GCSE & IGCSE History key terms

280 terms with short definitions you can learn for the exam. Type to filter the list.

Assessment objectives 9

AO1 (34%) IGCSE: Show knowledge and understanding of the key features and characteristics of the periods studied.
AO1 (35%) GCSE: Show knowledge and understanding of the key features and characteristics of the periods studied.
AO2 (35%) GCSE: Explain and analyse historical events and periods using second-order concepts: cause, consequence, change, continuity, similarity, difference and significance.
AO2 (36%) IGCSE: Explain, analyse and make judgements about historical events and periods using second-order concepts such as cause, consequence, change and significance.
AO3 (15%) GCSE: Analyse, evaluate and use sources from the period to make supported judgements. Tested by the source questions on Papers 1 and 3.
AO3 (15%) IGCSE: Use a range of source material to understand, interpret and cross-refer sources. Tested in Paper 2 Section A.
AO4 (15%) GCSE: Analyse and evaluate interpretations (later views of the past), including how and why they differ. Tested in Paper 3 Section B.
AO4 (15%) IGCSE: Analyse and evaluate historical interpretations. Tested by the Paper 1 (a) questions and Paper 2 Section A (c).
SPaG (8 marks) GCSE: Spelling, punctuation, grammar and use of specialist terms: 4 marks on the Paper 1 'How far' question and 4 marks on Paper 3 Q3(d).

Key terms 271

13th Amendment (1865) IGCSE: The change to the US Constitution that abolished slavery throughout the USA.
Abdication GCSE: When a monarch gives up the throne, such as Nicholas II in March 1917 or the Kaiser in November 1918.
Abyssinian crisis (1935 to 36) IGCSE: Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935. League sanctions left out oil, and Italy conquered the country in 1936.
Aliens Act (1905) GCSE: The first major British law to control immigration, aimed mainly at poor Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe.
Alphabet agencies IGCSE: New Deal bodies known by their initials, such as the AAA, CCC, NRA and TVA, set up to tackle the Depression.
Amicable Grant (1525) GCSE: Wolsey's demand for a tax without Parliament's approval to pay for war with France. It caused a rebellion and was dropped.
Amritsar Massacre (1919) IGCSE: On 13 April 1919 troops under General Dyer fired on an unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar. The official death toll was 379.
Anaesthetic: A substance that stops a patient feeling pain, such as chloroform, used by Simpson from 1847.
ANC IGCSE: The African National Congress, founded in 1912, the main movement against apartheid. Banned from 1960 to 1990, it won the first multiracial election in 1994.
Ancien regime IGCSE: The 'old order' in France before 1789: an absolute monarchy with a privileged Church and nobility, while the Third Estate paid most of the taxes.
Annulment GCSE: A ruling by the Church that a marriage had never been valid, which Henry VIII wanted for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
Antiseptic: A chemical that kills germs in a wound or on instruments, such as Lister's carbolic acid (from 1865).
Apartheid IGCSE: The South African system of racial separation and white minority rule, introduced after the National Party won in 1948.
Armistice IGCSE: An agreement to stop fighting, such as the one that ended the First World War on 11 November 1918.
Arms race GCSE: The competition between the USA and the USSR to build more and better weapons, especially nuclear weapons.
Article 48: The part of the Weimar constitution that let the President rule by emergency decree, without the Reichstag's approval.
Aseptic surgery GCSE: Surgery that keeps germs out altogether, with sterilised instruments, gowns and gloves.
Attrition GCSE: Wearing the enemy down by killing more of their soldiers than they can replace, as Haig aimed to at the Somme.
Balfour Declaration (1917) IGCSE: British statement supporting a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
Bantustan (homeland) IGCSE: A separate territory set up under apartheid for Black South Africans, removing their rights in South Africa.
Benefit of clergy GCSE: A medieval right for clergymen to be tried in Church courts, which did not use the death penalty.
Berlin Blockade (1948 to 49) GCSE: Stalin's closing of road, rail and canal links to West Berlin from June 1948 to May 1949. The West supplied the city by airlift.
Berlin Wall (1961) IGCSE: The barrier built by East Germany from 13 August 1961 to stop people escaping to West Berlin. It was opened on 9 November 1989.
Black Power GCSE: A 1960s movement for Black pride, self-reliance and self-defence, linked to Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers.
