MTTC History (009) flashcards

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

Neolithic Revolution

The transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture beginning around 10,000 BCE, which produced food surpluses, permanent villages, occupational specialization, and early social hierarchies.

Hammurabi's Code

A Babylonian law code from around 1750 BCE inscribed on a stele. It publicized penalties that varied by social class, embodying the principle of proportional but unequal justice.

Athenian democracy

A direct democracy in classical Athens in which eligible adult male citizens voted on laws and offices in the assembly; women, slaves, and foreigners were excluded from political participation.

Pax Mongolica

The period of relative stability across Mongol-ruled Eurasia from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, which secured trade routes, enabled exchange of goods and ideas, and facilitated the spread of disease.

Silk Roads

Overland trade networks linking China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Beyond goods, they carried Buddhism, Islam, technologies, and epidemic diseases between distant societies.

Columbian Exchange

The transatlantic transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases after 1492. Old World diseases devastated Native populations while American crops increased Eurasian food supplies.

Peace of Augsburg

The 1555 agreement allowing each German prince to determine the religion of his territory, expressed as cuius regio, eius religio, which temporarily settled religious conflict within the Holy Roman Empire.

Haitian Revolution

The 1791-1804 uprising of enslaved people and free people of color in Saint-Domingue that ended slavery and French rule, creating Haiti as the first independent Black republic.

Berlin Conference

The 1884-1885 meeting of European powers that established rules for claiming African territory, accelerating imperial partition without African representation and shaping later borders.

Treaty of Versailles

The 1919 settlement ending World War I that imposed territorial losses, military limits, and reparations on Germany; its terms are often linked to later political instability.

Cold War containment

The U.S. strategy of limiting Soviet expansion through alliances, economic aid, and military deterrence, exemplified by the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan after 1947.

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement among Pilgrim settlers to create a civil government and obey its laws, an early example of self-government and consent of the governed in colonial America.

Marbury v. Madison

The 1803 Supreme Court decision establishing judicial review, holding that courts may declare acts of Congress unconstitutional when they conflict with the Constitution.

Reconstruction Amendments

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which abolished slavery, guaranteed equal protection and due process, and protected voting rights regardless of race.

New Deal

President Franklin Roosevelt's 1930s programs providing relief, recovery, and reform during the Great Depression, including Social Security, banking regulation, and public works employment.

Brown v. Board

The 1954 Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and energizing the civil rights movement.

Cadillac founds Detroit

In 1701 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac established Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, a French fur-trading post that became the permanent settlement and later city of Detroit.

Toledo War

A boundary dispute between Michigan and Ohio in 1835 over the Toledo Strip; Congress resolved it by granting statehood to Michigan in 1837 and awarding the Upper Peninsula as compensation.

Flint sit-down strike

The 1936-1937 occupation of General Motors plants by autoworkers, which pressured GM to recognize the United Auto Workers and legitimized industrial unionism in Michigan.

Great Migration to Detroit

The twentieth-century movement of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities including Detroit, drawn by industrial jobs and shaping urban demographics, culture, and civil rights activism.

Primary versus secondary source

A primary source originates during the period studied, such as a letter or artifact; a secondary source interprets evidence afterward, such as a textbook or scholarly article.

Historical contextualization

Placing a source or event within its political, social, economic, and cultural setting so its meaning and significance are understood on its own terms rather than present-day assumptions.

Continuity and change over time

An analytical skill identifying what persisted and what shifted across a period, while evaluating the pace, causes, and significance of those changes.

Historical empathy

Understanding past actors' choices and beliefs within their own historical context and values, avoiding presentism while still evaluating actions critically.

Map projections

Methods of representing the spherical Earth on a flat surface; every projection distorts shape, area, distance, or direction, so map choice affects interpretation.

Push and pull factors

Conditions driving migration: push factors such as famine or persecution encourage departure, while pull factors such as jobs or land attract migrants to a destination.

Great Lakes iron and coal

Iron ore from the Lake Superior region combined with Appalachian coal to supply U.S. steel production, illustrating how natural resources shaped industrial geography.

Opportunity cost

The value of the next-best alternative forgone when a choice is made, a core concept arising from scarcity and used to analyze historical and personal decisions.

Mercantilism

An economic doctrine holding that national power depends on accumulating wealth through favorable trade balances and colonial resources, a rationale for European empire building.

Comparative advantage

The principle that societies gain by specializing in goods they produce at lower opportunity cost and trading for others, a basis for international trade theory.

Separation of powers

The division of government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches with distinct functions, designed with checks and balances to prevent concentration of power.

Post-revisionist Cold War view

An interpretation holding that Cold War tensions arose from mutual misperception and security dilemmas, balancing orthodox blame on Soviet expansion with revisionist emphasis on U.S. actions.