Praxis II Social Studies Content Knowledge test (5081) Master Set

Aztecs

(1200-1521) 1300, They settled in the valley of Mexico. Grew corn. Engaged in frequent warfare to conquer others of the region. Worshipped many gods (polytheistic). Believed the sun god needed human blood to continue his journeys across the sky. Practiced human sacrifices and those sacrificed were captured warriors from other tribes and those who volunteered for the honor.

Song Dynasty

(960 - 1279 AD); this dynasty was started by Tai Zu; by 1000, a million people were living there; started feet binding; had a magnetic compass; had a navy; traded with India and Persia (brought pepper and cotton); first to have paper money, explosive gun powder; *landscape black and white paintings

Taoism

(Daoism) founded by Laozi The "Old Master" who encouraged people to give up worldly desires in favor of nature; Tao Te Ching is its main document supposedly written by Lao Tzu in three days; talks about the Tao itself and the power or fulfillment that results from living in harmony with it.

Korematsu vs. United States

1944 Supreme Court case where the Supreme Court upheld the order providing for the relocation of Japaneese Americans. It was not until 1988 that Congress formally apologized and agreed to pay $20,000 to each survivor.

Islam

622 The year of Flight of Muhammad to Medina (considered the beginning of Islam) The monotheistic religion of Muslims founded in Arabia in the 7th century and based on the teachings of Muhammad as laid down in the Koran. As an empire created trade routes; Arab expansion into Africa, Asia, and Europe; Arab center from Makkah to Baghdad to Cairo. Bureaucracy relied on non-Arabs; Arabs translated Greek philosophers. Islamic Scholars Moved to Timbuktu. Inventions: irrigation; astrolabe; algebra; large-scale paper. The split of the Islamic empire. In the seventh century, into the Shiite and the Sunni.

Byzantine Empire

A continuation of the Roman Empire in the Middle East after its division in 395, rose out of the split of East and Western Roman Empire; lasted another 1000 years; kept Hellenism alive; fell in 1453 by the Ottomans Byzantine culture Greco-Roman culture continued to flourish, language was Greek, Orthodox Christianity, Greek and Roman knowledge was preserved in libraries

Ming Dynasty

A major dynasty that ruled China from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. It was marked by a great expansion of Chinese commerce into East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia

Qin dynasty

A people and state in the Wei Valley of eastern China that conquered rival states and created the first Chinese empire (221-206 B.C.E.). Qin Shihuangdi was their first emperor, he believed strongly in Legalism and sought to strengthen the centralized China through public works. Another ruler, Shi Huangdi, standardized many features of Chinese society and enslaved subjects.

Mongols

A people of this name is mentioned as early as the records of the Tang Empire, living as nomads in northern Eurasia. After 1206 they established an enormous empire under Genghis Khan, linking western and eastern Eurasia. Mongolians Nomadic society with law code unification, strong military, but transmitted disease across continents

Confucianism

A philosophy that most emphasizes proper relationships as the basis for social and political order. It shows the way to ensure a stable government and an orderly society in the present world and stresses a moral code of conduct.

The Republic

A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them

Analects

A record of the words and acts of the central Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius and his disciples.

Caste System

A set of rigid social categories that determined not only a person's occupation and economic potential, but also his or her position in society.

Peloponnesian War

A war fought between Athens and Sparta; won by Sparta because it was able to cut off Athens' grain supply.

Roe v. Wade

Abortion rights fall within the privacy implied in the 14th amendment 1973

Treaty of Paris

Agreement signed by British and American leaders that stated the United States of America was a free and independent country

Mixed government

Also known as a mixed constitution, is a form of government that integrated facets of government by democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy. It means there are some issues (often defined in a constitution) where the state is governed by the majority of the people, in some other issues the state is governed by few, in some other issues by a single person (also often defined in a constitution). The idea is commonly treated as an antecedent of separation of powers.

Suez Crisis

Also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, was a military attack on Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel beginning on 29 October 1956. A consequence from this crisis was, that president Nasser of Egypt gained prestige as the leader of Arab opposition to Western Colonialism. 1956

John Adams

America's first Vice-President and second President. Sponsor of the American Revolution in Massachusetts, and wrote the Massachusetts guarantee that freedom of press "ought not to be restrained." Lawyer who defended British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial.

Frederick Douglass

American abolitionist, women's suffragist, editor, orator, author, statesman, minister and reformer. Escaping from slavery, he made strong contributions to the abolitionist movement, and achieved a public career that led to his being called "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia". Is one of the most prominent figures in African American and United States history.

