Armed or political opposition by existing African states and societies at the time of colonial conquest, roughly 1880–1910, as distinct from later nationalist movements.
277 of the History glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
How quickly a change happened, from sudden to gradual.
The Canadian political scandal of 1873 in which John A. Macdonald's Conservatives were shown to have taken election funds from Hugh Allan, who had been promised the contract for the Pacific railway; Macdonald resigned.
The agreements of September 1953 by which the USA gave Franco's Spain economic and military aid in return for air and naval bases, ending its post-war isolation.
The agreement of August 1930 among Spanish Republicans, Catalan nationalists and later the Socialists to overthrow the monarchy and found a republic.
The military alliance between Germany and Italy signed on 22 May 1939.
The agreement of 18 February 1913, signed in the US embassy in Mexico City with the support of Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, by which Victoriano Huerta and Félix Díaz agreed to overthrow President Madero.
The unwritten agreement of the Spanish transition not to prosecute the crimes of the Civil War and the dictatorship or use them in political debate, expressed in law by the Amnesty Law of 1977.
A tablet of gold, silver or wood issued by the Mongol khans, giving its holder authority and the right to use the relay stations.
The agreement of October 1925 in which Italy’s main employers’ organisation, Confindustria, recognised only Fascist unions as representatives of workers.
The western provinces of the Russian Empire, from Lithuania to Ukraine, where most Jews were legally required to live from the late eighteenth century until 1917.
The umbrella organisation of Palestinian national groups, founded in 1964 and led by Fatah under Arafat from 1969; recognised by Israel in 1993 as the representative of the Palestinian people.
The founding document of the PLO (1964, revised 1968), which declared armed struggle the only way to liberate Palestine and rejected the partition of 1947.
The South African organisation founded in 1959 by Robert Sobukwe and others who left the ANC, arguing that Africans should lead the liberation struggle alone.
The organisation of the American republics in Washington (1910–1948), grown from the Commercial Bureau set up in 1890 to promote trade and cooperation; critics saw it as a tool of US influence.
The movement for the unity, dignity and liberation of all people of African descent, which by 1945 demanded independence for African colonies.
A meeting of the independent states of the Americas, held regularly from 1889–1890 onwards, to discuss trade, arbitration and, later, security in the hemisphere.
The idea that the Arabic-speaking peoples form one nation and should unite politically, or at least act together against outside powers. It reached its height under Nasser between 1956 and 1961.
A German nationalist pressure group founded in 1891 that demanded colonies, a large fleet and German expansion in Europe, and attacked governments it thought too weak.
The idea of the political unity of Muslims worldwide; Abdülhamid II used it to present the Ottoman sultan-caliph as leader of all Muslims.
The nineteenth-century movement for the unity of the Slav peoples, which in Russia became the belief that Russia should protect and lead the Slavs, especially in the Balkans.
The aim of uniting all Somali-inhabited territories, including Ethiopia's Ogaden, northern Kenya and Djibouti, in one Somali state.
The two treaties signed by Carter and Omar Torrijos on 7 September 1977, which transferred the Panama Canal to Panama on 31 December 1999 and guaranteed its neutrality.
A royal lineage of Cuzco descended from a dead Inca ruler, which kept his mummy, palaces and estates and acted as a political faction.
The five founding principles of the Indonesian state, set out by Sukarno on 1 June 1945: belief in one God, a just and civilised humanity, the unity of Indonesia, democracy through consultation and representation, and social justice.
The system of elected village, block and district councils (panchayats) introduced in India from 1959 to give rural people a role in local government and development.
The five principles of peaceful coexistence set out in the India–China agreement on trade with Tibet of 29 April 1954: respect for territory and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
The agreement of 12 February 1947 between Aung San and Shan, Kachin and Chin leaders to join a union of Burma in return for autonomy in the internal administration of their areas.
A financial crisis in the USA that began a severe depression lasting until about 1897, with mass unemployment, bank failures and strikes.
The territory in central Italy ruled by the popes as secular princes from the eighth century until 1870.
A writing material made from the pith of the papyrus plant, grown mainly in Egypt, used across the Mediterranean and Middle East until paper replaced it.
The wave of declarations of sovereignty by Soviet republics, and by autonomous republics inside Russia, in 1990–1991, each claiming that its laws and resources took priority over those of the centre.
The section of the German criminal code that made sex between men a crime; the Nazis tightened it in 1935 and used it to imprison tens of thousands of gay men.
A system of inheritance in which women inherit from their mothers and men from their fathers, as in Andean societies.
The informal title given to the most powerful leader in the PRC, especially Deng Xiaoping, who ruled from 1978 to the early 1990s without holding the top party or state post.
