151 of the History glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
Perón's state trading agency (1946), which bought farmers' crops at low fixed prices and sold them abroad at higher prices, using the profit for industry and welfare.
The hall at Fatehpur Sikri, built in 1575, where Akbar held debates first among Muslim scholars and from 1578 among scholars of many religions, including Jesuits from Goa.
A long cylinder of ice drilled from an ice sheet, whose layers preserve chemical evidence of past temperatures and volcanic eruptions.
Japan's largest land offensive of the war in China, April–December 1944, which overran Henan, Hunan and Guangxi and showed how weak the Nationalist armies had become.
A connected set of political, social or economic ideas that explains how society works and how it should be organised, such as liberalism, nationalism or Marxism–Leninism.
An Indigenous protest movement begun in Canada in late 2012 by four women in Saskatchewan against federal laws that weakened environmental protection and treaty rights; it used round dances, blockades and social media.
A Japanese term for a peasant protest or uprising, used for the many rural risings of the Tokugawa and early Meiji periods.
The short, broad-bladed stabbing spear used by Zulu regiments for close combat from Shaka's time.
A bill of 1883 that would have allowed Indian magistrates in country districts to try Europeans. Fierce protest by British residents forced a compromise in 1884 that gave Europeans the right to a jury at least half European.
The Mongol state founded by Hülegü after the conquest of Baghdad in 1258, ruling Iran and Iraq until the 1330s.
An educated Filipino of the late nineteenth century, often trained in Manila or Europe, who campaigned for reform of Spanish rule; José Rizal was the best known.
The demand that slavery be abolished at once, without a period of gradual reform; in Britain it was argued by Elizabeth Heyrick in 1824 and adopted by the Anti-Slavery Society in 1830.
The US law that set national-origins quotas of 2 per cent of each nationality's foreign-born population in 1890, sharply limiting immigration from southern and eastern Europe and barring immigration from Asia.
The US law that ended the system of immigration quotas based on national origin, which had favoured immigrants from northern and western Europe since 1924.
The US law of 1986 that gave legal status to about 2.7 million undocumented immigrants who had lived in the country since 1982 and introduced penalties for employers who hired undocumented workers.
A mutiny of unpaid Korean soldiers in Seoul in July 1882 that attacked the Min clan and the Japanese legation, briefly restored the Daewongun and led to Chinese military intervention.
An interpretation of modern Chinese history, associated with John K. Fairbank, that explains change mainly as China's response to the impact of the West.
In the USA, the process by which the House of Representatives charges a federal official, including the president, with serious misconduct; the Senate then holds a trial, and a two-thirds majority is needed to remove the official.
A city of the Holy Roman Empire subject only to the emperor rather than a territorial prince, which governed itself through its council and was represented at the Diet.
A meeting of Japan's senior ministers and military chiefs in the emperor's presence that approved the most important national decisions, such as the decisions of 1941 that led to war.
The parliament created by the Meiji Constitution, with a House of Peers and an elected House of Representatives, which first met in November 1890.
The conference of Britain and the dominions held in Ottawa in July–August 1932, which agreed lower tariffs on trade within the British Empire (imperial preference).
A system of lower tariffs on trade between Britain and the countries of its Empire and Commonwealth than on trade with other countries, extended in 1932.
The statement of moral principles issued in the emperor's name on 30 October 1890, combining Confucian virtues with loyalty to the throne; it was read aloud in every school.
The national organisation founded in Japan in October 1940 after the political parties dissolved themselves, intended to unite the nation behind the war; it was controlled by the bureaucracy and never became a mass party.
The body of British and dominion leaders set up in 1917 to direct the war effort of the British Empire, which gave the dominions a voice in imperial policy.
A faction in the Japanese army in the early 1930s, led by Generals Araki and Mazaki, that stressed spiritual values, loyalty to the emperor and a 'Shōwa Restoration'; its young officers staged the February 26 Incident of 1936.
The policy of a state extending its power and rule over other territories and peoples, by conquest, colonisation or economic and political control.
A development strategy in which a state builds factories, usually behind tariffs and with state investment, to produce at home goods that were previously imported.
