215 of the History glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
The methods used to win a particular battle or engagement: how troops are arranged and moved and how weapons are combined.
The large square in central Cairo whose occupation by protesters from 25 January to 11 February 2011 was the centre of the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarak.
The agreement signed by Lebanese parliamentarians in Taif, Saudi Arabia, on 22 October 1989, which ended the civil war by dividing parliament equally between Christians and Muslims, strengthening the Sunni prime minister and recognising special relations with Syria.
The main direct tax of the French monarchy before 1789, levied on land or income and paid almost entirely by commoners, since the clergy and most nobles were exempt.
The Indigenous Arawak-speaking people of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492.
The rebellion of 1850–1864 led by Hong Xiuquan, who set up the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace at Nanjing; the war caused an estimated 20–30 million deaths.
The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, the state proclaimed by Hong Xiuquan in 1851, with its capital at Nanjing from 1853 to 1864.
The growth of party government, liberal ideas and popular movements in Japan from about 1905 to 1932, at its height when party leaders headed cabinets between 1924 and 1932; it rested on convention rather than on the Meiji Constitution.
A US law of April 1979 that allowed unofficial relations and arms sales to Taiwan after the United States recognised the People's Republic of China.
The war of 1992–1997 between the government, backed by Russia and Uzbekistan, and the United Tajik Opposition, which killed tens of thousands.
The Islamist movement of mainly Pashtun religious students that emerged in Kandahar in 1994 under Mullah Mohammad Omar, ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
A great landholder in Awadh with rights over the revenue of many villages, whose estates were reduced by the British after the annexation of 1856.
An Egyptian campaign ('rebellion') launched in 2013 that collected signatures calling for President Mohamed Morsi to resign and organised the mass protests of 30 June 2013 that preceded the military coup.
Literally 'published over there': works by Soviet writers smuggled abroad, printed in the West and often smuggled back into the USSR.
An association of African civil servants, teachers and traders founded in 1929, mainly for social and welfare purposes; it became TANU in 1954.
The nationalist party founded on 7 July 1954 from the Tanganyika African Association and led by Julius Nyerere. It won independence by negotiation in 1961 and ruled Tanganyika and then Tanzania as the only legal party until 1977.
"People of the land": the Māori term for the Indigenous people of a place, and for Māori as the first people of Aotearoa New Zealand.
The agreement of 31 May 1933 between China and Japan that created a demilitarised zone south of the Great Wall, in effect accepting the loss of Manchuria and Rehe.
The attacks by Iraq and Iran on oil tankers and shipping in the Gulf in 1984–1988, during the Iran–Iraq War, which drew in the US Navy to escort Kuwaiti tankers from 1987.
The Ottoman reform period of 1839–1876 ('reorderings'), which centralised the state and introduced new laws, ministries, schools, taxes and conscription and promised equality to all subjects.
A state's right to set its own customs duties. Japan lost it under the treaties of 1858–1866 and regained it fully only in 1911; China lost it under the treaties of 1842–1844 and recovered it in 1928–1930.
A way of organising plantation labour, used mainly on Lowcountry rice plantations, in which each enslaved worker was given a daily task and the time left after finishing it belonged to the worker.
The agreement of 1906 between the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro to buy and store surplus coffee to hold up world prices, the start of valorisation.
The Quechua name of the Inca state, meaning "the four parts together": four quarters (suyu) that met at Cuzco.
The 1,860-kilometre railway from the Zambian Copperbelt to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, built by China with an interest-free loan and completed in 1975, to free Zambia from routes through white-ruled states.
Hausa for "continuity": the campaign of 2009 by supporters of President Mamadou Tandja of Niger to let him stay in office beyond his constitutional limit.
A conservative protest movement in the USA from 2009 that opposed the bank bailouts, the stimulus, the Affordable Care Act and the growth of federal spending, and pushed the Republican Party to the right.
A government of non-party experts appointed to run the state for a limited time, usually during a political crisis or before elections.
The movement of knowledge, techniques or devices from one society to another through trade, war, migration, scholarship or aid, usually followed by local adaptation.