Blitz (1940 to 41) GCSE: The German bombing of British cities, especially London, from September 1940 to May 1941.
Blitzkrieg IGCSE: 'Lightning war': fast attacks combining tanks, aircraft and infantry, used by Germany in 1939 to 40.
Bloody Code GCSE: The name for English law from the late 1600s to the 1820s, when over 200 crimes could be punished by death.
Bolsheviks: The revolutionary Marxist party led by Lenin, which seized power in October 1917 and was renamed the Communist Party in 1918.
Bow Street Runners GCSE: Paid thief-takers set up by Henry Fielding at Bow Street in London in 1749, an early step towards a professional police force.
Brezhnev Doctrine GCSE: The 1968 Soviet policy that the USSR would intervene in any Eastern bloc country where communism was threatened.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954): The Supreme Court ruling that segregation in state schools was unconstitutional.
Capitalism GCSE: An economic system based on private ownership of business and free trade, as in the USA.
Chain of evacuation GCSE: The route a wounded soldier on the Western Front took: aid post, dressing station, casualty clearing station, base hospital.
Cheka: The Bolshevik secret police, set up in December 1917, which arrested and executed opponents during the Red Terror.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) IGCSE: The communist party founded in 1921 and led by Mao Zedong from the 1930s. It has ruled China since 1949.
Civil disobedience GCSE: Peacefully and deliberately breaking unfair laws to protest, as in sit-ins and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Civil disobedience IGCSE: Peacefully and deliberately breaking unfair laws, as in Gandhi's Salt March (1930).
Civil Rights Act (1964): The US law that banned segregation in public places and discrimination in employment.
Collective security IGCSE: The idea that members of the League of Nations or UN act together against an aggressor.
Collectivisation GCSE: Joining individual farms into large state-controlled collective farms, as in the USSR from 1929 and in China in the 1950s.
Collectivisation IGCSE: Joining individual farms into large state farms, as in the USSR from 1929.
Committee of Public Safety IGCSE: The French revolutionary committee that ran the Terror in 1793 to 94.
Commune GCSE: A huge Chinese rural unit from 1958 that shared land, kitchens and work, created during the Great Leap Forward.
Communism GCSE: A system in which the state owns industry and land and one party rules, aiming for equality.
Confederacy IGCSE: The Confederate States of America: the southern states that left the Union in 1860 to 61, led by President Jefferson Davis.
Conquistador GCSE: A Spanish soldier and explorer who conquered land in the Americas, such as Cortes or Pizarro.
Conscientious objector GCSE: Someone who refuses to fight for moral or religious reasons, after conscription began in 1916.
Conscription GCSE: Compulsory military service. In Britain it began in 1916 and again in 1939.
Constitutional monarchy IGCSE: A monarchy whose powers are limited by a constitution, as in France from 1791 to 1792.
Containment: The US policy of stopping communism spreading, set out in the Truman Doctrine (1947).
Corporal punishment GCSE: Punishment that causes physical pain, such as whipping or the stocks.
Counting coup GCSE: A Plains Indian way of showing bravery by touching an enemy in battle and escaping unharmed.
Crusade GCSE: A holy war approved by the Pope, such as the Third Crusade led partly by Richard I.
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): The 13-day confrontation in October 1962 after Soviet nuclear missile sites were found in Cuba. It ended when the missiles were withdrawn.
Cult of personality: Propaganda that presents a leader as heroic or god-like, as with Stalin and Mao.
Cultural Revolution: Mao's campaign, launched in 1966, to purge his rivals and attack 'old' ideas, carried out at first by the Red Guards. It ended with his death in 1976.
Danelaw GCSE: The area of northern and eastern England controlled by the Vikings after their wars with Alfred the Great.
Dawes Act (1887) GCSE: The US law that split reservation land into individual plots to end tribal life. Land left over was sold to white settlers.
Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) IGCSE: The statement passed by the National Assembly in August 1789 setting out liberty, equality before the law and the sovereignty of the nation.
Deserving and undeserving poor GCSE: Tudor categories: the deserving poor could not work (the old, sick and very young); the undeserving were able-bodied people seen as refusing to work.
Detente GCSE: A relaxing of tension between the superpowers, especially in the 1970s (SALT 1, Helsinki).
Detente IGCSE: A relaxing of tension between the superpowers, as in 1963 to 72 and the 1970s.