The forced seizure of goods, animals or labour for military use; in the Confederacy, the army's taking of food, livestock and enslaved labourers.
Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato's economic plan of December 1960 to double Japan's national income in ten years; the target was reached in about seven.
The law of September 1866 by which the Prussian parliament approved, after the event, the government's spending without a budget since 1862.
Work under a contract that binds a worker to an employer for a fixed number of years, usually in return for passage overseas, wages and housing; Indian indentured workers were sent to British plantation colonies from 1838 to 1917.
A Korean reform association of 1896–1898 led by Seo Jae-pil and Yun Chi-ho that published The Independent and campaigned for independence, education and a consultative council until Gojong suppressed it.
The 150 million francs France demanded from Haiti in 1825 in return for recognising its independence, to compensate former colonists; reduced to 90 million francs in 1838.
A political campaign by the people of a colony to end foreign rule and create their own sovereign state, by negotiation, mass protest, armed struggle or a combination of these.
A special Turkish court with wide powers, first created in 1920, used in the 1920s to try and execute rebels and political opponents.
A foreign policy in which a small state sets its own course on major issues, even against its allies; in New Zealand, associated above all with the anti-nuclear policy of 1984–1987.
The list of publications that Catholics were forbidden to print, sell or read, issued by the papacy from 1559 and regularly updated until it was abolished in 1966.
The Canadian law of 1876 that made status First Nations people wards of the federal government, controlled by Indian agents; later amendments banned ceremonies, restricted movement and made residential schooling compulsory.
The elite administrative service of British India; after independence it continued as the Indian Administrative Service.
A British law that allowed the viceroy to nominate a few non-officials, including Indians, to the legislative councils, which could discuss laws but had no control over the executive.
The British law of July 1947 that created the two independent dominions of India and Pakistan from 15 August 1947 and ended British paramountcy over the princely states.
A force of about 40,000 Indians, mostly former prisoners of war, raised with Japanese support in Southeast Asia and led by Subhas Chandra Bose from 1943, which fought against British forces in 1944–1945. The trials of its officers in 1945–1946 provoked mass protest.
The political organisation founded in Bombay in December 1885 that led the movement for Indian self-government and independence.
The rising of sepoys of the Bengal Army and of many civilians across north and central India against East India Company rule in 1857–1858, which ended Company rule.
The US law of June 1934 that ended the division of reservations into individual plots, returned some land to tribes and encouraged tribal self-government.
The US law of 1975 that allowed tribes to take over and run federally funded services such as schools, health care and police on their own lands.
The Portuguese colonial system, set out in the Native Statutes of 1926–1954, under which most Africans were classed as natives without citizenship, subject to forced labour and passes; abolished in 1961.
The ideology and policy, strong in Mexico after the revolution, that valued Indigenous cultures and history as central to national identity while aiming to integrate Indigenous peoples into a Spanish-speaking mestizo national culture.
The army of black and coloured Haitians led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines from 1803, which defeated the French and won independence.
A holiday on the second Monday of October, first adopted by Berkeley, California, in 1992, that honours the Indigenous peoples of the Americas instead of, or alongside, Columbus.
The Spanish protest movement that began with the occupation of the Puerta del Sol in Madrid on 15 May 2011 against austerity, unemployment and corruption, and later fed into new parties such as Podemos.
Colonial government through existing local rulers and institutions under the supervision of European officials; Lugard developed it as the British method in Northern Nigeria, and other powers, such as the Germans and Belgians in Rwanda, ruled in similar ways.
The war between India and Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir that began with the tribal invasion of October 1947 and ended with the UN-arranged ceasefire of 1 January 1949, leaving the state divided.
The US law signed on 23 May 1975 that funded the transport, reception and resettlement of refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, extended to Laotians in 1976.
The communist party founded by Ho Chi Minh in February 1930 as the Vietnamese Communist Party and renamed in October 1930; it led the Viet Minh and was later renamed the Workers' Party (1951).
In the medieval Catholic Church, a grant that reduced the punishment in purgatory due for sins, often obtained in return for a payment or a pious act and issued on written or printed forms.