Britain's claim to supreme authority over the whole of southern Africa, including the Boer republics and African kingdoms it did not directly rule.
The full-length robe worn with a horsehair face veil (chachvon) by many urban Uzbek and Tajik women before the Soviet unveiling campaign.
The more moderate and urban faction of the PDPA, led by Babrak Karmal. The Soviet Union installed it in power after the invasion of December 1979.
A writing material made from the prepared skins of animals such as sheep, goats or calves; durable but much more expensive than paper.
In Spanish America, a free person of African and European or mixed descent; pardos formed a large part of the population of Venezuela and fought on both sides in the wars of independence.
The agreement signed on 27 January 1973 by the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong, which allowed the withdrawal of US forces but did not end the war between North and South Vietnam.
The conference of the victorious powers, opened in January 1919, that drew up the treaties ending the First World War, including the Treaty of Versailles.
One of the thirteen high law courts of pre-revolutionary France, staffed by nobles, which registered royal laws and could delay them by refusing to do so.
The British law of November 1918 that allowed women aged 21 and over to stand for election to the House of Commons.
In US immigration law, the attorney general's power to admit people temporarily in an emergency outside the normal quotas. It was used to admit Indochinese refugees until the Refugee Act of 1980.
Guinea's mass nationalist party, the Guinean branch of the RDA, led by Ahmed Sékou Touré from 1952. It won the 1957 election, led the 'No' campaign of 1958 and was the only legal party from independence until 1984.
The Quebec party founded by René Lévesque in 1968 to achieve sovereignty for Quebec; it governed Quebec from 1976 and held the referendums of 1980 and 1995.
The custom of dividing an inheritance, including a kingdom, among all the sons of a ruler, as the Franks did.
The radical opposition party led by Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón, whose 1906 programme demanded no re-election, an eight-hour day, a minimum wage, land restitution and secular education. Its leaders later moved towards anarchism.
The division of a territory into separate states, as proposed for Palestine by the Peel Commission (1937) and the UN (1947).
The three divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1772, 1793 and 1795, after which Poland did not exist as an independent state until 1918.
A lasting change in which groups of voters move from one party to another. In the USA from the 1960s, white Southern conservatives moved to the Republicans while African Americans and liberals became firmly Democratic.
The idea, promoted by Afghan governments from 1947, of an autonomous or independent homeland for the Pashtuns living in Pakistan. It caused lasting hostility between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Laws in South Africa that required Africans to carry documents showing where they were allowed to live and work, used to control their movement into towns.
The British statement of policy of October 1930 that proposed limiting Jewish immigration and land purchase; it was reinterpreted in the MacDonald letter of 1931 after Zionist protests.
A legal right granted by a state that gives an inventor a monopoly over an invention for a fixed period, so that others cannot copy it without permission.
Joseph II’s decree of 13 October 1781 allowing Lutherans, Calvinists and Orthodox Christians in the Habsburg lands to worship privately, own property, enter guilds and hold public office.
An employer's or ruler's practice of providing for the welfare of workers or subjects (housing, schools, discipline) as a father might, in return for obedience, without giving them rights or a voice.
The Lao communist movement, backed by North Vietnam, which fought the royal government and its US-backed forces and took power in 1975, proclaiming the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
A social system in which men hold most power in the family, the economy and politics, and in which male dominance is treated as natural.
The transfer of Canada's constitution from the control of the British Parliament to Canada, completed by the Constitution Act, 1982, which also added the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A form of rule in which the ruler treats the country and its people as his own property; Richard Pipes used it to describe tsarist and Soviet government.
A campaign in China from the early 1990s that used schools, media and museums to stress the country's humiliation by foreign powers and the Communist Party's role in national revival.
The systematic electoral fraud used by Argentina's conservative governments in the 1930s, which they justified as necessary to keep the Radicals out of power.
Support given by a powerful person or institution (a ruler, noble, church or company) to scholars, artists or inventors through money, offices, protection or commissions, usually in return for loyalty, prestige or useful work.
Mass poverty, especially among landless labourers and craftsmen, in the German states and elsewhere in Europe in the 1830s and 1840s.
A form of credit in which a debtor handed over a person, often a dependant, to a creditor as security; pawns of debtors who could not pay might be sold into slavery.
The period of about 1250 to 1350 when Mongol rule over most of Eurasia made long-distance travel and trade across the continent safer than before or after.
The failed plot of 1478, backed by Pope Sixtus IV, in which the Pazzi banking family tried to murder Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici in Florence Cathedral; Giuliano was killed and the plotters were executed.