The Ottoman law of May 1915 authorising the deportation of populations considered a threat in wartime, used as the legal cover for the deportation of the Armenians.
A resolution passed by the US Congress in April 1898 promising that the USA would not annex Cuba after the war with Spain.
"House of youth": the school of each calpulli where commoner boys were trained for war and public labour.
The great twin temple of Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc at the centre of Tenochtitlan, rebuilt and enlarged in at least seven main stages and excavated since 1978.
The US programme created in 1996 to replace AFDC: block grants to the states for cash assistance with work requirements and a five-year lifetime limit.
The ten military campaigns of the Qianlong reign, from the conquest of the Zunghars and Xinjiang to costly or failed wars in Jinchuan, Burma and Vietnam, which Qianlong celebrated as complete victories.
A British law of 1847 that limited the working day of women and young people in textile mills to ten hours.
Lincoln's plan of December 1863 to readmit a Confederate state once 10 per cent of its 1860 voters swore loyalty to the Union and accepted the abolition of slavery.
The farming of land owned by someone else in return for rent paid in cash, crops or labour; in Song China and Meiji Japan most tenants paid a large share of their harvest as rent.
A landholder who held land directly from the king, owing him service in return.
Junior army officers in Brazil who rebelled in 1922 and 1924 against the Old Republic and supported the Revolution of 1930, seeking a strong, modernising central state.
The oath sworn on 20 June 1789 by the deputies of the National Assembly, meeting in an indoor tennis court at Versailles, not to separate until France had a constitution.
A famine of 1833–1837 caused by repeated harvest failures, which led to riots and Ōshio Heihachirō's rising and exposed the weakness of the shogunate.
US policy from 1953 to the 1960s that ended federal recognition of more than 100 Native American tribes and bands, removing their land from trust and their members from federal services, in order to assimilate them.
"Nobody's land": the doctrine that land belonging to no recognised sovereign could be acquired by occupation; it underlay British claims to Australia until the High Court rejected it in the Mabo case of 1992.
The deliberate use of mass and often arbitrary violence by a state against its own population to create fear and compel obedience.
A German military order founded at the siege of Acre in the 1190s, which defended the crusader states and later fought in the Baltic.
A state whose power rests on control of the sea and sea trade rather than on large territories, such as Srivijaya.
The period of relative cultural and political relaxation in the USSR after Stalin's death, roughly 1954–1964, named after a novel by Ilya Ehrenburg.
The civil war in England between Stephen and the Empress Matilda over the succession, 1135–1153.
The name Russians gave to the circle around President Yeltsin in the late 1990s, including his daughter, his aides and the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, which held great informal power.
The radical Jacobin deputies who sat on the high benches of the French National Convention, including Robespierre, Danton and Marat, allied with the Paris sans-culottes and in power in 1793–1794.
A Catholic order of priests living under a strict rule, founded in 1524 by Gaetano of Thiene and Gian Pietro Carafa (later Pope Paul IV) to set an example of clerical reform.
The form of Buddhism based on the Pali scriptures and monastic communities, which spread through mainland Southeast Asia from Sri Lanka from the thirteenth century.
The month of the revolutionary calendar in which Robespierre was overthrown (9 Thermidor Year II, 27 July 1794); also the reaction against the Terror that followed in 1794–1795.
The main argument of an essay: a clear, qualified answer to the question, stated in the introduction and developed through every paragraph.
An assembly of free men in Norse society that met at fixed times to settle disputes and make laws.
The name given in South Africa to hidden involvement by elements of the security forces in the political violence of 1990–1994, including support for Inkatha attacks on ANC supporters.
A programme from 1964 to about 1980 to build heavy industry, arms factories and railways in China's interior provinces, such as Sichuan and Guizhou, where they would be safer in a war.
The meeting of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee in December 1978 that made economic modernisation the party's main task; usually taken as the start of the reform era.
Perón's foreign and economic policy claiming to stand between capitalism and communism and between the United States and the USSR.
A centrist politics of the 1990s, associated with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, that combined market economics, free trade and balanced budgets with a reformed welfare state.
The row of warehouses and offices outside the walls of Canton where Western merchants were required to live and trade under the Canton system.
The amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in December 1865, that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime.