WEB Du Bois

An American civil rights activist. He became the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910, becoming founder and editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis. He rose to national attention in his opposition of Booker T. Washington's ideas of social integration between whites and blacks, campaigning instead for increased political representation for blacks in order to guarantee civil rights, and the formation of a Black elite that would work for the progress of the African American race. He was willing to form alliances with progressive White Americans in pursuit of civil rights.

Hinduism

An eastern religion which evolved from an ancient Aryan religion in which followers strive to free their soul from reincarnation until the soul is finally freed. This religion is practiced primarily in India.

Fundamentalism

Anti-modernist Protest movement started in the early twentieth century that proclaimed the literal truth of the Bible, the name came from the Fundamentals, published by conservative leaders.

Greenville Acts

Britain was facing serious debt issues, and was in danger of a destabilized economy. These were a series of acts designed to tax the colonies, which included the Stamp Act (1765), Quartering Act (1765), currency act (1764), Declatory Act (1766), and Revenue act (1764).

Progressivism

Broad-based reform movement, 1900-1917, that sought governmental action in solving problems in many areas of American life, including education, public health, the economy, the environment, labor, transportation, and politics.

Ottoman Empire

Centered in Constantinople, the Turkish imperial state that conquered large amounts of land in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans, and fell after World War I.

Eastern Orthodox Church

Christian followers in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire); split from Roman Catholic Church and shaped life in eastern Europe and western Asia.

New Freedom

Democrat Woodrow Wilson's political slogan in the presidential campaign of 1912; Wilson wanted to improve the banking system, lower tariffs, and, by breaking up monopolies, give small businesses freedom to compete.

Sharecropping

Dominant agricultural model in the post-Civil War South. Is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land (e.g., 50% of the crop).

Sedentary Agriculture

Farming system in which the farmer remains settled in one place

Nomadic pastoralism

Farming system where animals (cattle, goats, camels) are taken to different locations in order to find fresh pastures.

Shifting cultivation

Farming system where farmers move on from one place to another when the land becomes exhausted. The most common form is slash-and-burn agriculture: land is cleared by burning, so that crops can be grown. Slash-and-burn is practiced in many tropical forest areas, such as the Amazon region, where yams, cassava, and sweet potatoes can be grown

The First Great Awakening

Fervent religious revival movement in the 1720s through the 40s that was spread throughout the colonies by ministers like New England Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards and English revivalist George Whitefield. Was a period of heightened religious activity in the British North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

Kingdom of Ghana

First of the great medieval trading empires of western Africa (7th - 13th century). Located in what is now southeastern Mauritania and part of Mali, it acted as intermediary between Arab and Berber salt traders to the north and gold and ivory producers to the south.

Interstate Commerce Commission

Former independent agency of the U.S. government, established in 1887; it was charged with regulating the economics and services of specified carriers engaged in transportation between states. Surface transportation under the its jurisdiction included railroads, trucking companies, bus lines, freight forwarders, water carriers, oil pipelines, transportation brokers, and express agencies. After his election in 1904, Theodore Roosevelt demonstrated support of progressive reforms by strengthening this.

Bacon's Rebellion

Friction between English settlers and Native Americans

Plantation

Is a large farm or estate, usually in a tropical or subtropical country, where crops are grown for sale in distant markets, rather than for local consumption. Dominated southern agriculture from the mid-eighteenth century to the Civil War. These large farms, employing twenty or more slaves, produced staple crops (cotton, rice, tobacco) for domestic and foreign markets.

Containment

General U.S. strategy in the Cold War that called for containing Soviet expansion; originally devised by U.S. diplomat George Kennan.

Gupta Empire

Golden Age of India; ruled through central government but allowed village power; restored Hinduism.

Thomas Jefferson

He was a delegate from Virginia at the Second Continental Congress and wrote the Declaration of Independence. He later served as the third President of the United States.

Logan's Lament

He was a leader of the Mingo Indians. He was a war leader but often urged his fellow natives not to attack whites settling in the Ohio Country. His attitude changed on May 3, 1774, when a group of Virginia settlers murdered approximately one dozen Mingos. Among them were his mother and sister. He demanded that the Mingos and their allies, principally the Shawnee Indians, take revenge for the deaths of his loved ones. He wrote a famous speech and sent it to the English, refusing to come to negotiate peace.

Han dynasty

Imperial dynasty that ruled China (most of the time) from 206 BC to 221 and expanded its boundaries and developed its bureaucracy; was an age of economic prosperity, and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1050-256 BCE).

Sedition Act

Imposed harsh punishments for expressing ideas disloyal to the United States.

Migration to the trans-Mississippi southwest

Increased scale of cotton production during the 1830s and 1840s in the United States.