An unofficial national survey of 1934–1935 organised by the League of Nations Union in Britain, in which 11.6 million people voted, mostly in favour of the League, disarmament and sanctions.
The settlement of 1555 in the Holy Roman Empire that allowed each ruler to choose whether his territory would be Lutheran or Catholic, summed up later as cuius regio, eius religio ('whose realm, his religion').
Church movements of the tenth and eleventh centuries that tried to protect clergy, the poor and property from knights' violence and to ban fighting on certain days.
The peace made between Milan and Venice in 1454, followed by the Italian League of 1455, which kept a rough balance of power among the main Italian states until 1494.
The treaties signed at Osnabrück and Münster in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years' War; they recognised Calvinism in the Empire, fixed Church property at its 1624 position, strengthened the princes and recognised Dutch and Swiss independence.
A Japanese law of 1925, applied in Korea, that made it a crime to organise against the imperial system or private property; it was used against communists and nationalists.
A formal written agreement between states that ends a state of war and sets the terms of peace, such as borders, compensation and limits on armed forces.
The longer work after a conflict of preventing it from starting again: reconstruction, new institutions, the rule of law, economic recovery, disarmament and the return of soldiers and refugees.
Khrushchev's doctrine that the socialist and capitalist systems could compete without war, which he presented as necessary in the nuclear age.
The use of lightly armed international forces, with the consent of the parties to a conflict, to supervise a ceasefire or separate opposing forces; pioneered by the UN in the Suez Crisis of 1956.
The rising of peasants and townspeople in south-east England in May–June 1381, set off by a poll tax, which demanded an end to serfdom before it was crushed.
The British Royal Commission whose report of July 1937 concluded that the mandate was unworkable and first proposed partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
Petróleos Mexicanos, the state oil company created on 7 June 1938 to run the industry after the expropriation of the foreign oil companies.
A settlement founded to hold and punish convicts sent from the home country, such as New South Wales from 1788.
The punishment of sending convicted criminals to a distant colony, used by Britain for convicts sent to Australia from 1788 to 1868.
The US law of 1883 that began a federal civil service recruited by competitive examination instead of party patronage.
A Spaniard born in Spain (on the Iberian Peninsula) living in the Americas; peninsulares held most of the highest offices in colonial government and the Church.
The war of 1808–1814 in Spain and Portugal between Napoleon's armies and British, Spanish and Portuguese forces and guerrillas, which drained French resources.
A secret US Defense Department history of the Vietnam War, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg and published in 1971, which showed that successive administrations had misled the public.
The mass non-violent protests in Manila in February 1986 that, after the defection of senior military leaders, forced President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines into exile.
A very large collective unit created in rural China from 1958 that organised farming, industry, local government and daily life, sometimes with tens of thousands of members.
The Nazi special court set up in 1934 to try treason and other political cases, which passed thousands of death sentences, most of them during the Second World War.
The popular bands that set out for Jerusalem in 1096 ahead of the main armies of the First Crusade, inspired by preachers such as Peter the Hermit; some attacked Rhineland Jews, and most were destroyed by the Turks in Anatolia.
The official name for the communist-led states of Eastern Europe after 1945, in practice one-party states controlled by Moscow.
Mao's description of the state founded in 1949: democracy for the classes counted as 'the people' and dictatorship over those counted as reactionaries, with the Communist Party deciding who belonged to each.
The Afghan communist party, founded in 1965 and split into the Khalq and Parcham factions, which seized power in the Saur Revolution of April 1978 and ruled until 1992.
The name of the CCP's armed forces from 1946–1947, which won the civil war and became the army of the People's Republic of China.
An Iranian organisation founded in 1965 that mixed Islam with Marxist ideas and turned to armed struggle against the Shah. After 1981 it fought the Islamic Republic, later from bases in Iraq.
The main Spanish party of the centre-right, founded as Alianza Popular by Manuel Fraga in 1976 and renamed in 1989; in government 1996–2004 and 2011–2018.
The state proclaimed by Mao Zedong in Beijing on 1 October 1949, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.
A Russian revolutionary organisation founded in 1879 that used terror to bring down the autocracy and assassinated Alexander II in March 1881.
The informal agreement made by Churchill and Stalin in Moscow in October 1944, dividing influence in south-eastern Europe by percentages, with the Soviet Union predominant in Romania and Bulgaria and Britain in Greece.
"Restructuring": Gorbachev's programme, from 1987, to reform the Soviet economy and later the political system, giving enterprises more freedom and allowing limited private business while keeping socialism.
The division of the past into named periods. Every periodisation is an interpretation, because it claims that the boundaries mark real changes.