Joel Mokyr's term for the eighteenth-century culture in which scientists, engineers and craftsmen shared useful knowledge, which he argues explains Britain's run of inventions.
The change from hand production to machine production in factories, powered by water and then steam, that began in Britain around 1760 and spread to other countries in the nineteenth century.
Jan de Vries's term for the change in household behaviour in north-western Europe from the late seventeenth century, when families worked longer and sold more in order to buy consumer goods, raising demand before and during industrialisation.
The period in Argentina from the military coup of 1930 to the coup of 1943, when conservative governments kept power through electoral fraud.
One of Napoleon's decrees on the Jews of March 1808, which for ten years restricted Jews' money-lending, trade and settlement in Alsace and their right to hire substitutes for military service.
The enclosed, manured land next to a Norse farmhouse, kept for growing hay to feed animals through the winter.
Sadat’s economic policy of "opening" from 1974, which invited foreign and Arab investment and private enterprise and moved Egypt away from Nasser’s state socialism.
A general and sustained rise in prices, which reduces the value of money, wages and savings. Wars often caused it when governments printed money to pay for them.
A person who secretly informed for the Stasi while living an ordinary life, reporting on colleagues, friends or family.
The part of an economy that is not registered, taxed or regulated by the state, such as unlicensed street trading; its workers have no contracts or legal protection.
Influence or control over a territory without formal annexation, exercised through trade, loans, advisers, treaties and the threat of force.
A Zulu cultural and political movement revived in 1975 by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, chief minister of KwaZulu, which opposed apartheid but rejected armed struggle and sanctions, and fought a violent conflict with ANC supporters from the mid-1980s to 1994.
The position of the hard-line Francoists who opposed any change to the regime after Franco; their supporters were also called the 'bunker'.
A new technology, technique, institution or practice that people actually adopt and use, as distinct from an idea that is only thought of.
A person who develops or first puts a new technology, method or idea into practical use: an inventor, but also a craft worker, entrepreneur, translator or scientist who adapts it.
Deliberate infection with a small amount of live smallpox matter to produce a mild case and lifelong protection; practised in Asia and Africa before it spread to Europe in the 1720s.
An open, debatable question that guides an investigation of the past, such as the "To what extent …?" question that frames a set of sources or a historical investigation.
Church courts set up to find and punish heresy; in early modern Spain and Italy they also enforced censorship of books.
The Cuban National Institute of Agrarian Reform, created by the land reform law of May 1959, which took over expropriated land and much of the economy in the first years of the revolution.
The system in Heian Japan, from 1086, in which retired emperors governed through their own households while a younger emperor performed the court rituals.
The Italian state holding company created in January 1933 to take over the industrial shares of failing banks; by the late 1930s it controlled a large part of Italian industry.
The Spanish state holding company founded in 1941 to build heavy industry under autarky; it owned large parts of Spanish industry until privatisation in the 1980s and 1990s.
The legal document by which the ruler of a princely state joined India or Pakistan in 1947–1948, usually surrendering defence, external affairs and communications to the dominion.
Supreme Court rulings from 1901 that the US Constitution did not fully apply in 'unincorporated' territories such as Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
A Brazilian fascist-style movement founded by Plínio Salgado in 1932, with green shirts and the slogan 'God, Fatherland and Family'. It was banned under the Estado Novo.
The educated class in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia that saw itself as responsible for the welfare of the people and was often opposed to the autocracy.
The German operation of 1939–1940 to murder members of the Polish elite, such as teachers, priests and officials.
A salaried royal official sent to run a province's taxes, justice and administration on the king's behalf, first in seventeenth-century France and, from 1764, in Spanish America, where most intendants were peninsulares.
A result that the people who acted wanted and planned for.
An interpretation that explains the policies of a regime, especially Nazi Germany, mainly through the ideas and intentions of its leader.
A regional development bank founded in 1959 to lend for economic and social projects in Latin America; it was an early US response to Latin American demands for aid.
The OAS military force created in May 1965, under a Brazilian commander, which brought the US troops in the Dominican Republic under an inter-American command alongside Latin American contingents and gave the occupation multilateral cover.