Deterrence GCSE: Punishment designed to put other people off committing crime.
Directory IGCSE: The government of France from 1795 to 1799, led by five Directors. It was ended by Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in November 1799.
Dissolution of the monasteries GCSE: The closure of England's monasteries from 1536 to 1540 and the transfer of their wealth to the Crown.
Domesday Book GCSE: The survey of land and resources in England ordered by William I in 1085 and completed in 1086.
Dominion status IGCSE: Self-government within the British Empire, which Indian nationalists debated in the 1920s and 1930s.
Domino theory: The US belief that if one country fell to communism its neighbours would follow, used to justify involvement in Vietnam.
Dual Power GCSE: The sharing of power in Russia in 1917 between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet.
Duma IGCSE: The elected Russian parliament set up after the 1905 Revolution. The Tsar could dismiss it, and it had little real power.
Dyarchy IGCSE: The split of power in Indian provinces under the 1919 Act, with some areas run by Indian ministers and others by the British.
Earl GCSE: One of the most powerful Anglo-Saxon nobles, governing a large earldom for the king.
Emancipation Proclamation (1863) IGCSE: Lincoln's order declaring enslaved people in the rebel Confederate states free.
Empire Windrush (1948): The ship that brought hundreds of Caribbean migrants to Britain in June 1948. It became a symbol of post-war Commonwealth migration.
Enabling Act (1933): The law that let Hitler's government pass laws without the Reichstag for four years.
Encomienda GCSE: A Spanish grant giving a settler the labour and tribute of local people in return for protection and Christian teaching.
Equal Pay Act (1970) IGCSE: The law requiring men and women to be paid the same for the same work. It came into force in 1975.
Estates General IGCSE: The French assembly of the three Estates, called in May 1789 for the first time since 1614.
Evacuation GCSE: Moving children and other vulnerable people from cities to safer areas in wartime, as in Britain from September 1939.
Excommunication GCSE: Being cut off from the Church by the Pope, as happened to King John (1209) and Elizabeth I (1570).
Expedition of the Thousand (1860) IGCSE: Garibaldi's force of about a thousand volunteer Redshirts, which landed in Sicily in May 1860 and went on to conquer Naples.
Extract IGCSE: A passage from a later writer or historian giving an interpretation, used in 4HI1 Paper 1 (a) and Paper 2 (c).
Feudalism GCSE: A system in which land was held from a lord in return for loyalty and service, from the king down to peasants.
Five-Year Plan: A set of state economic targets for five years, used by Stalin from 1928 and Mao from 1953.
Four Humours GCSE: The ancient theory, from Hippocrates and Galen, that illness comes from an imbalance of blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.
Fyrd GCSE: The Anglo-Saxon army of ordinary freemen, called up when needed.
GDR IGCSE: The German Democratic Republic: communist East Germany, from 1949 until reunification in 1990.
Germ theory: Pasteur's theory (1861) that microbes cause decay and disease.
Gestapo: The Nazi secret state police, which used informers, arrests without trial and concentration camps against opponents.
Glasnost: Gorbachev's policy of openness, allowing more criticism and information.
Gleichschaltung: 'Coordination': the Nazi process, from 1933, of bringing every part of German life, from state governments and trade unions to clubs, under Nazi control.
Great Leap Forward: Mao's second Five-Year Plan (1958 to 62), with communes and backyard furnaces, which caused a terrible famine.
Group Areas Act (1950) IGCSE: The apartheid law that set aside separate areas for each race to live and work in, leading to forced removals.
Guerrilla warfare IGCSE: Fighting in small groups using surprise attacks and local knowledge, as by the Vietcong or the mujahideen.
Gulag: A Soviet forced labour camp.
Guomindang (GMD): The Chinese Nationalist Party, founded by Sun Yat-sen and later led by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek). It lost the civil war to the communists in 1949.
Harrying of the North GCSE: William I's destruction of crops, animals and villages in northern England in the winter of 1069 to 70.
Heresy GCSE: Holding religious beliefs that go against the official teaching of the Church.
Hire purchase IGCSE: Buying goods on credit and paying for them in instalments over time.
Historic environment GCSE: The Paper 1 site study: Whitechapel, the Western Front, wartime London or Notting Hill, studied through sources.
Ho Chi Minh Trail IGCSE: The network of jungle paths through Laos and Cambodia that carried supplies from North Vietnam to the Vietcong.