Turkmenistan's status, recognised by the UN General Assembly on 12 December 1995, of staying out of all military alliances.
Trotsky's argument that the Russian Revolution could survive only if it spread to other countries, so the Soviet state should promote world revolution.
The land-revenue system introduced by Cornwallis in Bengal in 1793, which made zamindars the owners of the land and fixed their revenue payment to the Company for ever.
The political movement and ideas of Juan Perón in Argentina, which he called justicialismo: nationalism, state-led industrialisation, social rights for workers and a "third position" between capitalism and communism.
The strikes, sabotage, underground union organisation and illegal publications by which Peronists kept their movement alive while it was banned after 1955.
Laws passed by Northern US states from the 1840s that protected people accused of being fugitive slaves, for example by guaranteeing jury trials or forbidding state officials to help capture them.
The US welfare reform law signed by Bill Clinton on 22 August 1996, which ended the federal entitlement to cash welfare (AFDC) and replaced it with time-limited, work-based assistance run by the states (TANF).
The attempt of Wilhelm II, from the 1890s, to direct German government himself through ministers he chose, rather than leaving policy to a powerful chancellor.
In Egypt and other Muslim-majority states, the body of law, based on religious law, that governs marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance.
The official ideology of Ngô Đình Diệm’s government, drawn from French Catholic thought, which rejected both communism and liberal individualism and stressed a moral community and a strong state.
The ruling of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on 18 October 1929 that women were "persons" under the British North America Act and so could be appointed to the Canadian Senate.
The point of view from which someone sees, experiences or explains an event, shaped by their position, knowledge, time of writing and purpose. In history it can mean the view of a person at the time, of a source, or of a historian.
The agreement of 24 April 1992 among the mujahideen parties to form an interim government after the fall of Najibullah. Hekmatyar rejected it, and it failed to prevent civil war.
The chief minister of the Maratha kings; from 1713 the office became hereditary and the Peshwas at Pune were the real rulers of the Maratha confederacy until 1818.
In the standard of living debate, a historian who argues that industrialisation did not raise, or lowered, the living standards of British workers before about 1850.
A volunteer army of Indonesians with Indonesian officers, created by the Japanese in Java in 1943, which became the core of the army of the Indonesian Republic after 1945.
The attack by cavalry on a peaceful meeting of about 60,000 people demanding parliamentary reform at St Peter's Field, Manchester, on 16 August 1819, which killed between 15 and 18 people.
A poorer white colonist in Saint-Domingue, such as an artisan, shopkeeper, overseer or sailor, whose status depended above all on being white.
A formal written request to a ruler, parliament or other authority, signed by its supporters. In Britain petitioning Parliament was a lawful way for people without the vote to show the strength of opinion.
The council of workers' and soldiers' deputies formed in Petrograd in March 1917, which shared power with the Provisional Government; a soviet is an elected council.
The segregation of everyday life under apartheid: separate areas, facilities, transport and entrances, bans on mixed marriage and sex, and the pass laws.
A secret Greek society founded in Odessa in 1814 that planned and launched the Greek War of Independence in 1821.
The war of 1899–1902 in which the USA defeated the First Philippine Republic and imposed colonial rule on the Philippines.
A French Enlightenment writer, such as Voltaire, Diderot or Montesquieu, who used reason to criticise religion, society and government for a wide reading public.
The period from October 1939 to April 1940 when Britain and France were at war with Germany but there was almost no fighting in the west.
An eighteenth-century French school of economics led by François Quesnay, which held that land was the only source of new wealth and called for a single tax on land and free trade in grain.
The political police of the Estado Novo, active in Portugal's colonies from the 1950s, which arrested and tortured suspected nationalists.
A person of European origin born or settled in French Algeria; about 800,000 left for France in 1962.
The extension of Piedmont's laws, taxes, administration and officials to the rest of Italy after unification.
A member of the Aztec hereditary nobility. Nobles held offices, priesthoods and, after 1428, estates on conquered land, and paid no tribute.
The visit of the US table-tennis team to China in April 1971, the first public sign of the rapprochement between the PRC and the United States.
The wave of left-wing governments elected in Latin America from 1998, including those of Chávez, Lula, the Kirchners, Morales and Correa.
Describes low-paid jobs dominated by women, such as clerical work, retail, nursing, teaching and domestic service.
The official system for writing Chinese in the Latin alphabet, adopted by the People's Republic of China in 1958; it replaced older systems such as Wade–Giles (Mao Zedong, not Mao Tse-tung).
The annual record of the accounts of sheriffs and others at the English Exchequer; the earliest surviving roll is for 1130.
