History Review: Age of Exploration to World War II

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering the Age of Exploration, French Revolution, Imperialism, and the World Wars.

Spanish Conquistador Advantages

Technological and military benefits including advanced weaponry, horses, and the accidental spread of infectious diseases.

Hern !n Cort !s

The Spanish conquistador who led the expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire.

Francisco Pizarro

The Spanish conquistador responsible for conquering the Inca Empire in South America.

Disease

The primary cause for the rapid and catastrophic decline of Native American populations after European arrival.

Columbian Exchange

The global transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the New World.

Atlantic World Trade Network

Trade routes that directly connected the four continents of Europe, Africa, North America, and South America.

Spanish Empire

The European superpower that heavily dominated Central and South America during the Age of Exploration.

Sugar Plantations

Large-scale agricultural estates that were most common and dominant in the Caribbean and South American regions.

Enslaved African Labor

The workforce relied upon by plantation economies in the Americas due to the high demand for manual labor.

Middle Passage

The brutal segment of the transatlantic slave trade where people were trapped in cramped, unsanitary, and life-threatening conditions aboard ships.

Three Estates

The three social divisions of French society under the Old Regime.

Third Estate

The social group making up approximately $97\%$ of the French population that paid almost all taxes and held the least political power.

French Financial Crisis

Economic devastation under King Louis XVI caused by massive war debts and excessive government spending.

Storming of the Bastille

The event occurring on July $14$, $1789$, which serves as the official start of the French Revolution.

Monarchy Intervention

The reason neighboring nations like Austria and Prussia went to war with revolutionary France to prevent the spread of anti-monarchical ideas.

Jacobins

A radical political group whose goal was to abolish the monarchy and establish a French Republic.

Maximilien Robespierre

The radical leader who took control of the French government during the Reign of Terror.

Reign of Terror

A radical phase of the French Revolution that revealed how the movement had changed into a period of extreme violence and state-sanctioned executions.

Coup d' !tat

A sudden and often violent seizure of political power from a government.

Napoleon's Russian Campaign

A military invasion in $1812$ that ended in disaster due to the harsh Russian winter and lack of supplies.

Scorched-earth policy

A military strategy used by the Russians to defeat Napoleon by burning crops and resources so the invading army had nothing to eat.

Napoleon's Exiles

He was first sent to the island of Elba and finaly exiled to St. Helena after his defeat at Waterloo.

Latin American Exports

Primary goods such as raw materials and agricultural products sent to industrialized countries.

Monroe Doctrine

A U.S. policy warning European nations against further colonization or intervention in the Western Hemisphere.

Spanish-American War

The conflict in $1898$ where the United States intervened in Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain.

Opium Ban

A strict prohibition by the Chinese government on the importation of opium due to its social and economic damage.

Taiping Rebellion

A bloody internal conflict in China supported by poor peasants seeking social and economic reforms.

Open Door Policy

A policy proposed by the United States in $1899$ to ensure all nations had equal opportunities to trade in China.

Militarism

The policy of glorifying military power and maintaining a standing army, which contributed to an arms race in Europe before $1914$.

Triple Alliance

The pre-war alliance consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.

Italy's Side-Switch

The action of Italy leaving the Triple Alliance to join the Allies after the outbreak of World War I.

Nationalism

A sentiment that acted as a "double-edged sword" by uniting people within a nation while causing intense competition and conflict between nations.

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

The event that triggered the alliance system and led to the start of World War I.

Schlieffen Plan

Germany's military strategy to avoid a two-front war by quickly defeating France before attacking Russia.

Invasion of Belgium

The German military action that prompted Great Britain to officially declare war and enter World War I.

Trench Warfare

The defining style of combat on the Western Front characterized by static lines, high casualties, and "no man's land."

Eastern Front

The theater of war located primarily along the borders of Russia and Germany.

Total War

A conflict in which participating countries devote all their resources—both military and civilian—to the war effort.

German Hyperinflation

The $1923$ economic crisis caused by overprinting money, leading to the collapse of the German Mark's value.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

The specific event in October $1929$ that triggered the global Great Depression.

Democratic Survival

The ability of Great Britain and France to withstand the Great Depression without falling into dictatorships, partly due to their colonial trade.

Fascism

A political ideology that values extreme nationalism, absolute loyalty to a leader, and the needs of the state over the individual.

Benito Mussolini

The fascist dictator of Italy who was known to his followers as "Il Duce."

Hitler's Political Rise

The process by which Adolf Hitler used the economic suffering of the Great Depression to gain support for the Nazi Party.

Aryans

The group identified by Nazi racial ideology as a "master race" of Germanic peoples.

Violation of the Treaty of Versailles

Adolf Hitler's $1935$ action of openly rebuilding the German military and rearming the nation.

Axis Aggression

The actions of Germany, Italy, and Japan as they invaded neighboring lands during the $1930s$.

Japanese Military Takeover

The shift in Japan where military leaders took control of the government during the economic crisis of the $1930s$.

Manchuria

The resource-rich region of China that Japan aggressively invaded in $1931$.

League of Nations Failure

The weak response of international organizations to Japan's invasion of China, which failed to stop the aggression.

Axis Powers

The alliance formed by Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Appeasement

A foreign policy of making concessions to an aggressor in order to avoid war.

British and French Hesitation

The reluctance to confront Hitler due to the trauma of World War I and ongoing economic problems.

Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

The shocking $1939$ agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union to not attack each other and to divide Poland.

Blitzkrieg

Known as "lightning war," a military strategy using fast-moving airplanes and tanks followed by massive infantry forces.

Dunkirk Evacuation

The rescue of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers trapped on a French beach in $1940$ by a fleet of military and civilian ships.

Radar

The tool that helped the British Royal Air Force locate and defeat incoming German bombers.

Operation Barbarossa

The German invasion of the Soviet Union which served as a major turning point in the war.

Pearl Harbor

The site of the surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base that brought the United States into World War II.

Bataan Death March

The forced march of Allied prisoners of war by the Japanese military, resulting in thousands of deaths.

Battle of Midway

The critical naval battle considered the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

Island-hopping

General Douglas MacArthur's strategy of seizing non-defended islands to move closer to the Japanese mainland.

Atomic Bombings

Decisions by President Harry Truman to use nuclear weapons to force a Japanese surrender and prevent a costly land invasion.

Nuremberg Laws

Nazi regulations that stripped Jewish people of their citizenship and basic civil rights.

Kristallnacht

The "Night of Broken Glass," a night of coordinated violence against Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues.

The Final Solution

The Nazi regime's systematic plan for the industrial mass genocide of the Jewish people.

Extermination Camps

Facilities like Auschwitz-Birkenau built for the purpose of mass murder during the Holocaust.

D-Day

Also known as Operation Overlord, the massive Allied invasion of Normandy that was critical to liberating Europe from Nazi control.