Homestead Act (1862) GCSE: A US law giving 160 acres of land to settlers who farmed it for five years.
Hoovervilles IGCSE: Shanty towns of homeless and unemployed people in the Depression, mockingly named after President Hoover.
Hue and cry GCSE: The medieval duty of everyone in a community to chase a suspected criminal when the alarm was raised.
Huguenots GCSE: French Protestants who fled persecution and settled in England, especially after 1572 and 1685, many as silk weavers in Spitalfields.
Hundred Flowers campaign (1956 to 57) GCSE: Mao's invitation to people to criticise the Communist Party. When criticism poured in, critics were punished in the Anti-Rightist campaign.
Hyperinflation GCSE: Extremely fast rising prices, as in Germany in 1923, when money became almost worthless.
Hyperinflation IGCSE: Extremely fast rising prices, as in Germany in 1923.
Impression IGCSE: The overall view an author gives about something, shown by their choice of words and details. Tested in Paper 1 (a).
Inference GCSE: A conclusion you work out from what a source suggests, rather than what it states directly.
Interdict GCSE: A papal ban on most church services in a country, placed on England from 1208 to 1214.
Interpretation GCSE: A later view of the past by a historian or writer, as used in Paper 3 Section B.
Intifada IGCSE: A Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation; the first began in December 1987.
Iron Curtain: Churchill's phrase (1946) for the division between communist Eastern Europe and the West.
Jacobins IGCSE: A radical political club led by Robespierre. Jacobins dominated the National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety in 1793 to 94.
Jim Crow laws: Laws in the southern USA that enforced racial segregation.
Justiciar GCSE: The king's chief minister, who ran the government while Richard I was abroad, such as William Longchamp and Hubert Walter.
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) IGCSE: The law letting settlers in Kansas and Nebraska vote on whether to allow slavery. It overturned the Missouri Compromise and led to 'Bleeding Kansas'.
Knight service GCSE: The duty of a Norman landholder to provide a set number of trained knights for the king's army, in return for land.
Kristallnacht (1938): 'The Night of Broken Glass', 9 to 10 November 1938, when Nazis attacked Jewish shops, homes and synagogues across Germany.
Kulak: A richer Russian peasant, targeted and destroyed during collectivisation.
League of Nations IGCSE: The international organisation set up in 1920 to keep peace through collective security. The USA never joined.
Long March (1934 to 35) IGCSE: The Red Army's retreat of about 6,000 miles from Jiangxi to Yan'an, during which Mao became the leader of the CCP.
Longbow GCSE: A powerful bow about as tall as a man, used by English archers to win battles such as Agincourt in 1415.
Loyalist GCSE: An American colonist who stayed loyal to Britain during the War of Independence.
Macpherson Report (1999) IGCSE: The inquiry into the police handling of Stephen Lawrence's murder, which found the Metropolitan Police to be institutionally racist.
Magic bullet IGCSE: A chemical that kills a particular germ without harming the body, such as Salvarsan 606, found by Ehrlich's team in 1909 to treat syphilis.
Magna Carta GCSE: The charter King John agreed at Runnymede in June 1215, limiting royal power.
Manchukuo IGCSE: The puppet state that Japan set up in Manchuria in 1932, after invading the region in 1931.
Manchurian crisis (1931 to 33) IGCSE: Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. The League's Lytton Commission condemned Japan, which simply left the League in 1933.
Mandate IGCSE: A territory run by a member of the League of Nations, such as Britain's mandate for Palestine.
Manifest Destiny: The belief that Americans had a God-given right to spread across North America.
Marshall Plan: US economic aid to rebuild Europe from 1947, partly to stop the spread of communism.
Mass production IGCSE: Making large numbers of identical goods quickly and cheaply, for example on Henry Ford's moving assembly line.
McCarthyism IGCSE: The anti-communist witch-hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy from 1950 until the Senate censured him in 1954.
Meiji Constitution (1889) IGCSE: Japan's first constitution, based partly on Germany's. The emperor was sacred and held supreme power, and an elected parliament, the Diet, was created.
Meiji Restoration IGCSE: The return of power to the Japanese emperor in 1868, followed by rapid modernisation.
Metropolitan Police Act (1829) GCSE: Robert Peel's law that set up a professional, paid police force for London, the Metropolitan Police.
