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Terms
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- manor
- In medieval Europe, a large, self-sufficient landholding consisting of the lord's residence (manor house), outbuildings, peasant village, and surrounding land.
- Megaliths
- Structures and complexes of very large stones constructed for ceremonial and religious purposes in Neolithic times. (
- Marx, Karl (1818-1883)
- German journalist and philosopher, founder of the Marxist branch of socialism. He is known for two books:TheCommunistManifesto(1848) andDasKapital(Vols. I-III, 1867-1894).
- maroon
- A slave who ran away from his or her master. Often a member of a community of runaway slaves in the West Indies and South America.
- Marshall Plan
- U. S. program to support the reconstruction of western Europe after World War II. By 1961 more than $20 billion in economic aid had been dispersed.
- mechanization
- The application of machinery to manufacturing and other activities. Among the first processes to be mechanized were the spinning of cotton thread and the weaving of cloth in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century England.
- Medina
- City in western Arabia to which the Prophet Muhammad and his followers emigrated in 622 to escape persecution in Mecca.
- Maya
- Mesoamerican civilization concentrated in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and in Guatemala and Honduras but never unified into a single empire. Major contributions were in mathematics, astronomy, and development of the calendar.
- manumission
- A grant of legal freedom to an individual slave.
- medieval
- literally "middle age, a term that historians of Europe use for the period ca. 500 to ca. 1500, signifying its intermediate point between Greco-Roman antiquity and the Renaissance.
- Mansa Kankan Musa
- Ruler of Mali (r. 1312-1337). His pilgrimage through Egypt to Mecca in 1324-1325 established the empire's reputation for wealth in the Mediterranean world.
- mass deportation
- The forcible removal and relocation of large numbers of people or entire populations. The mass deportations practiced by the Assyrian and Persian Empires were meant as a terrifying warning of the consequences of rebellion. They also brought skilled and unskilled labor to the imperial center.
- Memphis
- The capital of Old Kingdom Egypt, near the head of the Nile Delta. Early rulers were interred in the nearby pyramids.
- Meiji Restoration
- The political program that followed the destruction of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, in which a collection of young leaders set Japan on the path of centralization, industrialization, and imperialism.
- Menelik II (1844-1911)
- Emperor of Ethiopia (r. 1889-1911). He enlarged Ethiopia to its present dimensions and defeated an Italian invasion at Adowa (1896).
- Mecca
- City in western Arabia; birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, and ritual center of the Islamic religion.
- Mauryan Empire
- The first state to unify most of the Indian subcontinent. It was founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 324 B.C.E. and survived until 184 B.C.E. From its capital at Pataliputra in the Ganges Valley it grew wealthy from taxes on agriculture, iron mining, and control of trade routes. (See also Ashoka.)
- mass production
- The manufacture of many identical products by the division of labor into many small repetitive tasks. This method was introduced into the manufacture of pottery by Josiah Wedgwood and into the spinning of cotton thread by Richard Arkwright. (See also Arkwright, Richard; Industrial Revolution; Wedgwood, Josiah.)
- Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
- Leader of the Chinese Communist Party (1927-1976). He led the Communists on the Long March (1934-1935) and rebuilt the Communist Party and Red Army during the Japanese occupation of China (1937-1945). After World War II, he led the Communists to victory over the Guomindang. He ordered the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
- mandate system
- system Allocation of former German colonies and Ottoman possessions to the victorious powers after World War I, to be administered under League of Nations supervision.