Pakistan’s military intelligence agency. In the 1980s it distributed foreign aid to the Afghan mujahideen and favoured Islamist Pashtun parties; in the 1990s it supported the Taliban.
The youth militia of Rwanda's ruling MRND party ("those who attack together"), trained and armed from 1992 and the main civilian killers in the 1994 genocide.
A papal punishment that suspended most church services in an area or kingdom, such as England in 1208–1214.
An organisation founded in 1951 to organise and pay for the transport of migrants and refugees from Europe overseas; it later became the International Organization for Migration.
The government of India formed on 2 September 1946 under Jawaharlal Nehru, with Indian ministers holding all the departments of the viceroy's Executive Council. The Muslim League joined it in October 1946.
The advantage of a side whose forces are positioned between its enemies or inside a territory, so that it can move troops between fronts by shorter routes than the enemy.
Opposition from inside a regime or its ruling elite: rival leaders in the ruling party, army officers, senior officials, church leaders or intellectuals.
An identity document that citizens needed in order to live and move within their own country. Used by the tsars, abolished after 1917 and reintroduced by Stalin in December 1932.
The body founded at Leopold II's Brussels Geographical Conference in 1876, officially for exploration and anti-slavery work, which he used to pursue his own claims in the Congo.
Units of foreign volunteers, about 35,000 from some 50 countries, recruited mainly by the Communist International to fight for the Spanish Republic in 1936–1938.
The commission of Canada, India and Poland set up by the Geneva Accords of 1954 to supervise the ceasefires in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
The main judicial body of the United Nations, at The Hague, which settles disputes between states and gives advisory opinions; its opinions of 1950, 1966 and 1971 shaped the struggle over Namibia.
The UN court set up in 1994 at Arusha to try those most responsible for the genocide and other serious crimes in Rwanda in 1994; it closed in 2015.
The court set up by the USA, Britain, the USSR and France that tried the major German war criminals at Nuremberg in 1945–1946.
The Allied court that tried Japan's wartime leaders in Tokyo from 1946 to 1948 for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity; all 25 defendants judged were convicted and seven were hanged.
The international organisation, founded in 1944, that lends to countries with balance-of-payments problems, usually on condition that they carry out economic reforms.
The UN specialised agency that cared for refugees and displaced persons from 1947 to 1952; its main task was resettlement, and it resettled more than a million people.
A research centre at Los Baños in the Philippines, founded in 1960 by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations with the Philippine government, which bred the high-yielding rice IR8, released in 1966.
The organisation at Bad Arolsen in Germany, set up after the war, that holds records of Nazi persecution and traces missing persons for families.
A historian's explanation or judgement of the past, built from evidence and argument.
The idea that systems of oppression such as racism, sexism and class interlock and shape people's lives together; the term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989.
The US law of 1887 that required railway rates to be "reasonable and just" and created the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first federal regulatory agency.
An official appointed by Brazil's federal government to run a state in place of its elected governor, used by Vargas after 1930 to centralise power.
The Sun god of the Incas, from whom the Sapa Inca claimed descent; worshipped above all at the Coricancha temple in Cuzco.
Arabic for "shaking off": a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, the first in 1987–1993 and the second, far more violent, in 2000–2005.
A new idea, device or method. An invention becomes an innovation only when it is put to regular practical use.
The idea, applied to Africa by Terence Ranger (1983), that colonial rulers and African elites created or fixed 'traditional' customs, laws and tribal identities that had been more fluid.
The struggle in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries between the popes and lay rulers, above all the German emperors, over who had the right to appoint bishops and abbots.
The term used for the US policy of 1970–1973 of cutting off credit and blocking international loans to Allende's Chile while continuing aid to its armed forces.
Kinyarwanda for "cockroaches": the name given to Tutsi refugee raiders in the 1960s and later used by extremist propaganda for all Tutsi.
In the medieval Islamic world, a grant of the tax revenue from an area of land to a soldier or commander in return for military service.
The seizure of the US embassy in Tehran by students on 4 November 1979 and the holding of 52 Americans for 444 days, until 20 January 1981. It strengthened the radicals in Iran and broke relations between Iran and the United States.