The system of detention camps in the Kenya Emergency through which detainees were classified and moved towards release as they confessed oaths and accepted rehabilitation.
Robbery or violence at sea by private persons outside the authority of any state; in international law pirates could be captured and tried by any nation.
The wave of political assassinations in Barcelona between about 1917 and 1923, in which anarchist activists and gunmen hired by employers killed each other's leaders.
The US Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, later called Food for Peace, which sold or gave surplus American grain to other countries on easy terms and also served US foreign policy aims.
Presenting someone else's words, ideas or work as your own, including close paraphrase without a reference and text generated by an AI tool.
A disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, spread by flea bites (bubonic plague) or through the air from infected lungs (pneumonic plague).
The armed wing of SWAPO, which fought South African forces from 1966 until 1989, mostly from bases in Zambia and, after 1975, Angola.
The Haganah plan of March 1948 to secure the territory of the Jewish state and its roads, which allowed commanders to occupy, destroy and expel Arab villages; its intent is debated by historians.
The manifesto of April 1920 by which the Sonoran generals led by Álvaro Obregón rebelled against President Carranza, who was killed in May 1920.
Emiliano Zapata's programme of November 1911, which rejected Madero and demanded the return of village lands, the expropriation of one-third of hacienda land with compensation and the confiscation of the property of enemies of the revolution.
Venustiano Carranza's manifesto of 26 March 1913, which refused to recognise Huerta and named Carranza First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, with the aim of restoring constitutional government.
Iturbide and Guerrero’s programme for Mexican independence (24 February 1821), based on three guarantees: the Catholic religion, independence and union of all inhabitants.
Francisco Madero's manifesto, dated 5 October 1910, which declared the 1910 election void, named Madero provisional president and called for an armed rising on 20 November 1910. It promised a review of illegal land seizures.
The French war plan of 1913, which called for an immediate offensive into Alsace-Lorraine at the start of a war with Germany; it failed with heavy losses in August 1914.
An economy in which the state owns most enterprises and decides what is produced, in what quantities and at what prices, instead of leaving these decisions to the market.
The body set up by the Indian government in 1950, chaired by the prime minister, to draw up the five-year plans that directed investment in the economy. It was replaced in 2015.
A large agricultural estate producing one cash crop for export, such as sugar, tobacco, coffee or cloves, with a large, closely controlled labour force, which in the Americas and Zanzibar was mostly enslaved.
The clause the United States forced into Cuba's 1901 constitution, giving it the right to intervene in Cuba and a naval base at Guantánamo; it was repealed in 1934 except for the base.
The agreement of September 1985 among the five largest industrial economies to lower the value of the US dollar; the yen rose steeply, and Japan's response of cheap credit helped create the bubble economy.
The US Supreme Court ruling of 1896 that racial segregation was constitutional if the separate facilities were equal, the legal basis of Jim Crow until 1954.
A society made up of separate communities that live under one government and trade with one another but keep apart in language, religion, occupation and social life; J. S. Furnivall used the term for colonial Burma and the Dutch East Indies.
In the Church, holding more than one office (and its income) at the same time, which usually meant absenteeism: not living where the office required.
A long period of unusually wet climate, such as the fifteen years of above-average moisture in central Mongolia from 1211 to 1225 shown by tree rings.
The National Revolutionary Party, founded by Calles in March 1929 to unite the revolutionary generals and regional parties in one organisation. It became the PRM in 1938 and the PRI in 1946, which governed Mexico until 2000.
The professional long-distance merchants of the Aztec world, organised in guilds, who traded beyond the empire and sometimes served as spies.
An official appointed by the Fascist government from 1926 to run an Italian town in place of the elected mayor and council.
A violent attack on a Jewish community, often by a mob and often tolerated or encouraged by the authorities, as in the Russian Empire after 1881.
A US programme of technical assistance to developing countries announced by Truman in January 1949; its sums for Latin America were small compared with the Marshall Plan.
The movement of political opinion away from the centre towards two opposed groups; it can mean that parties disagree more on policy, or that their supporters dislike and distrust each other more.
Low-lying land reclaimed from a marsh, lake or the sea by surrounding it with dykes and draining it; large areas of the Yangzi delta were turned into polder fields under the Song.
The Dutch name for its two military offensives against the Indonesian Republic (July 1947 and December 1948), which presented them as restoring order rather than as war.
A state in which the government controls the population through a large security apparatus that watches citizens, arrests opponents without fair trial and uses fear to prevent dissent.
The strip of former German territory in West Prussia and Posen given to Poland in 1919 to give it access to the Baltic Sea, which separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany.
The British law of 1947 that allowed Polish servicemen who would not return to communist Poland, and their families, to settle in Britain.