The group of young Burmese nationalists, including Aung San and Ne Win, who were secretly trained by the Japanese in 1941 and founded the Burma Independence Army.
The series of wars fought mainly in the Holy Roman Empire from 1618 to 1648, beginning with the Bohemian revolt and widening into a European conflict between the Habsburgs and France, Sweden and their allies; it devastated much of Germany.
The Chinese Communist Party's method of changing people's beliefs, especially intellectuals', through study sessions, criticism, self-criticism and written confessions under group pressure.
An enslaved person in Norse society, often captured in raids abroad, with no legal rights.
The three main revenue systems of late Joseon Korea: the land tax, the military cloth tax and the state grain-loan system, whose abuse by officials caused peasant revolts.
The Chinese name for the Japanese scorched-earth campaigns of 1941–1942 against communist base areas in north China, in which villages were burned, people killed and crops seized.
The policies associated with the Guomindang congress of January 1924: alliance with the Soviet Union, cooperation with the communists and support for workers and peasants.
Sun Yixian's programme of nationalism, democracy (people's rights) and people's livelihood, first set out in 1905 and later the ideology of the Guomindang.
Jiang Zemin's theory, written into the party constitution in 2002, that the Communist Party represents China's advanced productive forces, its advanced culture and the interests of the majority; it justified admitting private entrepreneurs to the party.
Mao's view, set out in 1974, that the world was divided into the two superpowers, their developed allies and the developing countries, with China counted among the third group.
A campaign of 1951–1952 against corruption, waste and bureaucratism among officials and managers of state enterprises in the PRC.
The Prussian electoral system introduced in 1849, which divided voters into three classes by the taxes they paid, each class choosing a third of the electors, so the richest few had as much weight as the poorest majority.
A method of farming in which land was divided into three fields, one sown in autumn, one in spring and one left fallow.
The clause of the US Constitution of 1787 that counted three-fifths of each state’s enslaved population when allocating seats in the House of Representatives and direct taxes.
The state-controlled Protestant organisation of the People's Republic of China, founded in 1954, which cut the churches' links with foreign missions.
A machine, powered by horses, water or later steam, that separated grain from straw, replacing the winter work of labourers threshing by hand with flails; a main target of the Swing Riots of 1830.
The robbery and murder of travellers by gangs believed by the British to form a hereditary religious fraternity; suppressed by William Sleeman from the 1830s. Historians debate how far the British exaggerated it.
The ancestors of the modern Inuit, who spread east across Arctic Canada and reached northern Greenland in the thirteenth century.
The formula "Chinese learning for the essence, Western learning for practical use", which justified borrowing Western techniques while keeping Confucian values and institutions.
The mass mourning for Zhou Enlai in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in early April 1976, which became a protest against the radical leaders around Mao. It was cleared on 5 April and declared counter-revolutionary, a verdict reversed in 1978.
The killings of 1856 in the Taiping capital, in which the Eastern King Yang Xiuqing and thousands of his followers were massacred, breaking the original Taiping leadership.
"Hot land": the warm, frost-free lowlands of Mexico, such as the Gulf coast and Morelos, which produced cotton, cacao and tropical crops that the cool highlands could not.
An Ottoman grant of the tax revenue of a piece of land to a cavalryman in return for military service; the system had largely decayed by 1800 and was abolished in 1831.
The habit of organising work and life by the clock rather than by tasks, daylight and seasons, which employers imposed on industrial workers; a concept developed by the historian E. P. Thompson (1967).
"Full chieftainship" or highest authority: what the Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed to the chiefs over their lands, villages and treasures; now used for Māori self-determination.
African infantry in the French colonial army, first raised in Senegal in 1857, who did much of the fighting in the French conquest of West Africa.
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz's programme, through the Navy Laws of 1898, 1900 and later, to build a German battle fleet in the North Sea strong enough that Britain could not risk fighting it.
A payment of one tenth of produce or income to the Church, made compulsory in Charlemagne's lands in 779.
A section of the US Education Amendments of 1972 banning sex discrimination in any education programme that receives federal funding.
The section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in employment on the basis of race, colour, religion, national origin and sex.
