Location: e position of a place, dened in terms of features such as
site characteristics, accessibility, and connectivity.
Example: e position of a point on Earth’s surface may be absolute,
as expressed by means of a grid showing latitude and longitude, or
relative, as shown by its location related to other points or places.
Long-term cause: Long-term causes are the factors, oen inter-
twined, that result in the occurrence of a historical event or process.
Example: e long-term causes of World War I included the growth
of nationalism in Europe, a series of alliances and treaties in which
countries agreed to support one another, disputes over territory, a
build-up of military forces on all sides, and rivalries for colonies and
imperial trade.
Maker (of a historical source): e creator of a historical source.
For written accounts, the maker is also oen described as the author,
although it can sometimes be complicated to determine the true maker
of a document.
Example: In 1354, the Berber Muslim explorer Ibn Battuta began to
dictate the story of the extensive travels he had made in Africa, Asia,
and Europe over the previous twenty years to the scholar Ibn Juzaay,
who wrote them down in a book generally called Rihla (the journey).
Both Ibn Battuta and Ibn Juzaay can be seen as the makers of this
historical source.
Map: A map is a representation of an area and is usually depicted on a
at surface. Maps describe spatial relationships of the specic features
represented.
Example: Maps are made and used for dierent purposes. Refer-
ence maps such as topographic maps, may depict a wide variety of
features on Earth’s surface, including landforms, water bodies, and
buildings. ematic maps are topical and show the distribution of
features and conditions based on data such as income levels, health,
or incidence of diseases in various locations. Mental maps are the
maps we have in our minds of places we have experienced.
Marginal Principle: Marginal means extra, additional, or incre-
mental. People make decisions by comparing the marginal (extra)
benets of their options to the marginal (extra) costs of their options.
One example would be comparing the marginal cost of hiring another
worker with the marginal revenue that the worker provides. Alterna-
tively, it might include decisions to work an hour of overtime versus
spending that hour on a home project.
Example: I can spend one more hour studying for a nal exam in
English literature. I know that the hour might help me earn a 90%
rather than an 80% grade. I also know that to earn an A, I must
score 100% on the nal. On the other hand, I could spend an extra
hour studying for my mathematics nal. is will result in a 90%
on my mathematics nal, and a 90% on my math nal will improve
my overall grade from a B to an A. For me, a marginal hour spent
preparing for my math nal aords a higher marginal benet.
In deciding whether to hire another worker who earns $35 per hour,
I have to know whether or not hiring that worker will result in at
least $35 of additional revenue.
Markets: Buyers and sellers of a particular good, service, or resource.
Example: Markets exist for goods and services, such as hamburgers,
lettuce, auto mechanics, engineers, stocks, and commodities.
Megacity: As dened by the United Nations, a megacity is an exten-
sive urban area with a large and dense population that exceeds ten
million people and 2,000 persons per square kilometer. e number
of megacities is increasing as the human population expands and
millions of people migrate from rural to urban locations.
Example: Contemporary megacities include Tokyo, New York, São
Paolo, Seoul, Mexico City, Mumbai, Lagos, and Shanghai.
Modify an environment: Human actions that change natural
elements and/or physical systems.
Example: Historically, humans have modied environments by
selecting certain plants and animals to domesticate, clearing land
for agriculture, building dams to impound water for later uses,
erecting small and large settlements, and extracting resources for
energy and the production of goods.
Monetary policy: Federal Reserve System policies that aect the
supply of money and credit in the U.S. economy.
Example: In 2012, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee
announced that the Federal Reserve would continue to purchase
bonds in order to expand the money supply, keep interest rates low,
and encourage spending in the economy.
Money: Anything widely accepted in exchange for goods, services,
and resources.
Example: Historically, food, products, and resources such as silver
and gold have been used as money. Today, countries use at money—
money that is useful because it is backed by a country’s government
and because people are willing to accept it in exchange for goods,
services, and resources.
Movement: Over time, physical and human phenomena change
locations on Earth’s surface.
Example: Physical phenomena, including ocean currents and air
masses, continually move across Earth’s surface. Humans move
themselves by traveling from place to place, move ideas by commu-
nicating across long distances, and move goods by land, water, and
air transportation. Enduring patterns of movement may be formed
when people in dierent places interact frequently using the same
methods of transportation or modes of communication.
Multi-tiered timeline: A timeline with multiple layers, each of
which includes a dierent set of related events. A multi-tiered timeline
allows students to see the complex context and causes of historical
events and to recognize that the dierent topics they study happen
contemporaneously, and may inuence one another or be inextricably
related.
Example: In portraying the causes of World War I, a timeline
might include multiple tiers with each tier representing a dierent
set of causes. One tier might include events related to nationalism.
Another tier might include events related to industrialization. Yet
another tier might include events related to imperialism.
Natural disaster: An event in the physical environment that is
destructive to human life and property.
Examples: Natural disasters occur in Earth’s environmental hazard
zones as a result of oods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earth-
quakes, droughts, tornados, landslides, and other destructive events
that alter ecosystems and dislocate human populations and their
activities. ese events may devastate large regions, causing many
deaths and lasting damage to ecosystems and human communities.
102 • C3 Framework