The small committee of senior leaders at the top of a communist party; in the USSR it decided policy and was headed by the General Secretary.
A party organisation in an American city, led by a "boss", that won elections by giving immigrants and poor voters jobs and favours in return for their votes, and was often corrupt.
The features of a political system at a given time that make collective action more or less likely to succeed, such as allies in power, divisions among elites, court rulings or a weakened ruler; Doug McAdam's term (1982).
Resistance to a movement through the institutions of power: laws, bans, arrests, courts, surveillance, censorship, propaganda, and the ability of governments and legislatures to delay or reject reform.
The second of Sun Yixian's three stages of revolution, in which the Guomindang would rule and train the people for self-government before a constitution; Jiang Jieshi's government used it from 1928 to justify one-party rule.
The form of Zionism associated with Theodor Herzl, which sought a Jewish state through diplomacy and an internationally recognised charter from the great powers.
"Rule by many": a description of the Nazi state as a set of rival power centres with overlapping responsibilities, held together by their loyalty to Hitler.
A detailed survey of a great estate in the Carolingian period, listing peasant households, their holdings and the dues and labour they owed.
The worship of many gods.
The agreement of 24 September 1932 between Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar that replaced separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with 148 seats reserved for them within a joint Hindu electorate.
An alliance of liberal, socialist and communist parties against fascism and conservatism in the 1930s, such as those that won elections in Spain and France in 1936 and in Chile in 1938.
A sustained, organised campaign by large numbers of ordinary people to change, or to defend, the political, social or economic order, mainly through action outside the formal institutions of government.
Resistance by ordinary people, through riots, machine-breaking, petitions, demonstrations, boycotts or refusal to adopt, usually by those whose work, health or way of life an innovation affected.
In the United States of the 1850s, the principle that the settlers of a territory should decide for themselves whether to allow slavery; more generally, the idea that political authority comes from the people.
The coalition of Socialists, Communists and smaller left-wing parties that elected Salvador Allende president of Chile in 1970.
The compulsory transfer agreed in 1923 of about 1.2 million Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece and about 400,000 Muslims from Greece to Turkey, decided by religion.
The South African law of 1950 that classified every person by race, the foundation on which other apartheid laws were built.
A political style that claims to speak for ordinary people against a corrupt or privileged elite.
The US political party founded in 1892 by farmers' organisations to challenge railways, banks and monopolies; its Omaha Platform called for railway nationalisation, an income tax and free coinage of silver.
The genocide of Roma and Sinti by Nazi Germany and its allies; the Romani words mean "the devouring" and "mass killing".
The period of Porfirio Díaz's rule in Mexico, 1876–1911, including the González presidency of 1880–1884 that Díaz controlled. It combined stability and rapid foreign-led economic growth with dictatorship and growing inequality.
The campaign of strikes, boycotts and non-cooperation launched by Nkrumah's CPP in January 1950 to press for immediate self-government in the Gold Coast, modelled on Gandhi's methods.
A deeper peace in which the injustices that caused or followed a conflict have also been addressed through justice, rights and reconciliation (Johan Galtung's term).
A philosophy developed by Auguste Comte holding that society can be studied scientifically and progresses through fixed stages. In Porfirian Mexico it justified strong government by experts to impose order so that economic progress could take place.
A quick royal procedure under Henry II, using a writ and a jury, by which a free man could recover land of which he had been dispossessed.
An interpretation that combines elements of an orthodox view and the revisionist challenge to it.
An approach that studies how colonial power shaped knowledge, archives, identities and societies, including after independence.
The meeting of the USA, USSR and Britain from 17 July to 2 August 1945 that set the Oder–Neisse line, divided Germany into zones and accepted the transfer of Germans from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
Statement of 26 July 1945 by the United States, Britain and China calling on Japan to surrender unconditionally or face "prompt and utter destruction".
The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, a small anti-Stalinist Marxist party founded in Catalonia in 1935; it was outlawed after the May Days of 1937 and its leader Andreu Nin was murdered by Soviet agents.
Putin's term for a chain of command in which the president controls the regions, parliament and state bodies from the top down.
The decree of Emperor Charles VI (1713) that allowed his daughter Maria Theresa to inherit all the Habsburg lands; Prussia's invasion of Silesia in 1740 broke it.
The Crown's exclusive right, under article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi, to buy any land Māori wished to sell.
A long-term condition that makes an event possible. Historians sometimes contrast preconditions with precipitants, the short-term causes and triggers that decide when the event happens.
The doctrine, central to Calvinism, that God has decided from eternity which people will be saved, so that salvation depends wholly on God's choice and not on human effort.