The break between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1948, when the Cominform expelled Yugoslavia for refusing Soviet direction.
An Aztec slave, usually a person sold or self-sold for debt or as a punishment. Slaves could own property and their children were born free.
The Mesoamerican god of rain and agriculture, worshipped in one of the two shrines on the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan.
The ruler of an altepetl, literally "speaker". A tlatoani was chosen from the royal family by a council of nobles.
A Mapuche war leader chosen by an assembly for a campaign, whose authority ended when the war ended.
"Virtuous government": an edict cancelling debts and returning sold land, such as the Kamakura shogunate's Einin edict of 1297 for its vassals.
The acceptance by a state or church of religious beliefs and practices different from the official or majority faith, without persecution.
A state-run model silk-reeling factory opened in 1872 with French machinery, which trained women workers in mechanised production; it was sold to Mitsui in 1893.
French women publicly shaved at the Liberation in 1944–1945 for alleged collaboration, especially relations with German soldiers.
The Revolutionary Alliance founded by Sun Yixian and others in Tokyo in August 1905 to overthrow the Qing and found a republic; the forerunner of the Guomindang.
The school of foreign languages founded in Beijing in 1862 to train interpreters and diplomats, which added mathematics and science in 1867 despite conservative opposition.
The attempt in about 1862–1874 to restore the Confucian order and effective government after the Taiping war, through tax relief, resettlement and the appointment of able officials.
The Korean government order of December 1895 requiring men to cut off their traditional topknots, which provoked Confucian anger and armed risings.
The average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime at current birth rates; about 2.1 is needed to keep a population stable without migration.
The policy of P. W. Botha's South African government from 1978, which claimed the country faced a communist-directed 'total onslaught' and answered it with limited reforms combined with military and police repression at home and abroad.
A war in which states direct their whole economies and populations to the war effort, and in which civilians, industry and food supplies become targets.
The interpretation, developed by Arendt and by Friedrich and Brzezinski in the 1950s, that Nazi and Soviet rule were maintained from above by ideology, a single party, terror and total control of society.
A form of authoritarian rule that seeks total control over public and private life through an official ideology, a single mass party, terror, a monopoly of the media and state control of the economy. The term was developed by Hannah Arendt (1951) and by Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski (1956).
British laws of 1767 that taxed colonial imports of glass, paint, paper and tea and used the revenue to pay royal officials in America.
A rural factory or business owned by a township or village government in reform-era China; TVEs grew fast in the 1980s and absorbed surplus rural labour.
The "outer" daimyō whose ancestors had opposed the Tokugawa in 1600 and who were excluded from central government; they included Satsuma, Chōshū, Tosa and Hizen.
The CIA's political effort in September–October 1970 to persuade the Chilean Congress or President Frei to prevent Allende from taking office by constitutional means.
The secret CIA effort ordered by Nixon in September 1970 to encourage a military coup in Chile before Allende took office; it was hidden even from the US ambassador.
A government ban on some or all trade with a particular country, used to put pressure on it without fighting, such as the US oil embargo on Japan in 1941 and the US embargoes on Cuba from 1962 and on Vietnam until 1994.
The Nationalist strategy in the war with Japan of giving up territory rather than risking the army, so that China could survive a long war until foreign allies joined it.
The long-distance camel-caravan trade across the Sahara between North and West Africa, from about the eighth century: gold, ivory, kola and enslaved people went north, and salt, copper, cloth and horses went south.
The forced transport of about 12.5 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries; about 10.7 million survived the crossing.
The system that combined chattel slavery in the Americas, the slave trade from Africa, and the laws, institutions and ideas that sustained them, from the early sixteenth to the late nineteenth century.
A change in the basic structure of a society: how most people make a living, who holds power, how people use the environment, or what they believe. It differs from incremental change, which alters details within a structure that stays the same.
Paul Lovejoy's argument that the export slave trades transformed slavery inside Africa, making it larger, more commercial and more central to economic and political life between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The measures a society uses to deal with large-scale wrongs after war or dictatorship, such as trials, truth commissions, compensation, purges and amnesties.
The medieval idea that the authority of the Roman Empire passed to later rulers, such as Charlemagne in 800 and the German kings crowned emperor from 962.
