  We generalize the original majority-vote model by incorporating an inertia
into the microscopic dynamics of the spin flipping, where the spin-flip
probability of any individual depends not only on the states of its neighbors,
but also on its own state. Surprisingly, the order-disorder phase transition is
changed from a usual continuous type to a discontinuous or an explosive one
when the inertia is above an appropriate level. A central feature of such an
explosive transition is a strong hysteresis behavior as noise intensity goes
forward and backward. Within the hysteresis region, a disordered phase and two
symmetric ordered phases are coexisting and transition rates between these
phases are numerically calculated by a rare-event sampling method. A mean-field
theory is developed to analytically reveal the property of this phase
transition.
