LC History flashcards

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

Primary source

A document, artefact, or record produced at the time of the events by a participant or eyewitness, such as a diary, letter, photograph, or official minute. It is raw evidence requiring interpretation rather than self-explanatory fact.

External criticism

The stage of source criticism that establishes authenticity: who created the document, when, where, and whether the provenance chain is intact. It precedes any attempt to interpret content or assess reliability.

Corroboration

Confirming a claim using at least two genuinely independent sources. Documents sharing a common origin, such as a report and a newspaper story based on it, count as one line of evidence, not two.

Act of Union 1800

Legislation abolishing the Irish Parliament from 1 January 1801 and giving Ireland seats at Westminster, with 100 MPs and 28 representative peers. It created the constitutional framework that Home Rule later sought to alter.

Catholic Emancipation 1829

The Act allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament and hold most public offices, won through O'Connell's mass Catholic Association. The same legislation raised the county franchise, sharply reducing the Irish electorate.

Great Famine

The 1845-52 crisis caused by potato blight and compounded by relief policy, eviction, and the Poor Law. Roughly one million died and over a million emigrated, permanently changing Irish demography and politics.

Government of Ireland Act 1920

Westminster legislation creating two devolved administrations and parliaments in Belfast and Dublin. It partitioned the island and formed the constitutional basis of Northern Ireland until the Good Friday Agreement.

Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921

Agreement ending the Anglo-Irish War, creating the Irish Free State as a dominion with an oath of allegiance and accepting partition. Its terms split Sinn Féin and caused the Civil War of 1922-23.

Good Friday Agreement 1998

Power-sharing settlement creating a Northern Ireland Assembly with cross-community mechanisms, plus North-South and British-Irish bodies. It followed multi-party talks and was endorsed by referendums in both jurisdictions.

Enabling Act 1933

German law allowing the government to legislate without the Reichstag for four years, passed after the Reichstag Fire and intimidation of deputies. It provided the legal form for Nazi dictatorship and was repeatedly renewed.

Article 48

Weimar constitutional provision allowing the president to rule by emergency decree in a crisis. Used increasingly from 1930, it let governments bypass the Reichstag and undermined parliamentary democracy before 1933.

Appeasement

British and French policy of conceding to Hitler's territorial demands to avoid war, seen at the Rhineland, Anschluss, and Munich. It failed, and the 1939 invasion of Poland triggered war.

Marshall Plan

American programme of economic aid to western Europe from 1948, intended to rebuild economies and resist communist influence. It complemented the Truman Doctrine and deepened the Cold War division of Europe.

NATO 1949

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a collective defence alliance whose members agreed that an attack on one was an attack on all. It was matched by the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

Cuban Missile Crisis

The 1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, resolved by withdrawal in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba and removal of missiles from Turkey. It was the Cold War's closest approach to nuclear war.

Monroe Doctrine

The 1823 declaration that the Americas were closed to further European colonisation and intervention. It shaped US hemispheric policy and was later invoked selectively to justify intervention in Latin America.

New Deal

Roosevelt's 1933-39 programme of banking reform, relief, public works, and social insurance, including the Social Security Act. It expanded federal responsibility but did not end the Depression.

Lend-Lease

The 1941 American programme supplying arms and material to Britain and later the USSR before US entry into the war. It ended formal neutrality and made the US the 'arsenal of democracy'.

Containment

American Cold War strategy of limiting Soviet expansion through economic, political, and military means, articulated by Kennan and applied in the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and NATO.

Brown v. Board of Education

The 1954 Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning the 'separate but equal' doctrine. It energised the civil rights movement and provoked southern resistance.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The 1964 congressional measure authorising presidential use of force in Vietnam after reported attacks on US ships. It became the legal basis for escalation and was later repealed and replaced by the War Powers Act.

Research question

A focused, answerable question that defines the scope of an investigation and the evidence needed. It differs from a broad topic because it can be tested and answered with sources.

Hypothesis

A provisional explanation proposed for testing against evidence. In historical investigation it is revised or rejected as sources are examined, and it must be distinguished from a final conclusion.

Selection bias

Distortion caused by which records survive and are used, often over-representing literate, official, or elite voices. Historians must explain gaps rather than treat silence as evidence.

Historiography

The study of how history has been written, including changing interpretations and debates among historians. A strong investigation compares at least two competing accounts and tests them against evidence.

Bias in sources

A source's slant arising from its purpose, audience, or author's interests. It does not automatically make a source useless; it determines what the source can reliably show.

Value and limitations

The paired judgement used to evaluate a source: what it reliably reveals for a given purpose and what it cannot, owing to origin, bias, or gaps. Both must be tied to the question asked.

Anachronism

Applying present-day ideas, terms, or categories to a past period in a way that distorts it. Historians judge institutions and language by contemporary meanings rather than modern assumptions.

Change and continuity

The analytical pairing that asks what altered, for whom, how quickly, and what persisted across a period. It prevents history being reduced to a simple sequence of turning points.

Long-term and short-term causes

The distinction between structural conditions, medium-term developments, and immediate triggers. Strong explanations combine levels rather than attributing events to a single cause.

Periodisation

The division of the past into named periods, such as 'the Troubles' or 'the Cold War'. Period boundaries are interpretive choices that highlight some changes and obscure others.