Marcus Garvey

Inspired by what he heard he returned to Jamaica and established the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and published the pamphlet, The Negro Race and Its Problems. He was influenced by the ideas of Booker T. Washington and made plans to develop a trade school for the poor similar to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

Cotton Gin

Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the machine separated cotton seeds from cotton fiber, speeding cotton processing and making profitable the cultivation of the more hardy, led to the dramatic nineteenth century expansion of slavery in the South.

Temperance movement

Is a social movement against the use of alcoholic beverages. Its movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence, or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation.

The Silk Road

Is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe. It spread Buddhism from India to China.

U.S. Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002

It banned "soft money" contributions to National Political Parties, regulates the financing of political campaigns.

Unitarianism

Late-eighteenth-century liberal offshoot of the New England Congregationalist Church; rejecting the Trinity, It professed the oneness of God and the goodness of rational man.

Proclamation of 1763

Law created by British officials that prohibited colonists from settling in areas west of the Appalachian Mountains

King George

Leader of England during the American revolutionary war and was blamed for the loss of the 13 colonies.

Sun Yat-sen

Led a movement to create a united, democratic China free from foreign control.

Nat Turner

Led the most important slave uprising in nineteenth-century America. The rebellion he led killed about sixty white people in Virginia in 1831.

Ostend Manifesto

Memorandum written in 1854 from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, France, and Spain recommending purchase or seizure of Cuba in order to increase the United States lave holding territory.

Huns

Nomadic people from Asia who attacked Europe in the 4th Century and then invaded the northwest part of India in the 5th Century.

Paleolithic Age

Old Stone Age, during the this period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, and subsisted by gathering plants and hunting or scavenging wild animals. This period is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Were nomadic and lived in small groups.

Townsend Acts

Parliamentary measures (named for the chancellor of the Exchequer) that taxed tea and other commodities, and established a Board of Custom Commissioners and colonial vice-admiralty courts. 1767

The Dawes Act

Passed by Congress in 1887. Its purpose was to Americanize the Native Americans. The act broke up the reservations, gave some of the land to Native Americans. The government was to sell the remainder to white settlers and use the income from that sale for Native Americans to buy farm equipment. But by 1932 white settlers had taken 2/3 of reservation territory, and Native Americans received no money from the sale of the reservations.

Taft Hartley Act

Passed over President Harry Truman's veto, the law contained a number of provisions to weaken labor unions, including the banning of closed shops. It imposed a federally mandated "cooling-off period" on strikes judged to endanger national security.

The Platt Amendment

Platt Amendment (1901) Amendment to Cuban constitution that reserved the United States' right to intervene in Cuban affairs and forced newly independent Cuba to host American naval bases on the island.

Non-interventionism

Political rulers should avoid entangling alliances with other nations and avoid all wars not related to direct territorial self-defense.

The Gilded Age

Refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction era of the late 19th century (1865-1901). Is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. Characterized by robber barons, panics, and political corruption.

Copperheads

Republican term for northerners opposed to the Civil War; it derived from the name of a poisonous snake.

Sherman Antitrust Act

Requires the United States Federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. However, for the most part, politicians were unwilling to use the law until Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency (1901-1908). The purpose of the act was to oppose the combination of entities that could potentially harm competition, such as monopolies or cartels.

Thomas Paine

Revolutionary leader who wrote the pamphlet Common Sense (1776) arguing for American independence from Britain. In England he published The Rights of Man

Yellow Journalism

Sensationalism in newspaper publishing that reached a peak in the circulation between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in 1890. Each newspaper's accounts events in Havana harbor in 1898 that led to the Spanish-American War.

Indian Removal Act

Signed by President Andrew Jackson, the law permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain the Indians' lands in exchange for their relocation to what would become Oklahoma. 1830

Communitarianism

Social reform movement of the nineteenth century driven by the belief that by establishing small communities based on common ownership of property, a less competitive and individualistic society could be developed.

Deindustrialization

Term describing decline of manufacturing in old industrial areas in the late twentieth century as companies shifted production to low wage centers in the South and West or in other countries.

Individualism

Term that entered the language in the 1820s to describe the increasing emphasis on the pursuit of personal advancement and private fulfillment free of outside interference.

United States vs. Nixon

The 1974 case in which the Supreme Court unanimously held that the doctrine of exceutive privilege was implicit in the Constitution but could not be extended to protect documents relevant to criminal prosecutions. It limited the President's executive privilege.

Nativism

The French philosopher Rene Descartes states that there is a body of knowledge that people are born with that requires no learning or experience. Favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. Typically means opposition to immigration or efforts to lower the political or legal status of specific ethnic or cultural groups because the groups are considered hostile or alien to the natural culture, and it is assumed that they cannot be assimilated.

