Praxis 5004 key terms

A document, object, recording, or other artifact created by someone who witnessed or took part in an event at the time it happened. Letters, diaries, photographs, speeches, and government records are examples.

An account that interprets or analyzes past events after they happened, usually written by someone who did not witness them. Textbooks, biographies, and encyclopedia articles are common examples.

The skill of placing events in the order they occurred and reasoning about cause and effect across time. Students use timelines and sequencing to see how earlier developments shaped later ones.

A leaning toward or against something that shapes how a person selects and presents information. Historians check for bias by asking who created a source, when, and for what purpose.

The 1776 statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress announcing the colonies' break from Britain. It grounds government in natural rights and the consent of the governed.

The first constitution of the United States, in effect from 1781 to 1789. It created a weak national government with a one-house Congress and no power to tax, which led to its replacement.

The nineteenth-century belief that the United States was destined to expand across the North American continent. It justified westward settlement, the annexation of Texas, and war with Mexico.

Loyalty to a particular region of the country rather than to the nation as a whole. In the antebellum United States, clashing economic and slavery interests in North and South fueled it.

President Lincoln's 1863 executive order declaring enslaved people in rebelling Confederate states free. It did not immediately end slavery everywhere but made abolition a Union war aim.

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, ratified between 1865 and 1870. They abolished slavery, guaranteed citizenship and equal protection, and protected voting rights by race.

State and local statutes in the South that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchisement from the late 1800s until the 1960s. They were upheld by Plessy v. Ferguson and later struck down.

A set of federal programs and reforms launched by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s to relieve suffering during the Great Depression and to regulate the economy.

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia after 1492. It reshaped diets, populations, and economies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The shift from hunting and gathering to farming and settled village life, beginning around 10,000 BCE. Surplus food allowed specialization, cities, and the first civilizations.

The spread of ideas, customs, technologies, or goods from one society to another through trade, migration, or conquest. It often blends with local traditions rather than replacing them.

A network of overland trade routes linking China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Goods traveled along it, but so did religions, technologies, and diseases.

A medieval European system in which lords granted land to vassals in exchange for military service while peasants worked the land. It organized political power around landholding and personal loyalty.

A period of renewed interest in classical learning and art that began in Italian city-states in the 1300s and spread through Europe. It emphasized humanism, observation, and individual achievement.

The sixteenth-century movement that challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and produced Protestant denominations. Printing spread reformers' ideas and triggered religious and political conflict across Europe.

The extension of a nation's power by acquiring territory or dominating other peoples, especially in the late nineteenth century. European states carved up Africa and Asia for raw materials, markets, and prestige.

The prolonged rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II, fought through nuclear arms buildups, alliances, propaganda, and proxy wars rather than direct combat.

A system that divides power between a national government and state or regional governments, each with its own authority. In the United States, this division is set out in the Constitution.

The division of government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches, each with distinct duties. It is meant to prevent any one group from holding all authority.

Powers that let each branch of government limit the others, such as a presidential veto or a court's power to strike down a law. The goal is to keep power balanced.

The authority of courts to declare acts of the legislature or the executive unconstitutional. It was established in the United States by the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison.

The principle that government authority comes from the consent of the people, who choose their rulers and can change them. In U.S. history the phrase also described letting territories decide on slavery.

The group of electors chosen by states that formally elects the president and vice president. Each state's number of electors equals its total seats in Congress.

The requirement that government follow fair, established legal procedures before depriving someone of life, liberty, or property. It appears in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

A framework for studying places through location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region. Teachers use it to organize questions about where things are and why.

A place's exact position on Earth, usually given as latitude and longitude coordinates or a street address. It does not depend on where the observer is standing.

Where a place is in relation to other places, such as north of the city or near the river. It changes as surrounding features or travel routes change.

Conditions that drive people away from one place or draw them toward another. War, drought, and joblessness push people out; jobs, safety, and family ties pull them in.

A method for showing the curved surface of Earth on a flat map. Every projection distorts some combination of shape, area, distance, or direction.

The basic condition that people have unlimited wants but limited resources. It forces individuals and societies to make choices about what to produce and consume.

The value of the next best alternative given up when a choice is made. If a student studies instead of working, the lost wages are the opportunity cost.

The relationship between how much of a good producers offer and how much buyers want at various prices. Together they determine market price and quantity sold.

The resources used to make goods and services: land (natural resources), labor, capital (tools and machinery), and entrepreneurship. Their availability shapes what an economy can produce.

A sustained rise in the general price level, which reduces the purchasing power of money. It is often measured by tracking price changes in a basket of common goods over time.

The total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. It is a common measure of the size and growth of an economy.