The translation of Greek, Persian, Syriac and Indian scientific and philosophical works into Arabic, centred on Baghdad from the late eighth to the tenth century and paid for by caliphs, officials and wealthy families.
The Catholic doctrine that in the Mass the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ, while their appearance remains the same.
The system by which Italian liberal prime ministers built majorities by winning over individual deputies of any party with posts and favours, producing shifting coalitions without clear parties or programmes.
The trial of 156 leaders of the Congress Alliance, including Nelson Mandela, arrested in December 1956 and charged with high treason; all were acquitted by March 1961.
The treaty of 1858 by which Qing China recognised Russian control of the lands north of the Amur River.
The peace treaty of 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers, in which Russia gave up Poland, the Baltic provinces, Finland and Ukraine; it was annulled after Germany's defeat.
The agreement of 1005 between the Song and the Liao that ended their border wars; the Song agreed to send annual payments of silk and silver.
The agreement of 21 May 1911 between Madero's rebels and the Díaz government under which Díaz resigned and an interim government held elections, while the federal army and most Porfirian officials stayed in place.
The treaty of February 1876 by which Japan forced Korea to open three ports, recognise Japanese extraterritoriality and declare itself independent of China.
The treaty of 1848 that ended the Mexican–American War; Mexico ceded California and New Mexico to the USA for 15 million dollars and accepted the Rio Grande as the Texas border.
The 1833 defensive alliance between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, made after Muhammad Ali's victories, by which the Ottomans agreed to close the Dardanelles to foreign warships at Russia's request.
The truce agreed in September 1192 between Richard I and Saladin that ended the Third Crusade: the crusaders kept the coast from Tyre to Jaffa, Jerusalem stayed under Muslim rule, and Christian pilgrims could visit it.
The treaty of 31 March 1854 between the United States and Japan that opened Shimoda and Hakodate to American ships and ended the policy of exclusion, without opening trade.
The 1774 treaty ending a Russo-Ottoman war, which made Crimea independent of the sultan and gave Russia a foothold for later claims to protect Orthodox Christians in the empire.
The 1923 treaty between Turkey and the Allies that recognised Turkish sovereignty within roughly its present borders and abolished the capitulations.
The secret agreement of April 1915 in which Britain, France and Russia promised Italy Austrian territory, including Dalmatia, in return for entering the First World War on their side.
The treaty of 29 August 1842 that ended the First Opium War: China ceded Hong Kong Island, opened five treaty ports, abolished the Cohong and paid an indemnity of 21 million dollars.
The treaty of 3 September 1783 in which Britain recognised the independence of the United States, with borders reaching west to the Mississippi.
The treaty ending the Crimean War, which guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, admitted it to the Concert of Europe and neutralised the Black Sea.
The treaty of 10 December 1898 that ended the war between the USA and Spain: Cuba became independent, and Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines were ceded to the USA.
The treaty of April 1922 between Soviet Russia and Germany that restored diplomatic relations and cancelled mutual claims; it opened the way to secret military cooperation.
The treaty signed in September 1951 by Japan and 48 other countries that formally ended the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific and restored Japanese sovereignty in 1952.
The treaty dictated by Russia to the Ottoman Empire in March 1878, which created a large autonomous Bulgaria; the other powers forced its revision at Berlin.
The 1920 peace treaty signed by the sultan's government that would have partitioned Anatolia among Greece, Armenia, the Allies and a possible Kurdish state; it was never ratified.
The treaty of 17 April 1895 by which China recognised Korean independence, ceded Taiwan, the Pescadores and (briefly) Liaodong to Japan and paid an indemnity of 200 million taels.
The treaties of June 1858 between Qing China and Britain, France, Russia and the United States, which opened more ports and the Yangzi, allowed legations in Beijing and protected missionaries.
The treaty of 7 June 1494 between Castile and Portugal dividing the non-European world along a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, which gave Portugal Brazil.
The treaty of 843 that divided the Carolingian Empire among the three sons of Louis the Pious: Lothar, Louis the German and Charles the Bald.
