143 of the History glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
A Mexican American political party founded in Texas in 1970 by José Ángel Gutiérrez, which won local elections in towns with Mexican American majorities in the early 1970s.
Units of forced labour in the USSR during the Second World War, made up largely of Soviet Germans and other mobilised civilians.
A document every Soviet worker had to carry under a decree of December 1938, recording their jobs and conduct, used to control movement between jobs.
The socialist form of Zionism that held that the Jewish nation would be renewed through its own physical labour on the land; it dominated the Yishuv and Israel until 1977.
A movement of the wives, mothers and daughters of Cuban political prisoners arrested in the Black Spring of 2003, who marched silently in white after Sunday Mass to demand their release.
The resolution of the All-India Muslim League adopted at Lahore on 24 March 1940, which demanded that the Muslim-majority areas of north-western and eastern India be grouped to form "Independent States". It became the basis of the demand for Pakistan.
The belief that the state should interfere as little as possible in trade and industry, leaving owners and markets to decide wages, hours and conditions.
The French law of 7 May 1946 that made all subjects of the overseas territories citizens, named after the Senegalese deputy Lamine Guèye.
A Portuguese trader who settled on the coast or rivers of West Africa, often marrying locally; the term also covers their Afro-Portuguese descendants who acted as brokers in the slave trade.
The agreement signed in London in December 1979 that ended the Rhodesian war, set a constitution for independent Zimbabwe and protected white-owned land for ten years through willing-buyer, willing-seller rules.
The three conferences in London (1960, 1962 and 1963) at which the British government, settlers and African parties negotiated Kenya's constitutions and independence.
A secret Russian Populist organisation founded in 1876, which split in 1879 into People's Will (terror) and Black Repartition (propaganda).
The law of 1930 that divided Southern Rhodesia's land by race, reserving about half, including most of the best farmland, for the small white minority.
An official chosen from the local nobility from 1889 with wide powers over Russian peasant communes and courts.
The principle, drawn from Resolution 242, that Israel would return territory taken in 1967 in exchange for peace and recognition from its Arab neighbours.
A gift of public land from a government, especially to a railway company in return for building a line; the company sold the land to settlers to raise capital.
The redistribution of land from large landowners to peasants or the state, used by the CCP in China, the Free Officers in Egypt (1952) and Castro in Cuba (1959) to win support and break the power of old elites.
The Japanese colonial survey of 1910–1918 that measured and registered all land in Korea, turning unreported, royal and communal land into Government-General property.
The reform announced in 1873 that gave landowners title deeds and replaced rice taxes with a cash tax of 3 per cent of assessed land value, cut to 2.5 per cent in 1877.
In Guaraní belief, an earthly paradise that could be reached by dancing, fasting and journeying; the inspiration for religious migrations recorded after 1500.
Old Norse for "land-taking": the first settlement of an empty land, used especially for the settlement of Iceland between about 870 and 930.
The Book of Settlements, a record compiled in Iceland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the first settlers of Iceland, their families and their land, with some information on Greenland.
An association of German expellees from the same home region, such as Silesia or the Sudetenland, formed in West Germany after the war.
The Prussian reserve militia of older men, with its own officers, created in 1813; liberals saw it as a citizens' army and opposed its reduction in the army reforms of 1860.
The Chinese system of "reform through labour" camps, in which prisoners, many of them political, did forced labour and underwent political re-education.
The programme of expansion promoted in the 1890s by Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt and their allies: a big navy, overseas bases, an isthmian canal and the annexation of Hawaii.
The reforms of 1901–1911, including a New Army, modern schools, the abolition of the examinations and steps towards a constitution, through which the Qing tried to modernise and survive.
The agreements of 11 February 1929 between Mussolini’s government and the papacy, which created the Vatican City, made Catholicism the state religion and compensated the Church for its lost lands.
A very large landed estate, worked by landless day labourers; in Spain typical of Andalusia, Extremadura and La Mancha.
The state set up by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade after they sacked Constantinople in 1204, ruled by western (Latin) emperors until the Byzantines recovered the city in 1261.
A method of navigation in which sailors judge their latitude from the height of the sun or the Pole Star, reach the latitude of their destination and then sail due east or west along it.
The Spanish law of 1976, approved by the Francoist Cortes and by referendum, that created a parliament elected by universal suffrage and opened the way to the elections of 1977.
The Nazi law of July 1933 that ordered the compulsory sterilisation of people with conditions judged hereditary, such as schizophrenia and epilepsy; about 400,000 people were sterilised.
The decree of the French National Convention of 4 February 1794 that abolished slavery in all French colonies and made all men living there French citizens.
The Italian law of May 1871 offering the Pope sovereign status, the Vatican and an annual payment after the capture of Rome; Pius IX rejected it.