The scandal revealed in November 1986 in which officials of the Reagan administration secretly sold missiles to Iran, partly through Israel, hoping to free American hostages in Lebanon, and used the profits to fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Iran’s development of nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment at Natanz, revealed in 2002. Iran said it was for civilian use; the USA, Israel and European states feared it aimed at the capacity to build nuclear weapons.
Churchill's phrase of 1946 for the line dividing Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe from the West, later used for the fortified border between the two blocs.
Ze'ev Jabotinsky's argument (1923) that Zionism could succeed only behind a wall of military strength that Arab resistance could not break, after which agreement would become possible.
One of the US senators who in 1919–1920 opposed the Treaty of Versailles in any form because they rejected membership of the League of Nations.
The demand to annex territories outside a state that are seen as belonging to the nation; in Italy, the claim to the Trentino, Trieste and other lands left under Austrian rule after 1866.
Tunisia's independent electoral commission, created in 2011 to organise elections in place of the interior ministry.
An alliance of local sharia courts and their militias that took control of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia in 2006 until it was driven out by an Ethiopian invasion in December 2006.
An armed Islamist group formed in the late 1990s to overthrow Karimov; it made incursions from Tajikistan in 1999–2000 and later fought in Afghanistan.
An Islamic party founded in 1990; its Tajik branch was part of the opposition in the civil war, legal from 1997 and banned in 2015.
A state that combines republican institutions, such as elections and a parliament, with the principle that law and government must follow Islam. In Iran unelected clerical bodies decide whether laws and candidates are acceptable.
The armed force created by Khomeini in May 1979 to protect the Islamic revolution, separate from the regular army. It fought in the Iran–Iraq War, runs Iran’s support for allied forces abroad through its Quds Force, and became a major political and economic power.
The government formed under the Peshawar Accord in 1992, led from June 1992 by President Burhanuddin Rabbani. It controlled little beyond parts of Kabul and was driven out of the capital by the Taliban in 1996.
A political ideology that holds that Islam should shape the laws, institutions and public life of a state. Islamist movements range from parties that compete in elections to groups that use violence.
The American strategy in the Pacific from 1943 of capturing selected islands as bases while bypassing and isolating strongly held Japanese positions.
The Book of the Icelanders, a short history of Iceland written by the priest Ari Thorgilsson in about 1122–1133; it contains the earliest account of Erik the Red's settlement of Greenland.
A branch of Shi’a Islam whose followers recognised Isma’il, son of the sixth imam, and his descendants as imams; the Fatimid caliphs, the Qarmatians and the Nizaris (Assassins) were Isma’ilis.
The Daewongun's policy of refusing diplomatic and trade relations with Western countries and resisting their expeditions, 1864–1873.
A policy of avoiding political and military commitments to other states, especially alliances and international security organisations.
A civilian community built by Israel in the territories occupied in 1967; most states and the UN regard settlements as illegal under international law, which Israel disputes.
The Italian film institute founded in 1924 and taken over by the state, which produced the newsreels and documentaries that cinemas had to show.
Italian soldiers disarmed by Germany after Italy changed sides in September 1943 and held as forced labourers without the rights of prisoners of war.
The organisation founded in 1857 by La Farina, Manin and others to win support across Italy for unification under Piedmont and Victor Emmanuel II.
The Catholic mass party founded by the priest Luigi Sturzo in 1919; the second-largest party in 1919–1921, it was dissolved by the Fascist regime in 1926.
The laws of September–November 1938 that expelled Jews from Italian schools, the civil service, the army and many professions, banned marriages between Jews and "Aryans" and ordered foreign Jews to leave.
The wars of 1494–1559 in which France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire fought for control of Italy, beginning with the French invasion of Charles VIII and ending with Spanish dominance.
The mission of Meiji leaders and students, led by Iwakura Tomomi, to the United States and Europe in 1871–1873, which failed to revise the treaties but studied Western institutions.
A Māori tribe made up of related hapū descended from a common ancestor, often traced to one of the ancestral canoes.