OSAT History (OK117) flashcards

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

Columbian Exchange

The post-1492 transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia. It spread maize and potatoes eastward and smallpox westward, devastating Indigenous populations.

Three-Fifths Compromise

Constitutional agreement counting three-fifths of enslaved people in a state's population for House representation and direct taxation. It increased Southern political power without granting enslaved people rights.

Missouri Compromise (1820)

Admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and banned slavery north of the 36°30′ line in the Louisiana Purchase territory, except Missouri.

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln's January 1863 order declaring enslaved people in rebelling Confederate states free. It did not apply to border slave states, but it reframed the war as a fight against slavery.

Reconstruction Amendments

The Thirteenth (1865) abolished slavery, the Fourteenth (1868) granted citizenship and equal protection, and the Fifteenth (1870) protected voting rights regardless of race.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement resolving the disputed 1876 election by making Rutherford B. Hayes president in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction.

Vertical Integration

A business strategy controlling multiple stages of production and distribution. Andrew Carnegie's steel operations combined mines, mills, and transport to cut costs and limit reliance on outside suppliers.

Social Security Act (1935)

New Deal law creating old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid to dependent children and the disabled. It established the foundation of the American welfare state.

Containment Policy

Cold War strategy of limiting Soviet expansion through economic, diplomatic, and military means. Examples include the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, and Korean War intervention.

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 Supreme Court decision holding racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. It overturned Plessy v. Ferguson's separate-but-equal doctrine and energized the civil rights movement.

Great Migration

The twentieth-century movement of millions of African Americans from the rural South to Northern and Western cities, seeking jobs and escaping Jim Crow, which reshaped urban culture and politics.

Watergate Scandal

The 1972 break-in at Democratic headquarters and subsequent cover-up, exposed through investigations and tapes. It led to Nixon's 1974 resignation and strengthened limits on presidential power.

Hammurabi's Code

A Babylonian law code from around 1750 BCE inscribed on stone. It set graded penalties by social class and is among the earliest surviving written legal systems.

Athenian Democracy

A system in classical Athens in which eligible male citizens voted directly on laws and officials. It excluded women, enslaved people, and foreigners, but pioneered citizen self-government.

Pax Romana

A period of relative peace and stability across the Roman Empire from roughly 27 BCE to 180 CE, marked by trade growth, infrastructure, and imperial administration.

Feudalism

A medieval European system of landholding in which lords granted fiefs to vassals in exchange for military service, with peasants working the land under manorial obligations.

Great Schism (1054)

The split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church over papal authority and theological disputes. It formalized separate institutions and traditions across Europe.

Mansa Musa

A fourteenth-century Mali emperor whose pilgrimage to Mecca displayed enormous gold wealth. His reign promoted Islamic learning and trade in Timbuktu and other Saharan cities.

Mongol Empire

The vast thirteenth-century empire founded by Genghis Khan, spanning Eurasia. It facilitated trade and exchange along the Silk Roads while imposing conquest and tribute on subject peoples.

Renaissance Humanism

An intellectual movement reviving classical Greek and Roman texts to emphasize human potential and civic life. It shaped art, literature, and education in Italian city-states and beyond.

Ninety-Five Theses

Martin Luther's 1517 criticisms of indulgences and church practices. The document spread rapidly through printing and helped ignite the Protestant Reformation across Europe.

Treaty of Tordesillas

The 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal dividing newly claimed overseas territories along a meridian. It shaped colonial claims in the Americas and Portuguese control of Brazil.

Separation of Powers

Montesquieu's Enlightenment idea dividing government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches that check one another. It influenced constitutional design in the United States and France.

Industrial Revolution

The late-eighteenth-century shift to mechanized production, steam power, and factories, beginning in Britain. It transformed labor, cities, class relations, and global economic power.

Treaty of Versailles

The 1919 settlement ending World War I, imposing reparations and territorial losses on Germany and creating the League of Nations. Its terms fueled resentment and later instability.

Decolonization

The post-1945 dismantling of European colonial empires, including Indian independence in 1947 and African independence in the 1950s and 1960s, creating new states amid Cold War rivalry.

Primary Source

A document or artifact created during the period being studied, such as a letter, law, photograph, or diary. It offers direct evidence but reflects its creator's perspective.

Historical Corroboration

The practice of comparing multiple independent sources to check agreement, identify conflict, and build a more reliable account of events than any single source provides.

Historical Contextualization

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

Presentism

The error of interpreting past events using contemporary values and assumptions, which distorts understanding. Historians instead reconstruct the norms and constraints of the period.

Historiography

The study of how history has been written, including changing interpretations, methods, and schools of thought. It examines how evidence and perspective shape historical accounts.

Leopold von Ranke

A nineteenth-century German historian who emphasized archival research and reconstructing the past as it actually happened. His empiricism shaped professional historical method.