47 of the History glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
Protection against a disease by giving a harmless or weakened form of it; first used against smallpox, with cowpox, by Edward Jenner in 1796.
The debate of 1550–1551 in Valladolid, Spain, between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda over whether war against and forced rule of Indigenous peoples were just.
The monumental basilica and cross at Cuelgamuros near Madrid, built in 1940–1958 partly by political prisoners, where Franco was buried from 1975 until his exhumation in 2019.
The Brazilian policy, begun in 1906, in which governments bought and stored surplus coffee to hold up world prices, paying for it with foreign loans.
A tax on the value added at each stage of production and sale of goods and services; Russia introduced it in 1992.
Lenin's idea of a small, disciplined party of professional revolutionaries that leads the working class to revolution because workers alone would not develop revolutionary consciousness.
A campaign led by the Cuban Catholic activist Oswaldo Payá that collected more than 11,000 signatures in 2002 to request a referendum on free speech, free elections and an amnesty for political prisoners, using a clause of the Cuban constitution.
A free man who had become the sworn man of a lord, owing him military service and counsel in return for protection and usually land.
The doctrine, developed by Khomeini in the 1960s and 1970s, that in the absence of the hidden Twelfth Imam the most learned Islamic jurists should govern the state. It is the basis of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s constitution.
The peaceful revolution of November–December 1989 that ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
The Catholic and royalist revolt in the west of France that began in March 1793 against conscription, and the brutal republican repression that followed.
A US and British programme that decrypted Soviet intelligence messages of the 1940s; its release in 1995 showed that Soviet espionage in the United States had been extensive.
The German term for the process of confronting and working through the Nazi past in public life, law, education and culture.
The everyday spoken language of a people (such as German or English), as opposed to a learned or sacred language such as Latin.
A law of 1878, under Lord Lytton, that allowed the government to censor and punish newspapers published in Indian languages but not those in English. It was repealed by Lord Ripon in 1882.
John Murra's term for the Andean practice of a community controlling lands at different altitudes, like islands, to obtain the products of each zone.
Controlling every stage of production in one company, from raw materials to transport and sale, as Andrew Carnegie did in steel.
A group with a strong stake in keeping an existing arrangement, such as workers, guilds or firms whose income depends on an older technology, and which therefore tends to resist change.
The human rights office of the Catholic archdiocese of Santiago, founded by Cardinal Silva Henríquez in 1976, which gave legal and material help to victims of the Pinochet regime and documented abuses.
The title used from 1858 for the Governor-General of India as the representative of the British monarch.
A peace settlement whose terms are set by the winning side and imposed on the defeated, as opposed to a compromise negotiated between equals.
The holiday on 9 May that marks the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in 1945; the most important national holiday in Russia.
The name used by the Saigon government and the United States for the NLF and its fighters, from a phrase meaning Vietnamese communists.
The communist-led independence movement founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1941, which declared Vietnamese independence in 1945 and defeated France in the First Indochina War (1946–1954).
Nixon’s policy from 1969 of withdrawing US troops from Vietnam while expanding and re-equipping the South Vietnamese army to take over the fighting.
In the original sense, a Scandinavian who went on a raiding or trading expedition by sea; now often used loosely for all Scandinavians of the Viking Age, most of whom were farmers.
The period of Scandinavian raiding, trade and settlement overseas, usually dated from the raid on Lindisfarne in 793 to about 1066.
The forced resettlement of more than a million Kikuyu, Embu and Meru into guarded fortified villages in 1954–1955 to cut Mau Mau off from civilian support.
An unfree peasant in medieval England, bound to his lord's land and excluded from the royal courts in disputes with his lord.
A ridge in northern France captured by the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in April 1917, later a symbol of Canadian national achievement.
A French royal tax on income ("twentieth") first levied in 1749 and in principle paid by all, though the privileged often negotiated reductions.
The use of physical force against a movement, such as beatings, shootings, torture, assassination and attacks by vigilantes, whether by the state or by private groups.
Khrushchev's programme, launched in 1954, to plough tens of millions of hectares of steppe in northern Kazakhstan and Siberia for grain, using mainly Slavic settlers.
The British claim that Parliament represented all British subjects, including colonists who elected no members, so that it could lawfully tax the colonies.
The chief minister of a Muslim ruler, who ran the government and its finances on the ruler's behalf.
A religion that developed among the enslaved in Saint-Domingue, combining West and Central African traditions with elements of Catholicism and centred on the service of spirits (lwa).
The Egyptian radio station launched in 1953 that broadcast Arab nationalist programmes and Nasser's speeches across the Arab world.
Ethnic Germans living outside Germany as citizens of other states, such as the Sudeten Germans or the Danube Swabians.
The cheap "people's receiver" radio sold in Nazi Germany from 1933 so that Hitler's speeches and the regime's broadcasts could reach most homes.
"People's community": the Nazi ideal of a racially pure German nation united across classes, regions and religions, from which Jews and others defined as outsiders were excluded.
The People's Council of the Dutch East Indies (1918–1942), a partly elected body with mainly advisory powers that the colonial government could ignore.
A rural district of several villages in the Russian Empire, run after 1861 by elected peasant elders, with its own peasant court.
A charitable, often religious, organisation independent of governments, such as the JDC or the Red Cross, that provided relief and services to displaced persons.
The period of German history from 1815 to the revolution of March 1848, marked by conservative rule, censorship and the growth of liberal and national opposition.
The US law of 1965 that suspended literacy tests and allowed federal examiners to register voters in southern states that had excluded African Americans from voting.
The first stage of Russian privatisation (1992–1994), in which every citizen was offered a voucher worth 10,000 roubles that could be exchanged for shares in state enterprises.
Soviet workers and peasants promoted in the late 1920s and 1930s into education, management and party and state posts, who formed a loyal new elite under Stalin.