The greatest trading society of West Africa

The Kingdom of Mali (which took the place of Ghana), which became rich from salt and gold.

The Assembly

The central events of the Athenian democracy. It had four main functions; it made executive pronouncements (decrees, such as deciding to go to war or granting citizenship to a foreigner); it elected some officials; it legislated; and it tried political crimes.

Asoka

The grandson of Chandragupta who also was a leader of the Mauryan Empire. He converted to Buddhism from Hinduism and tolerated other religions other then Buddhism when he was the leader. He is the most honored leader of the Mauryan Empire and controlled a very successful civilization (India).

Tang Dynasty

The imperial dynasty of China from 618 to 907, with its capital at Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), the most populous city in the world at the time, is generally regarded as a high point in Chinese civilization—equal to, or surpassing that of, the earlier Han Dynasty—a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Its territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, was greater than that of the Han period

Zhou dynasty

The people and dynasty that took over the dominant position in north China from the Shang and created the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to justify their rule. Remembered as prosperous era in Chinese History.

Buddhism

The teaching that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, that suffering ceases when desire ceases, and that enlightenment obtained through right conduct and wisdom and meditation releases one from desire and suffering and rebirth.

Protectionism

There should be legal barriers to control trade and cultural exchange with people in other states.

British Colony of Virginia

This colony was distinctive because it had a popularly elected legislature.

Merchants

This group in medieval Europe helped loosen feudal ties.

Ronald Regan

This president's platform encouraged decreasing taxes and government regulation.

Jay's Treaty

Treaty with Britain negotiated in 1794 by Chief Justice John Jay; Britain agreed to vacate forts in the Northwest Territories, and festering disagreements (border with Canada, prewar debts, shipping claims) would be settled by commission.

Battle of Saratoga

Turning point of the American Revolution. It was very important because it convinced the French to give the U.S. military support. It lifted American spirits, ended the British threat in New England by taking control of the Hudson River, and, most importantly, showed the French that the Americans had the potential to beat their enemy, Great Britain.

Marshall Plan

U.S. program for the reconstruction of post-World War II Europe through massive aid to former enemy nations as well as allies.

Kingdom of Maili

Was a West African empire of the Mandinka from c. 1230 to c. 1600. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa I. This Empire had many profound cultural influences on West Africa, allowing the spread of its language, laws and customs along the Niger River. This empire extended over a large area and consisted of numerous vassal kingdoms and provinces.

Abolitionism

Was a movement in western Europe and the Americas to end the slave trade and set slaves free. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century,

William Lloyd Garrison

Was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, volunteerist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the radical abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United States.

The New Deal

Was a series of economic programs passed by Congress during the first term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, from 1933 to his reelection in 1937. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the 3 R's: relief, recovery and reform. It attempted to improve the economy through large-scale spending on relief and reform.

Kingdom of Songhai

Was an African state of west Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, It was one of the largest African empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group. Its capital was the city of Gao, where a small state had existed since the 11th century. Its base of power was on the bend of the Niger River in present day Niger and Burkina Faso.

John Mercer Langston

Was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, and political activist. Together with his older brothers Gideon and Charles, he became active in the Abolitionist movement. He helped runaway slaves to escape to the North along the Ohio part of the Underground Railroad. In 1858 he and Charles partnered in leading the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.

John Brown

Was an American abolitionist, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

Jefferson Davis

Was an American military officer, statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as the president of the Confederate States of America for its entire history, 1861 to 1865.

Northern Securities Company

Was an important United States railroad trust formed in 1902 by E. H. Harriman, James J. Hill, J.P. Morgan, J. D. Rockefeller, and their associates. The company controlled the Northern Pacific Railway, Great Northern Railway, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and other associated lines. The company was sued in 1902 under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by President Theodore Roosevelt; one of the first anti-trust cases filed against corporate interests instead of labor.

Huey Newton

Was co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, an African-American organization established to promote Black Power, civil rights and self-defense.

The Appalachian Plateau

Was one of the regions of the South that had the strongest pro-Union sentiments at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Yalta Conference

Was the February 4-11, 1945 wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, for the purpose of discussing Europe's postwar reorganization. Mainly, it was intended to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Established new boundaries for Poland.

Anti-Federalists

Were opposed to the ratification of the Constitution because it lacked a bill of rights. Opponents of the Constitution who saw it as a limitation on individual and states' rights, their demands led to the addition of the a Bill of Rights to the document.

Muckrakers

Writers who exposed corruption and abuses in politics, business, child labor and more. Primarily in the 20th century, their popular books and magazine articles spurred public interest in reform.