The official appointed by the central government to run a French department, created by Napoleon in 1800 to control taxation, conscription, policing and local government.
A US law of 1978 that made discrimination against pregnant workers a form of sex discrimination under Title VII.
The campaign in the USA in 1915–1916 to strengthen the army and navy in case of war, which led to the National Defense Act and Naval Act of 1916.
Judging or interpreting the past by the values, knowledge and assumptions of the present.
A head of state appointed or elected to serve until death, as Bourguiba was in Tunisia from 1975, removing the possibility of replacing him by election.
A German government of 1930–1933 (under Brüning, Papen and Schleicher) that depended on the president's power to issue decrees under Article 48 instead of on a majority in the Reichstag.
A commission set up by President Kennedy in December 1961, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, whose report American Women (1963) documented discrimination against women.
In French Africa, a compulsory labour duty of several days a year on roads and public works owed by colonial subjects; abolished in 1946.
Ghana's law of 1958 that allowed the government to detain people without trial for up to five years; it was used against opponents of Nkrumah's government.
Recognition of a whole group as refugees on the basis of the evident conditions they fled, without examining each person's claim. Vietnamese boat people received it from 1978 until the cut-off dates of 1988–1989.
The interpretation, associated with Eckart Kehr and Hans-Ulrich Wehler, that domestic political and social pressures, not international ones, mainly shaped German foreign policy before 1914.
Armed or political opposition by existing African states and societies at the time of colonial conquest, roughly 1880–1910, as distinct from later nationalist movements.
A source produced during the period being studied, usually by someone involved in or close to the events, such as a letter, law, speech, photograph or diary.
One of the seven princes who elected the German king under the Golden Bull of 1356.
An informal name for a child of a senior Chinese Communist Party leader of the revolutionary generation, such as Xi Jinping.
A territory of British India ruled by its own Indian prince under British overlordship (paramountcy): the ruler kept internal powers while Britain controlled defence and foreign relations. There were about 565 in 1947.
The first Qing cabinet, appointed in May 1911, nine of whose thirteen members were Manchu, which convinced constitutionalists that the court would not share power.
A machine that presses inked type onto paper; the screw press adapted by Gutenberg in Mainz around 1450, used with cast metal type, spread across Europe after 1460.
The Japanese government's plan of 1947 to direct scarce resources, credit and labour into coal and steel production to restart the post-war economy.
A system, pioneered by Canada in 1979, in which groups of citizens, churches or organisations take on the cost and support of resettling particular refugees.
The transfer of enterprises or other property from state ownership to private owners.
An annual payment that the Indian government made to the former rulers of the princely states in return for their accession and the merger of their states. Privy purses were abolished in 1971.
The Party of the Mexican Revolution, the name Cárdenas gave the ruling party in March 1938, organised in four sectors: peasant, labour, popular and military. It was renamed the PRI in 1946.
The movement opposing legal abortion that grew in the USA after Roe v. Wade (1973), led at first by the Catholic Church and later joined by evangelical Protestants.
The campaign for Catalan independence led by the Generalitat from 2012, which culminated in the referendum of 1 October 2017 and the unilateral declaration of independence of 27 October 2017.
The name the Argentine military regime of 1976–1983 gave to its rule and programme.
A British royal decree of October 1763 that banned colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains in order to keep peace with Indigenous nations.
Ethiopia's programme, begun in 2005, that gives food or cash to millions of chronically food-insecure rural households, mostly in return for work on public projects.
The amount of output produced from a given amount of input, such as grain per hectare of land or cloth per hour of labour.
Change judged to be an improvement by some standard. A claim of progress needs the standard and the people for whom it was progress to be named.
An alliance formed in August 1915 by most deputies of the Fourth Duma, which demanded a government that had the confidence of the country; Nicholas II refused.
The reform movement of about 1900–1920 in the USA (with parallels in Canada) that used government regulation, expert administration and democratic reforms against monopoly, corruption, poverty and unsafe work.
A legal ban on making, selling and transporting alcoholic drinks; in the USA it was imposed nationally by the Eighteenth Amendment from 1920 to 1933, and most Canadian provinces had wartime bans.
In Marxist theory, the class of industrial workers who own no property and sell their labour, and who would overthrow capitalism.
A Soviet movement of 1917–1920s that aimed to create a new culture by and for the working class, brought under state control in 1920.
A military coup in the Spanish tradition, in which a general declares against the government in the name of the nation and waits for other units and the crown to join him.
Information, images or ideas spread deliberately, usually by a state or political movement, to shape what people believe and how they act.
An electoral system in which each party's share of seats matches its share of the vote; in Weimar Germany it gave seats to many small parties and made stable majorities hard to form.