The peace of 31 May 1902 ending the South African War: the Boer republics accepted British rule in return for reconstruction money and future self-government, and the African franchise was left to be decided after self-government.
The peace treaty signed by Germany and the Allied powers on 28 June 1919, which took territory from Germany, limited its armed forces and made it liable to pay reparations.
The agreement of 6 February 1840 between the British Crown and Māori rangatira, in English and Māori texts that differ on sovereignty and chiefly authority; the founding document of New Zealand.
The treaty of 2 May 1889 between Italy and Menelik II whose Article 17 Italy used to claim a protectorate over Ethiopia; the dispute led to the war of 1895–1896.
A port opened to foreign trade and residence by treaty, such as Yokohama or Nagasaki, where foreigners lived under their own laws.
The demand of the states defeated in 1918, above all Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria, for the peace treaties to be changed to recover territory and remove restrictions such as disarmament and reparations.
The French name for the period of fast growth and rising living standards from 1945 to 1975.
The agency set up in 1990 to privatise or close the state-owned enterprises of the former GDR.
The trial in 1985 of nine members of Argentina's former military juntas before a civilian court, in which Videla and Massera were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Chinese system of foreign relations in which other rulers sent missions with gifts to the emperor, recognising his superiority, and received gifts, titles and trading rights in return.
A regular payment of goods, labour or services by a subject people to a ruler or state in recognition of its authority.
The parliament created by the 1983 constitution, with separate houses for whites, Coloureds and Indians and none for Africans; its introduction in 1984 provoked mass opposition.
A conference of revolutionary movements and governments from Africa, Asia and Latin America held in Havana in January 1966, which created an organisation to support armed struggle against imperialism.
The incident that sets off a larger event whose conditions already existed. It explains the timing and form of the event more than its deeper causes.
The treaty signed by Germany, Italy and Japan on 27 September 1940, in which each promised to help the others if attacked by a power not yet in the war, meaning above all the United States.
A right-wing death squad organised from within Isabel Perón's government by José López Rega, which killed hundreds of left-wing activists in 1973–1976.
The alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed in 1882; Italy declared neutrality in 1914 and joined the other side in 1915.
The alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan formed in 1428 after the defeat of Azcapotzalco, which ruled the Aztec Empire and shared its tribute.
The informal grouping of France, Russia and Britain formed by the Franco-Russian Alliance (1894), the Entente Cordiale (1904) and the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907).
The diplomatic pressure by Russia, France and Germany in April 1895 that forced Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China.
The coalition that governed Tunisia from 2011 to 2014, made up of the Islamist Ennahda and two secular centre-left parties, the Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol.
The declaration of November 1820 by Austria, Prussia and Russia that the powers could intervene, by force if necessary, against revolutions that threatened other states.
The US programme, signed on 3 October 2008, that provided up to 700 billion dollars to stabilise the banks and later the car industry during the financial crisis.
The "Bamboo Grove" school of Zen Buddhism founded by the retired Trần king Nhân Tông in 1299, the first Vietnamese school with Vietnamese founders.
A temporary suspension of fighting for an agreed period, after which war may resume unless a peace is made.
President Truman's declaration of 12 March 1947 that the United States would support "free peoples" resisting subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure, first applied through aid to Greece and Turkey.
'Rubble women': German women who cleared bombed cities after 1945 and became a symbol of reconstruction.
In late nineteenth-century business, a combination of companies in one industry under a single board of trustees, created to limit competition and control prices; the word came to mean any large monopoly.
A territory, mostly a former League of Nations mandate, placed under United Nations supervision after 1945. The administering power had to prepare its people for self-government and accept UN visiting missions and petitions.
Administration of a territory by one or more outside powers for a set period to prepare it for self-government, as proposed for Korea at the Moscow Conference of 1945.
The organ of the United Nations that supervised trust territories, received reports and petitions from them and sent visiting missions. It suspended its work in 1994 after the last trust territory became independent.
The Tunisian truth commission created by the transitional justice law of December 2013 to investigate human rights abuses by the state from 1955 to 2013 and recommend reparations.
The South African body (1996–1998) that investigated human rights violations committed between 1960 and 1994, heard victims' testimony and could grant amnesty to perpetrators who made full disclosure of political crimes.
