Is Texas history a part of world history?  It should be.

Question: Where do you find good Texas history in a hurry?

Answer:  The Handbook of Texas.

Question: What about Texas history on-line?

Answer:  Same thing, different format:

Spin of the old globe to Will’s Texas Parlor.

Studystack claims to have about a million different flashcards to use to review for tests, especially for the AP tests and graduate qualifying exams.  Plus, it’s free.  Good use of a computer, compared to most uses.

For example, here’s a page with more than a hundred different sets of study cards, all just for world history.  Go enjoy.

We’re having a test on May 12 or 13, depending on whether you come on an A or B day.  This test will be limited to material we dwelled on in class, mostly. If you have your class notes, you should have no difficulty finding answers.

Most of the answers are in the textbook (check out the book’s on-line supplements); all of the answers can be found in many other sources, at the public library, in the school library, and on the internet.

Review for the test

Know the answers to these questions:

1. Put in the proper sequence, these events: Spanish-American War, Russo-Japanese War, World War I, Roaring ‘20s, Stock Market Crash of 1929, Great Depression, German attack on Poland, Battle of Britain, Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II, D-Day, Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, Cold War.

2. What is “imperialism,” and why do we study it? (at left, the image of imperialism: Cecil Rhodes, shown standing astride of Africa, in a cartoon from Punch magazine; Rhodes had built the trans-Africa railway, and is the man after whom the nation of Rhodesia was named (now Zimbabwe). The cartoon is a play on the old Colossus of Rhodes, which was one of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.”)

3. Who were the great imperialist powers of the late 19^th century, and where did they practice their imperialism? (U.S. imperialism, too.)

4. What were the effects of the Industrial Revolution?

5. Describe the Industrial Revolution, and tell the role that coal, steel and cloth played in it.

6. What is “the middle class” and why is it important?

7. What is “romanticism?”

8. What is “realism?” Why is it important? How was realism reflected in the art of the time?

9. What was the event that triggered World War I?

10. How did nationalism affect the start of World War I?

11. Which nations fought on what sides in World War I?

12. What was trench warfare?

13. Describe some of the new technologies of warfare that were used in World War I, and tell their effects.

14. What was President Woodrow Wilson’s “14 Points?” (photo at right: Woodrow Wilson)

15. What were economic conditions like in Germany in 1922 through 1925?

16. What were the Roaring ‘20s?

17. What was the League of Nations?

18. Describe the Bolshevik Revolution (Russian Revolution). In what year did it occur?

19. How did the Russian Revolution affect the waging and outcome of World War I?

20. Identify these people and terms: Karl Marx, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi, Thomas Edison, bourgeoisie, proletariat, socialism, child labor, suffrage, Czar Nicholas II, the Balkans, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, Sarajevo, the Treaty of Versailles, reparations, Social Darwinism vs. Darwinian evolution, Ottoman Empire, John Maynard Keynes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Theodore Roosevelt (Teddy), the New Deal, V. I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, inflation, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Spanish Civil War, the Lincoln Brigade, fascist and fascism, Winston Churchill.

21. What events signaled the start of World War II in Asia?

22. What events signaled the start of World War II in Europe?

23. What event brought the United States into World War II?

24. Which nations were on which sides during World War II?

25. What was D-Day?

26. What was Iwo-Jima?
(Photo at right: Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of the second flag raising on Iwo Jima Island0

27. Who first used atomic weapons in war, and for what?

28. What was Napoleon’s great mistake with regard to Russia? Who repeated it over a hundred years later?

If you’ve got Quicktime, take a look at this video from Commanding Heights.  Pay particular attention to the effects of inflation in Germany just after World War I, and the other economic issues swirling before the stock market crash in 1929.

Here are some questions suggested by the film’s producers, questions you should ponder while you watch:

What happens when governments control or dominate a national economy?

Why have most countries in the world turned back toward free-market capitalism after 80 years of experimentation with socialism and communism?

Why did so many socialist economies fail?

What are the benefits and drawbacks of the capitalist economic system?

What happens when command economies transform into market economies? How is the transition best undertaken?

Is there a relationship between open markets and political freedom?

What happens when national governments restrict their domestic economies from open participation in (and dependence on) foreign trade?

What are the benefits and dangers of open flows of capital and trade in goods across all national borders?

What caused the collapse of the first age of the global free market (in 1914)?

What has a century taught us about the specific problems of market economies — speculative “bubbles,” crashes, underemployment, and unequal distribution of wealth?

Below, you’ll find a PowerPoint presentation, a brief introduction to the Industrial Revolution. FYI and notes.

Click image to download industrial-revolution.ppt

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist who wrote a novel about slavery that is credited with galvanizing national opinion, against slavery.

BBC Radio 4’s “In Our Time” has an excellent program discussing the novel, its author Stowe, and the effect the novel had on American politics.