Miasma GCSE: The old idea that bad air from rotting matter causes disease.
Middle Passage GCSE: The voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas: the deadly middle stage of the triangular trade.
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955 to 56): A 381-day boycott of Montgomery's buses after Rosa Parks' arrest. It ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
Motte and bailey GCSE: An early Norman castle: a mound (motte) with a tower, and a fenced yard (bailey).
Muslim League IGCSE: The party of Indian Muslims, led by Jinnah, which from 1940 demanded a separate Muslim state, Pakistan.
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) IGCSE: The idea that nuclear war would destroy both sides, so neither would start it.
Narrative account GCSE: A Paper 2 period study answer that tells events in order and explains how each led to the next.
National Convention IGCSE: The assembly elected in 1792 that declared France a republic in September 1792, put Louis XVI on trial and governed until 1795.
National Party IGCSE: The party, supported mainly by Afrikaners, that won the 1948 election, built apartheid and ruled South Africa until 1994.
NATO (1949) IGCSE: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation: the military alliance formed in April 1949 by the USA, Canada and Western European states.
NEP (New Economic Policy): Lenin's policy from 1921 allowing peasants and small businesses to trade for profit.
New Deal IGCSE: Roosevelt's programme from 1933 to tackle the Depression in the USA.
New Model Army GCSE: Parliament's professional, trained and regularly paid army, created in 1645.
Night of the Long Knives GCSE: 30 June 1934, when Hitler had Rohm and other SA leaders killed.
NKVD IGCSE: Stalin's secret police from 1934, which carried out mass arrests, executions and deportations in the Great Terror.
Non-cooperation movement (1920 to 22) IGCSE: Gandhi's campaign to boycott British goods, schools, courts and honours. He called it off after the violence at Chauri Chaura in 1922.
Nuclear deterrent IGCSE: Nuclear weapons kept to stop an enemy from attacking, because it would face a devastating response.
Nuclear proliferation IGCSE: The spread of nuclear weapons to more countries.
Nuremberg Laws (1935): Laws that took German citizenship away from Jews and banned marriage between Jews and non-Jewish Germans.
October Manifesto (1905) IGCSE: Nicholas II's promise in October 1905 of an elected Duma and basic civil rights, which split his opponents and helped him survive the 1905 Revolution.
Oslo Accords (1993) IGCSE: Agreements in which Israel and the PLO recognised each other and the Palestinians were promised limited self-rule, starting in Gaza and Jericho.
Ostpolitik IGCSE: West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's policy, from 1969, of improving relations with East Germany and the Soviet bloc.
Pact of Plombieres (1858) IGCSE: Cavour and Napoleon III's secret agreement that France would help Piedmont fight Austria, in return for Nice and Savoy.
Papal States IGCSE: The lands in central Italy ruled by the Pope. Piedmont took most of them in 1860, and Rome itself was taken in September 1870.
Partition IGCSE: Dividing a territory, such as India and Pakistan in 1947 or the UN plan for Palestine in 1947.
Pass laws IGCSE: South African laws forcing Black people to carry passes controlling where they could live and work.
Peacekeeping IGCSE: Using lightly armed UN forces, usually with the agreement of both sides, to keep enemies apart and supervise ceasefires.
Penicillin: The first antibiotic, discovered by Fleming in 1928 and developed into a usable drug by Florey and Chain from 1939. It was mass-produced in time for D-Day in 1944.
Perestroika: Gorbachev's policy of restructuring the Soviet economy.
Permanent Indian Frontier GCSE: The boundary of the 1830s beyond which land was meant to be kept for Native Americans. Settlers soon crossed it.
Pilgrimage of Grace (1536) GCSE: The largest rebellion of Henry VIII's reign, in the north of England, led by Robert Aske against religious changes and the closing of the monasteries.
PLO: The Palestine Liberation Organisation, set up in 1964 to fight for a Palestinian state. Yasser Arafat led it from 1969.
Pogrom GCSE: An organised violent attack on a Jewish community, such as those in the Russian Empire from the 1880s.
Privateer GCSE: A private ship's captain allowed by the Crown to attack enemy ships, such as Francis Drake.
Prohibition IGCSE: The ban on making and selling alcohol in the USA, 1920 to 1933.
Propaganda GCSE: Information, often one-sided, used to persuade people to support a government or cause.