The commission (2008–2015) created by the residential schools settlement to record survivors’ testimony and the history of the schools; its 2015 report made 94 Calls to Action.
Local militia raised and led by the gentry to defend their districts against rebels or bandits, used by the Qing against the White Lotus and the Taiping.
A narrow well, drilled into the ground and fitted with a pipe and pump, that draws groundwater for irrigation; their spread in Punjab and Haryana made the Green Revolution possible but lowered water tables.
Iran’s pro-Soviet communist party, founded in 1941. It built a mass following among workers and intellectuals in the 1940s, was crushed after the 1953 coup, and was banned again by the Islamic Republic in 1983.
The protests in Kyrgyzstan after flawed elections that overthrew President Askar Akayev on 24 March 2005.
A Central Asian battle tactic in which mobile units of mounted archers rode round the enemy flanks to attack from the sides and rear; Babur used it at Panipat in 1526.
A Mongol army unit of about ten thousand men, the largest unit of the decimal organisation of tens, hundreds, thousands and ten thousands.
A Tunisian human rights organisation founded in the 1970s, the oldest of its kind in Africa and the Arab world. It documented abuses under Ben Ali and was a member of the National Dialogue Quartet.
The four Tunisian civil-society organisations (the UGTT trade union federation, the UTICA employers' federation, the Tunisian Human Rights League and the Order of Lawyers) that brokered a political settlement in 2013–2014 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.
A mass uprising in the Andes of Peru and Upper Peru (1780–1783), led at first by José Gabriel Condorcanqui (Túpac Amaru II), against colonial abuses and Bourbon taxes.
An urban guerrilla movement in Uruguay from the 1960s, known for bank robberies, kidnappings and spectacular raids, which was crushed by the army in 1972.
The commission with full powers sent by Moscow to Tashkent in 1919, led by Frunze and Kuibyshev, to restore central control and win Muslim support for Soviet rule.
A unit of the German army in the Second World War recruited from Central Asian Soviet prisoners of war.
The idea, developed by writers such as Ziya Gökalp, that the Turks formed a nation whose language and culture should be the basis of the state; it replaced Ottomanism in the CUP and the republic.
The railway linking Soviet Central Asia with Siberia, built in 1927–1930 as a flagship project of the first Five-Year Plan.
The nineteenth-century word for a strike, in which workers walked out of a mill together; used for the protests of the Lowell mill women in 1834 and 1836.
A conference of ethnic delegations held in Windhoek in 1975–1977 under South African sponsorship to create an internal settlement for South West Africa that excluded SWAPO; it produced the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance.
A moment after which the direction or pace of change shifted significantly. Calling an event a turning point is a claim that has to be tested against what happened before and after it.
The winter of 1916–1917 in Germany, when a failed potato harvest and the Allied blockade forced people to live largely on swede turnips.
The arrangement under the Spanish Restoration by which the Conservative and Liberal parties took turns in government, each organising elections to give itself a majority when the king called it to office.
The amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in January 1964, that banned poll taxes in federal elections.
Japan's secret demands on China of January 1915 for rights in Shandong, Manchuria and Inner Mongolia and, in a fifth group, Japanese advisers in the Chinese government; Yuan Shikai accepted most of them under an ultimatum in May 1915.
The treaty of 12 September 1990 between the two German states and the four wartime Allies that restored full sovereignty to a united Germany and fixed its borders.
The policy announced in February 1977 under Hua Guofeng that the party would uphold whatever decisions Mao had made and follow whatever instructions he had given.
The argument, made by Jinnah and the Muslim League from the late 1930s, that the Hindus and Muslims of India were two separate nations with different religions, customs and histories, and that Muslims were entitled to a state or states of their own.
The US law of 1934 that created the self-governing Commonwealth of the Philippines and set independence for 1946 after a ten-year transition.
Elizabeth Eisenstein's term for the ability of print to produce many identical, permanent copies of a text, which she argued allowed knowledge to be compared, corrected and accumulated.
A rack on which the skulls of sacrificed people were displayed. The great tzompantli of Tenochtitlan has been partly excavated since 2015.