Latin American History Study Guide: 78 Flashcards from the Olmec to Pope Francis
Study Latin American history with 78 flashcards: conquest, independence, Mexican and Cuban revolutions, Cold War coups, plus a six-era plan and card fixes.
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The deck OM4447 – Latin American History: Pre-Columbian to Modern covers five centuries in 78 cards. It moves from the Olmec to Pope Francis, through Tordesillas, the independence wars, the Mexican Revolution, the Cuban Revolution and the Cold War coups. The facts are mostly solid, but the order is not. Cards 64–68 go back to the pre-Columbian era and Tordesillas, cards 70–73 return to the Mexican Revolution, and cards 75–78 jump to the Church. To learn it well, put the timeline back together first.
Study this deck: Latin American History: Pre-Columbian to Modern
1 / 10What does 'Latin America' refer to?
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
Rebuild it into six eras
- Before 1492: cards 2, 64–67. Olmec, Maya, Muisca, Aztecs, Inca; maize in Mesoamerica, potatoes and llamas in the Andes, quipus for record-keeping.
- Conquest & colony: cards 3–10, 68. Columbus, the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Columbian exchange, smallpox, the encomienda, Bartolomé de las Casas, the House of Trade in Seville.
- Independence & the 19th century: cards 11–20, 54–55. Gran Colombia, the Federal Republic of Central America, caudillos, the Paraguayan War, the War of the Pacific, the Mexican-American War, the French intervention, the Thousand Days' War.
- US power & revolution (1898–1940): cards 21–29, 52–53, 70–73. Big Stick, the Banana Wars, the Platt Amendment, the Panama Canal Zone, Díaz, Madero, Villa, Zapata, the 1917 Constitution, Cárdenas and Pemex, the Good Neighbor policy.
- Cold War: cards 30–45, 57–59, 62–63, 74. Castro, the Bay of Pigs, the missile crisis, Arbenz and Decree 900, Allende, Pinochet, the Sandinistas and the Contras, El Salvador, the Guatemalan genocide, Trujillo.
- Church & society: cards 46–51, 75–78. Vatican II, Medellín 1968, Gutiérrez, Romero, Camilo Torres, Pentecostal growth, Cuba's Special Period.
Sample cards
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| What was the encomienda system? | Spanish labor system that granted colonists control over indigenous workers |
| What was the War of the Pacific? | 1879-84 war where Chile defeated Bolivia and Peru… Bolivia became landlocked |
| What was the Paraguayan War? | 1864-70 War of the Triple Alliance; Paraguay utterly defeated |
| Who was Lázaro Cárdenas? | Mexican president who nationalized American oil companies, created Pemex |
| Who was Jacobo Arbenz? | Guatemalan president implementing land reform; overthrown in 1954 CIA-backed coup |
| What happened in Nicaragua in 1990? | Sandinistas allowed free elections and lost |
| What was liberation theology? | Movement linking Christianity and social justice, coined by Gustavo Gutiérrez in 1968 |
Cards to fix before you start
- Card 69 ("Three Alls Policy") belongs to Japanese wartime history in China. Delete it.
- Card 9: the fourth surviving Maya codex is the Maya Codex of Mexico (formerly the Grolier Codex), not the "HI Codex."
- Card 12: Haiti came first, with independence in 1804. In 1810, juntas formed in Caracas, Bogotá and Buenos Aires, and Hidalgo launched Mexico's Grito.
- Card 70: the question asks about Mexico, but the answer gives a Brazil statistic. Rewrite one side so they match.
- Card 76: the "preferential option for the poor" was not a policy of Paul VI. The phrase comes from the Latin American bishops at Medellín (1968) and Puebla (1979).
Tip: add the missing names
Bolívar and San Martín never appear, even though cards 11–13 describe their wars. Argentina's Dirty War is mentioned in card 78 but never explained, and Perón, Vargas and Brazil's 1964 coup are missing too. Write those 5–6 cards and file them under eras 3 and 5. Then quiz yourself on the era, not just the fact: this turns 78 loose answers into one connected story.
Related
To see the same period from the US side, read our guide to the American Civil Rights Movement & Modern Era.
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