When Abraham Lincoln met the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe after the start of the American Civil War, he reportedly said to her: ‘So you’re the little lady whose book started this big war’. Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852, is credited as fuelling the cause to abolish slavery in the northern half of the United States in direct response to its continuation in the South.

The book deals with the harsh reality of slavery and the enduring power of Christian faith. It proved to be the bestselling novel of the 19th century, outselling the Bible in its first year of publication. Its fame spread internationally, Lord Palmerston praised it highly and Tolstoy reportedly said it was his favourite novel.

What impact did Uncle Tom’s Cabin have on the abolitionist cause in America? How did the book create stereotypes about African Americans, many of which endure to this day? And what was its literary legacy?

You may listen to the program (about 45 minutes long) by downloading it here.

Resources:

• PBS series, “The American Novel,” biography of Stowe
• NNDB listing for Stowe
• University of Houston’s “Engines of Our Ingenuity” radio program on Stowe; podcast version here
• Harriet Beecher Stowe House and Library, Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut

For the long quiz/short test the week of March 17 — here are the review questions, and terms to know. 

Vocabulary____________

Social classes
Estates: First Estate, Second Estate, Third Estate
Declaration of the Rights of Man
King Louis XVI
Guillotine
1789
Tennis Court Oath
Napoleon Bonaparte
Bastille
Committee of Public Safety
Reign of Terror

Questions                                 

1. Who made up the First Estate?  The Second Estate?
2. The Third Estate was made up of peasants, merchants, and others who did most of the work in France.  About what percent of the total population was in the Third Estate?
3. Which estate paid most of the taxes in France?  Was that fair?  Why was it fair, or why was it not fair?
4. What event is said to have triggered the French Revolution?
5. What was stored in the Bastille that the peasants wanted?
6. What year did the French Revolution begin?
7. What day is Bastille Day celebrated?
8. Describe the Declaration of the Rights of Man.  Why is it important in world history?
9. What famous execution device was invented about the time the French Revolution started?
10. Who was the chief executive or ruler of France at the start of the French Revolution?
11. Who was Marie Antoinette?  What was her famous statement?
12. What happened to Louis XVI during the French Revolution?
13. How did the American Revolution influence the French Revolution?
14. Compared to the American Revolution, was the level of violence of the French Revolution higher, or lower?
15. What happened in 1793 and 1794 that was particularly horrible, and what do we know that period by today?
16. Why did France declare war against Austria and other nations around France once the King had been deposed?
17. Why were other nations around France worried about the French Revolution?  Why did they consider it a danger?
18. What or who arose as the power that ruled France after the Revolution?  How did that story end?

Nice site on the French Revolution, lots of images and supplemental essays — from George Mason University.

We have a test on Friday, February 29, or Monday, March 3.  There will be 35 to 45 multiple choice questions.  Questions for the test will be drawn from material delivered and studied in class.  Below the fold is a list of review questions which should tell you what you need to know to pass the exam.

Review for Test, February 29 & March 3

Know the answers to these questions:

1.                  What was the Renaissance?

2.                  Where did the Renaissance start and take hold?

3.                  Approximately when was the Renaissance

4.                  What do historians mean when they speak of “The Reformation?”  Are the Reformation of Martin Luther and the Reformation of England the same thing?

5.                  Describe the Magna Carta (1215).  Why is it important in the timeline of actions leading to the U.S. Constitution?

6.                  What was the Mayflower Compact, and why was it important?

7.                  Describe the English Bill of Rights - how did it differ from the Magna Carta, and who was covered by its authority?

8.                  What was the Declaration of Independence, and  why is it important?

9.                  Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?

10.              What year was the Declaration written?

11.              What were the Articles of Confederation?

12.              What is the Constitution?  What year was it written?

13.              What is the Bill of Rights?  Describe it.

14.              Why should we know who George Washington was?

15.              Who was Samuel Adams

16.              What were the Federalist Papers, and who wrote them?

17.              What happened after the French and Indian War that helped lead to the American Revolution?

18.              What was the Proclamation of 1763; what land did it affect?

19.              Know these terms:  taxation without representation; petition, unalienable rights, tyrant, boycott, colonial grievances, mercantilism, revolution, Articles of Confederation, French and Indian War.

20.              Know who these people were:  Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington

21.              What were the “Intolerable Acts?”

22.              What was the Boston Massacre?

23.              What is “the shot heard ‘round the world?

24.              Describe the importance of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

25.              What is Paul Revere famous for?

26.              Besides independence from Britain, what did the colonists win from the British in the American Revolution?

27.              After the Bill of Rights:  Describe the three Constitutional Amendments that occurred right after the American Civil War.  What did they do?  Which three amendments are they?

28.              What does “quartering of soldiers” mean?

29.              What were the effects of the American Revolution:  On nations in South America?  In Europe?  In Africa?  In Asia?