UEE History flashcards

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

Neolithic Revolution

Transition from foraging to settled agriculture beginning around 10,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent, enabling food surpluses, permanent settlements, specialization, and the emergence of complex societies.

Cuneiform

One of the earliest writing systems, developed in Sumer around 3200 BCE using wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, initially for accounting and later for law, literature, and administration.

Code of Hammurabi

Babylonian legal code of about 282 laws inscribed on a stele around 1754 BCE, applying punishments according to social class and embodying the principle of retaliation.

Mandate of Heaven

Zhou dynasty political doctrine holding that rulers govern with divine approval, which is withdrawn when they become corrupt, justifying dynastic overthrow and explaining cycles of Chinese history.

Athenian democracy

System introduced by Cleisthenes around 508 BCE in which eligible adult male citizens voted and held office by lot, while women, slaves, and foreign residents were excluded.

Pax Romana

Period of relative peace and stability across the Roman Empire from 27 BCE to about 180 CE, marked by expanded trade, infrastructure, and the spread of Roman law.

Feudalism

Medieval system in which a lord granted land (a fief) to a vassal in exchange for military service, creating hierarchical obligations among rulers, nobles, and knights.

Magna Carta

Charter forced on King John by English barons in 1215, limiting royal power and establishing principles of due process later cited as foundations of the rule of law.

Black Death

Plague pandemic that devastated Europe from 1347 to 1351, killing a large share of the population and triggering labor shortages, higher wages, and the decline of serfdom.

Pax Mongolica

Period of stability across Mongol-ruled Eurasia from the 13th to 14th centuries that secured trade routes, enabling exchange of goods, ideas, and diseases such as the plague.

Protestant Reformation

Religious movement begun in 1517 when Martin Luther challenged church practices, leading to the division of Western Christianity and wars settled partly by the Peace of Augsburg.

Columbian Exchange

Post-1492 transfer of crops, animals, people, and diseases between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia, which reshaped diets and caused catastrophic Indigenous population decline.

Industrial Revolution

Period beginning in late 18th-century Britain when mechanization, coal, and steam power transformed production, urbanization, and social class structures across Europe and beyond.

Congress of Vienna

1815 settlement led by Metternich that restored monarchies and redrew European borders to preserve a balance of power, establishing a conservative order until the 1848 revolutions.

Bismarck's blood and iron

Policy of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck using war and state power to unify Germany, achieved through victories over Denmark, Austria, and France by 1871.

Treaty of Versailles

1919 peace treaty ending World War I that imposed reparations, territorial losses, and military limits on Germany, and whose terms fueled later resentment and extremism.

Great Depression

Global economic collapse beginning with the 1929 US stock market crash, causing mass unemployment and bank failures that destabilized politics and strengthened authoritarian movements.

Truman Doctrine

1947 US policy pledging support to nations resisting communism, marking the start of containment and the Cold War division between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Marshall Plan

US program from 1948 providing economic aid to rebuild Western Europe, aimed at preventing communist influence and fostering postwar recovery and cooperation.

Cuban Missile Crisis

1962 confrontation between the US and USSR over Soviet missiles in Cuba, resolved by withdrawal in exchange for a US pledge not to invade and removal of missiles from Turkey.

Decolonization

Post-1945 process in which Asian and African colonies gained independence, producing new states that often faced artificial borders, economic dependence, and Cold War pressures.

Glasnost and perestroika

Soviet reforms under Gorbachev in the 1980s promoting openness and economic restructuring, which weakened communist control and contributed to the USSR's dissolution in 1991.

Meiji Restoration

1868 political change in Japan that restored imperial rule and launched rapid industrialization and centralization, enabling Japan to become a major power by the early 20th century.

Satyagraha

Gandhi's strategy of nonviolent resistance based on truth and moral force, used in campaigns such as the 1930 Salt March against British colonial rule in India.

Sykes-Picot Agreement

1916 secret Anglo-French arrangement dividing Ottoman Middle Eastern territories into spheres of influence, shaping later mandate borders and regional conflicts.

Atatürk's reforms

Secularizing and modernizing changes in Turkey after 1923 under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, including legal, educational, and alphabet reforms that reshaped the new republic.

Primary source

Document or artifact produced at the time of an event by a participant or contemporary witness, such as letters, diaries, laws, or photographs, used as direct evidence.

Source criticism

Method of evaluating evidence by examining provenance, authorship, audience, purpose, and date, and by distinguishing what a source proves from what it merely claims.

Corroboration

Practice of checking a claim against independent sources to confirm accuracy, since a single document or testimony cannot establish a fact about a contested event.

Longue durée

Braudel's concept of history focused on slow-changing geographic and social structures over centuries rather than on short-term political events or individual actions.

Marxist historiography

Interpretation of history through class conflict and modes of production, holding that economic conditions shape political institutions, culture, and social change over time.

Subaltern studies

Approach associated with postcolonial historians that recovers voices of colonized and marginalized groups and critiques Eurocentric framing of historical narratives.