The Francoist law of February 1939 that made support for the Republic since October 1934 a crime punishable by fines, confiscation of property and loss of jobs.
The Spanish Fundamental Law of 1947, approved by referendum, that declared Spain a kingdom with Franco as head of state for life and able to name his successor.
The French law of 17 September 1793 that defined broad categories of "suspects", by conduct, words, birth or family, to be arrested; a legal basis of the Terror.
The Soviet law of May 1988 that allowed cooperatives, in effect private businesses, in most sectors of the economy.
The Soviet law of June 1987 (in force from 1988) that gave enterprise managers control over wages, output and profits once state orders were met.
The Turkish emergency law of March 1925, passed during the Sheikh Said rebellion, that let the government ban organisations and publications; it was used to silence opposition until 1929.
The first Spanish code for the treatment of Indigenous people in the Americas, issued on 27 December 1512; it regulated the encomienda (housing, food, religious teaching, limits on punishment and on the work of pregnant women) but did not abolish it.
An alliance proclaimed by Catherine II in 1780 and joined by other neutral states to protect their shipping from searches by the British navy during the American War of Independence.
A Japanese terrorist group led by the preacher Inoue Nisshō whose members murdered the former finance minister Inoue Junnosuke and the Mitsui executive Dan Takuma in 1932.
The international organisation set up by the peace settlement of 1919, which came into being in January 1920, to settle disputes peacefully and protect its members through collective security.
The argument, made by historians such as Gary Sheffield, that the British army learned from its costly failures on the Western Front and became highly effective by 1918.
Land that remained formally part of China but was governed by a foreign power for a fixed term, such as Jiaozhou Bay, Port Arthur or the New Territories.
A coalition of leftist, Nasserist, Druze and Muslim parties led by the Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt, allied with the PLO in the Lebanese Civil War and demanding the end of the confessional system.
"Living space": the Nazi aim of conquering land in eastern Europe for German settlement at the expense of the Slav peoples.
The French army sent by Napoleon under General Charles Leclerc (1801–1803) to restore French authority in Saint-Domingue; its defeat led to Haitian independence.
A pro-slavery constitution written for Kansas in 1857 by a convention elected in a vote that free-state settlers boycotted; President Buchanan backed it, Stephen Douglas opposed it, and Kansas voters rejected it in 1858.
A child in rural China whose parents have migrated to work in cities, usually leaving the child with grandparents.
The Nazis' description of how they took and secured power in 1933–1934 through appointment, elections and laws such as the Enabling Act, while also using violence and intimidation.
The "most Fascist laws" of 1925–1926 that turned Mussolini’s government into a one-party dictatorship: press control, rule by decree, appointed mayors, the ban on parties, the Special Tribunal and confino.
The order of merit created by Napoleon in 1802 to reward military and civil service, open to people of every social rank.
The assembly of about 560 elected deputies, without serfs, called by Catherine II in 1767 to draft a new law code for Russia; adjourned in 1768 and never reconvened in full.
The law-making body of a British colony, made up of officials and nominated and elected members; in Kenya Africans had no elected members until 1957.
The acceptance by subjects and rival elites that a ruler or government has the right to rule, built through descent, religion, law, success and recognition.
The trade in goods such as palm oil, groundnuts and gum that European abolitionists hoped would replace the Atlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century; much of it was produced by enslaved workers.
"The Golden Law" of 13 May 1888, signed by Princess Isabel, which abolished slavery in Brazil without compensation to owners or support for the about 700,000 people it freed.
The US programme begun in March 1941 under which the USA supplied war materials to Britain, the Soviet Union and other Allies with repayment deferred or waived.
A central bank that lends to banks in a crisis so that runs by depositors do not force sound banks to close.
The mass recruitment of new, mainly young working-class members into the Soviet Communist Party in 1924 after Lenin’s death; they owed their advancement to the apparatus Stalin controlled.
The notes dictated by Lenin in December 1922 and January 1923 assessing the party's leaders, which warned against Stalin's power and rudeness and proposed removing him as General Secretary. It was read to delegates in 1924 but not published.
The fabricated case of 1949–1950 in which leaders of the Leningrad party organisation, including Nikolai Voznesensky and Aleksei Kuznetsov, were accused of plotting against the centre and shot.
A letter signed by the French king that could order a person's imprisonment or exile without trial; a symbol of arbitrary royal power, abolished in 1790.
The forcible recruitment of men, usually from the poorest groups, into the Mexican federal army, used under Díaz and on a much larger scale by Huerta in 1913–1914.
The decree of 23 August 1793 that placed all French people in "permanent requisition" for the war, in practice conscripting unmarried men aged 18 to 25.
