mongol Empire

A thirteenth-century empire founded by Genghis Khan that became the largest contiguous land empire, facilitating Eurasian trade while also spreading plague and destruction.

Industrial Revolution

The late eighteenth-century shift beginning in Britain from hand production to machine manufacturing, powered by coal and steam, which transformed work, cities, and global inequality.

Decolonization

The post-World War II process in which colonized peoples in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean achieved independence through nationalism, negotiation, and sometimes armed struggle amid Cold War competition.

Declaration of Independence

The 1776 statement asserting natural rights, popular sovereignty, and grievances against the British crown, justifying separation and influencing later democratic movements.

Federalism

A system dividing power between a national government and states, with delegated, reserved, and concurrent powers, structured by the U.S. Constitution and its amendments.

Reconstruction Amendments

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed due process and equal protection, and protected voting rights against racial exclusion.

New Deal

President Franklin Roosevelt's 1930s programs expanding federal economic regulation and relief, including Social Security, banking reform, and public works, in response to the Great Depression.

Containment

The Cold War U.S. policy of limiting Soviet and communist expansion through economic aid, alliances, military deterrence, and interventions, associated with diplomat George Kennan.

Voting Rights Act 1965

Federal legislation that banned racial discrimination in voting and authorized oversight of states with histories of disenfranchisement, enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment.

Georgia colony founding

Founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe at Savannah as a buffer against Spanish Florida and a debtors' haven, initially banning slavery and rum.

Georgia Trustees

The British board that governed Georgia from 1732 to 1752, restricting slavery and alcohol, before the crown made Georgia a royal colony.

Atlanta Campaign

The 1864 Union campaign from Chattanooga toward Atlanta, culminating in the city's fall, which boosted Lincoln's reelection and intensified total war.

County unit system

Georgia's former electoral system weighting rural counties heavily in Democratic primaries, which reduced urban and Black political influence until federal court rulings struck it down.

Jimmy Carter

Georgia governor from 1971 to 1975 and U.S. president from 1977 to 1981, known for human rights diplomacy, Camp David Accords, and post-presidential humanitarian work.

Separation of powers

The division of national government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches with distinct powers, designed to prevent tyranny through checks and balances.

Judicial review

The power of courts to declare legislative or executive acts unconstitutional, established in Marbury v. Madison (1803) and central to U.S. constitutional governance.

Electoral College

The body of 538 electors chosen by states who formally elect the president and vice president; a majority of 270 electoral votes is required to win.

Amendment process

Article V requires a two-thirds proposal by Congress or a national convention and ratification by three-fourths of states, usually through legislatures or state conventions.

Reserved powers

Powers not delegated to the federal government or denied to states, which are retained by the states or people under the Tenth Amendment.

Opportunity cost

The value of the next best alternative forgone when making a choice, a core concept because scarcity forces individuals and societies to trade off goals.

Law of demand

All else equal, as the price of a good rises, the quantity demanded falls, and as price falls, quantity demanded rises, reflecting diminishing marginal utility.

Gross domestic product

The market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period, used to measure economic output and growth.

Federal Reserve tools

The Federal Reserve conducts open market operations, sets reserve requirements, and adjusts the discount rate to influence money supply, credit, inflation, and employment.

Comparative advantage

The ability to produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than another producer, which creates gains from specialization and trade even when one party is more productive overall.