The formal ending of a session of Parliament by the Governor General on the prime minister's advice, suspending its sittings; Harper's prorogation of December 2008 avoided a confidence vote he expected to lose.
The system under which Australian colonial and state governments, from the 1830s to the mid-twentieth century, placed Aboriginal people under protectors and boards that confined them to missions and reserves and controlled their work, movement, marriages and children.
The policy of shielding a country's producers from foreign competition with tariffs, quotas or other barriers; the opposite of free trade.
Detention without trial by the Nazi police, made possible by the Reichstag Fire Decree; prisoners were often sent to concentration camps.
Laws that limited women's working hours, night work or the weights they could lift. Meant to protect women, they also kept them out of better-paid jobs and overtime.
A territory that keeps its own ruler and some institutions but is controlled by a stronger state, which runs its foreign affairs, defence and often much of its government. Tunisia was a French protectorate from 1881 to 1956.
The growth of manufacturing in the countryside before factories, mostly through merchants supplying rural households with raw materials to spin and weave at home for distant markets.
The origin of a source: who made it, when, where, for whom and for what purpose.
Catherine II’s reorganisation of Russian local government after Pugachev’s rebellion, dividing the empire into provinces of 300,000–400,000 people run by governors and officials, many chosen by local nobles.
The constitution of the Republic of China adopted in March 1912, which created a parliament and a cabinet responsible to it in order to limit the power of the president, Yuan Shikai.
The government formed from Duma leaders that ruled Russia after the abdication of Nicholas II in March 1917, until the Bolsheviks overthrew it in November 1917.
The Korean government-in-exile founded in Shanghai in April 1919 after the March First Movement, later based in Chongqing; it claimed to represent Korea until 1945 but was never recognised by the Allies.
Natural records such as ice cores, tree rings, pollen and sediments that preserve evidence of past climate where there are no instrument readings.
A conflict in which outside powers support local forces with money, weapons, training or troops to pursue their own interests without fighting each other directly.
The use of legal forms, such as laws, decrees, referendums and court rulings, to remove the legal limits on a regime's power while claiming that everything it does is lawful.
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, founded in 1879; a Marxist party until 1979 and the main party of the centre-left in democratic Spain, in government 1982–1996, 2004–2011 and from 2018.
History presented to the general public outside schools and universities, in museums, heritage sites, memorials, films and the media.
The space between private life and the state in which private individuals discussed public matters through print, coffee houses, salons and clubs; a term made influential by Jürgen Habermas.
The rising of 1773–1775 in Russia led by the Cossack Emelian Pugachev, who claimed to be Peter III and drew Cossacks, non-Russian peoples, workers and serfs into revolt against serfdom and the state.
The agreement of 29 November 1850 by which Prussia, under Austrian and Russian pressure, abandoned its Erfurt Union and accepted the restoration of the German Confederation.
The US Army expedition of about 10,000 troops under General John J. Pershing sent into northern Mexico from March 1916 to February 1917 to capture Pancho Villa after his raid on Columbus, New Mexico. It failed to catch him.
The Soviet use of psychiatric diagnoses and compulsory detention in special psychiatric hospitals against people whose only 'symptom' was political or religious dissent.
A state or government that appears independent but is controlled by a foreign power, such as Manchukuo and Wang Jingwei's regime under Japan.
The seclusion of women from public view, through separate living quarters (the zenana) and veiling, practised by elite Muslim and many Hindu families.
A school of Buddhism teaching that faith in Amida Buddha and repetition of his name bring rebirth in his paradise, the Pure Land; it spread widely in Kamakura Japan.
In Catholic teaching, a state after death in which the souls of those who will be saved are purified of the remaining punishment for their sins; prayers, Masses and indulgences were believed to shorten it.
The removal of people regarded as disloyal from an organisation such as a party, army or civil service, by expulsion, imprisonment or execution.
Hindi for "complete self-rule": the demand for full independence from Britain adopted by the Indian National Congress in 1929 and declared on 26 January 1930.
The defensive line around the port of Pusan (Busan) in south-east Korea that UN and South Korean forces held in August–September 1950, the low point of their fortunes in the Korean War.
Turning back refugees at a border or towing their boats back out to sea, a practice used by Malaysia and Thailand against Indochinese refugees, especially in 1979.
Edward Baptist's term (2014) for the methods of quotas, measurement and violence that he argues forced enslaved people to pick ever more cotton; other historians stress new cotton varieties instead.
A way of organising manufacture before factories, in which a merchant supplied raw materials to families who spun, wove or made goods in their own homes, then collected and sold the finished products.