A custom by which a widow marries her dead husband's brother or another male relative of his family; practised by the Mongols and imposed at first on some Chinese widows under the Yuan.
The Mexican liberal law of 1856 that ordered the sale of land held by corporations, including the Church and village communities. It was meant to create small farmers but allowed speculators and haciendas to acquire village land.
The state of the Khitan people (916–1125) in northern China and Mongolia, the Song dynasty's main northern rival until the Jurchen destroyed it.
A political system with free and competitive elections, the rule of law, and protected rights such as freedom of speech, the press and association.
Japan's main conservative party, formed by a merger in November 1955; it governed without a break until 1993 and for most of the period since.
The nationalist party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, which won the largest share of the party-list vote in the Duma elections of December 1993.
The strand of feminism that seeks equal rights and opportunities for women within existing institutions, mainly through law, lobbying and elections.
A political ideology stressing individual rights and freedoms, equality before the law, limited government and government by consent.
A movement in the Latin American Catholic Church from the late 1960s that read the gospel as a call to free the poor from unjust social and economic structures and to give them a "preferential option".
A government bond sold to the US public to finance the First World War.
A small US anti-slavery political party that ran James Birney for president in 1840 and 1844; most of its members joined the Free Soil Party in 1848.
The Cuban ration book, introduced in 1962, which entitles each household to fixed quantities of basic goods at low prices.
The Qing office that managed relations with Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang and other Inner Asian territories, which were governed separately from the provinces of China proper.
The practice in large Japanese firms of hiring core (mostly male) employees from school or university and keeping them until retirement, with pay that rose with seniority.
A tax on goods in transit introduced in 1853 to pay for the war against the Taiping, controlled by provincial officials; abolished in 1931.
The Soviet campaign for mass literacy launched in 1919, which required all illiterate people aged 8 to 50 to learn to read and write.
"The wild (or dashing) nineties": the Russian name for the 1990s, remembered by many Russians as a time of poverty, crime and disorder.
The main Israeli right-wing party, formed in 1973 around Menachem Begin's Herut; it won power in 1977 and supported settlement of the occupied territories.
"Purity of blood": a Spanish requirement of descent from Old Christians, used first to exclude people of Jewish and Muslim descent and in the Americas to rank people by Spanish descent.
A mathematical method of drawing in which parallel lines meet at a single vanishing point, giving a flat picture the illusion of three-dimensional space; developed by Brunelleschi and explained by Alberti.
The agreement of November 1946 in which the Netherlands recognised the Indonesian Republic's authority in Java, Madura and Sumatra and both sides agreed to form a federal Indonesia; it broke down in 1947.
A state of the Indian Union whose boundaries were drawn so that most of its people share one language, such as Andhra (1953), Kerala (1956) or Maharashtra (1960).
The policy of the Reagan administration from 1981 of making Namibian independence conditional on the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola; it was realised in the New York Accords of 1988.
The EU treaty in force from December 2009 that reformed the Union's institutions and set out, in Article 50, how a state could leave.
A person deprived of voting rights under the Soviet constitution of 1918, such as former nobles, clergy, private traders and employers of hired labour; lishentsy also lost access to rations, housing and education.
A special session in which the French king attended a parlement in person to force it to register a law it had refused.
A campaign by a state to search out and punish writings considered seditious; under Qianlong it led to the destruction of books and the punishment of authors for disrespect towards the Manchus.
The alliances of 1920–1921 between Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, aimed mainly at preventing Hungary from recovering territory lost at Trianon, and supported by France.
A period of cooler climate, especially in the North Atlantic and Europe, from about 1300 (or later, by some definitions) to the mid-nineteenth century.
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, compiled by the army's political department under Lin Biao in 1964 and printed in vast numbers during the Cultural Revolution.
A change in people's everyday experience, such as their work, income, rights in practice and family life. It can lag far behind formal change.
The level of material well-being a person or group enjoys: income, food, housing, consumer goods, health and leisure.
A cattle-herder of the plains (llanos) of the Orinoco basin; the llaneros fought for the royalists under Boves in 1814 and for independence under Páez from 1818.
The improved relations between Germany and the western powers after the Locarno treaties of 1925, associated with Stresemann, Briand and Austen Chamberlain.
The agreements of 1925 in which Germany, France and Belgium accepted their shared borders, guaranteed by Britain and Italy, opening a brief period of reconciliation in Europe.
The fourteen conditions proposed by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in 1919 for US ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, above all that the USA accepted no obligation under Article X without the approval of Congress.
The basic Mapuche social unit, a patrilineal kin group under a head (lonko) that held land and acted together.
A writing system that combines signs for whole words with signs for syllables, such as Maya hieroglyphic writing.
The French enabling law of June 1956 that introduced universal suffrage and elected territorial governments in French Africa.
The lower, directly elected house of the Parliament of India, first elected in 1951–1952.
A follower of the ideas of John Wyclif in late medieval England, who stressed the authority of the Bible, criticised the wealth and power of the clergy and was persecuted as a heretic.
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall's term (2005) for a civil rights movement that began in the labour and left-wing politics of the 1930s and 1940s and continued beyond 1968.
The Maya calendar that counted days from a fixed starting point equivalent to 3114 BCE, allowing events to be dated precisely over thousands of years.
The period of falling prices, low profits and recurring crises in Europe and North America from 1873 to about 1896, which encouraged protectionism and the search for new markets.
The retreat of the Red Army from its base in Jiangxi to Yan'an in north-west China, in October 1934 to October 1935, during which Mao became the CCP's leading figure.
The 8,000-word cable sent from Moscow by the US diplomat George Kennan in February 1946, arguing that Soviet leaders saw the West as hostile and would expand wherever they met no firm resistance.
The forced march of about 8,000–9,000 Navajo people in 1864 by the US army to a reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico, during which many died.
A condition that developed over years or decades and made an event possible or likely, without deciding when it happened.
A result that develops over decades after an event, often mixed with the effects of later causes.
A long dwelling of poles and bark shared by several related families of one matrilineage, the typical house of the Haudenosaunee.
A long, narrow Norse warship powered by many oars and a sail, carrying a large crew for raiding and war.
French for "long duration": the slow, almost unchanging structures of geography, climate and everyday life that the historian Fernand Braudel argued shaped events.
An interpretation of the Civil War spread by former Confederates, which presented the Confederacy as a noble cause defeated only by numbers and played down slavery as its cause.
The counties of Bunyoro given to Buganda by the British after the conquest of the 1890s and confirmed in 1900, a lasting grievance of the Banyoro that was settled by a referendum in 1964.
The 1980s in Latin America, when the debt crisis, austerity and inflation left income per head lower at the end of the decade than at its start.
The period of very slow growth, bad debts and deflation in Japan after the bubble burst in 1990–1991, often extended to two or three 'lost decades'.
An organisation of women mill workers in Lowell, Massachusetts, founded in 1845 and led by Sarah Bagley, which campaigned for a ten-hour working day; one of the first unions of working women in the United States.
A traditional Afghan grand assembly of tribal, religious and regional leaders called to decide major national questions. An emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002 chose Hamid Karzai to head the transitional administration.
In the Kenya Emergency, an African who sided with the colonial government against Mau Mau, such as chiefs, Home Guards and many Christians.
A colonist who remained loyal to the British crown during the American War of Independence; tens of thousands left the United States, many for Nova Scotia and Quebec.
The investigation of the loyalty of US federal employees ordered by Truman in March 1947 (Executive Order 9835); millions were screened and those judged disloyal could be dismissed.
The agreement of December 1916 between the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League, in which Congress accepted separate electorates and extra Muslim seats in exchange for joint demands for self-government.
The movement of English textile workers who broke machinery in 1811–1816 to defend their trades, wages and customs; by extension, opposition to new technology.
The council of chiefs (later a parliament) of the kingdom of Buganda, recognised by the Buganda Agreement of 1900.
An informal club of scientists, inventors and manufacturers in Birmingham, active from the 1760s to about 1813, whose members included Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood and Joseph Priestley.
The agreement of 7 September 1974 between Portugal and FRELIMO that set the transfer of power and independence of Mozambique on 25 June 1975.
The ceasefire signed in July 1999 by the states fighting in the Second Congo War and later by the main rebel groups, which fighting continued to break.
A theory of the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre, adopted by the Salazar regime, which claimed that the Portuguese were uniquely free of racism and created harmonious mixed societies in the tropics; it was used to justify Portuguese colonial rule.
The spirits served in Vodou, honoured through song, drumming, dance and possession.
A person's official family and political background in communist Vietnam. A "bad" background, such as service to the South Vietnamese state or a family of landowners or traders, led to discrimination in jobs, education and rations.
A state secondary school for boys created by Napoleon in 1802, with a uniform curriculum and military discipline, to train officers and officials.
The official backing given in the USSR, above all from 1948 to the mid-1960s, to the theories of the agronomist Trofim Lysenko, which rejected genetics; geneticists were dismissed and Soviet biology and farming suffered.
Kenya's constitution of 1954, which created a Council of Ministers with three European, two Asian and one African unofficial minister.
The League of Nations commission under Lord Lytton that reported in October 1932 that Japan's seizure of Manchuria was not self-defence and that Manchukuo was not a genuine state; Japan left the League after its report was adopted.