Provenance GCSE: Where a source comes from: who made it, when, and why. Used to judge how useful it is.
Provisional Government: The temporary government that ran Russia from the February Revolution of 1917 until the Bolsheviks overthrew it in October 1917.
Public Health Act (1875): The law forcing local councils to provide clean water, sewers and drainage, and to appoint a medical officer of health.
Purge GCSE: Removing people thought to be disloyal, by sacking, imprisoning or killing them.
Puritan GCSE: A strict Protestant who wanted to remove all traces of Catholicism from the Church of England.
Quit India (1942) IGCSE: The Congress campaign from August 1942 demanding that Britain leave India at once. Its leaders were quickly arrested.
Race Relations Act (1965) IGCSE: The first British law against racial discrimination, banning it in public places.
Reconquista GCSE: The Christian reconquest of Spain from Muslim rulers, completed with the capture of Granada in 1492.
Reconstruction IGCSE: The rebuilding of the southern USA and the attempt to give rights to freed people after the Civil War, 1865 to 1877.
Recusant GCSE: A Catholic who refused to attend Church of England services and was fined.
Red Guards: Students and young people who carried out the Cultural Revolution, attacking teachers, officials and the 'Four Olds'.
Red Scare IGCSE: Fear of communism in the USA, after the First World War and again from the late 1940s.
Reformation GCSE: The break from the Pope's authority; in England, from 1529 to the 1530s under Henry VIII.
Reichstag: The German parliament. In the Weimar Republic it was elected by proportional representation, so there were many parties and coalition governments.
Religious settlement (1559) GCSE: Elizabeth I's 'middle way' for the Church: the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity made her Supreme Governor and set a Protestant prayer book.
Reparations GCSE: Payments for war damage, such as those imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles.
Representation of the People Act (1918) IGCSE: The law giving the vote to all men over 21 and to most women over 30.
Reservation GCSE: Land set aside by the US government for Native American nations.
Retribution GCSE: Punishment as revenge, so that it matches the seriousness of the crime.
Reunification (1990) IGCSE: The joining of East and West Germany into one country on 3 October 1990.
Risorgimento IGCSE: The movement for the unification of Italy in the 1800s.
Royal supremacy GCSE: The monarch's position as head of the Church in England, set by the Act of Supremacy (1534).
Russo-Japanese War (1904 to 05) IGCSE: The war in which Japan defeated Russia: the first victory of an Asian power over a European great power in modern times.
Salt March (1930) IGCSE: Gandhi's march of about 240 miles to Dandi in March to April 1930, where he made salt illegally to defy the British salt tax.
Samurai IGCSE: Japan's hereditary warrior class, which lost its special privileges during the Meiji reforms.
Sanctions IGCSE: Penalties such as trade bans, used by the League, the UN or other states to pressure a country.
Sanctuary GCSE: The medieval right of a suspect to shelter in a church, usually for 40 days.
Sans-culottes IGCSE: Ordinary working people of Paris who supported the radical Revolution.
Satyagraha IGCSE: Gandhi's idea of 'truth force': non-violent resistance to injustice.
Schlieffen Plan IGCSE: Germany's plan to defeat France quickly by attacking through Belgium, before turning east to fight Russia.
Scutage GCSE: 'Shield money': a payment to the king instead of providing knights for military service, which John charged often.
Search and destroy IGCSE: US missions to find and kill Vietcong fighters in the countryside. They often harmed civilians and turned them against the USA.
Secession IGCSE: When a state leaves a union, as South Carolina did from the USA in December 1860.
Security Council IGCSE: The UN body responsible for peace, where the five permanent members each have a veto.
SED IGCSE: The Socialist Unity Party, the communist party that ruled East Germany until 1989.
Segregation GCSE: Keeping people apart by race, for example in schools, transport and housing.
Separate system GCSE: The prison system at Pentonville (1842) in which prisoners were kept alone in their cells.
Sex Discrimination Act (1975) IGCSE: The law banning discrimination on grounds of sex in jobs, education and services.
Sharpeville Massacre (1960) IGCSE: On 21 March 1960 police fired on a protest against the pass laws at Sharpeville, killing 69 people.
Shogun IGCSE: The military ruler of Japan under the Tokugawa, until 1867.
Show trial GCSE: A public trial staged for propaganda, where the verdict is decided in advance, as in Moscow from 1936 to 1938.
Significance GCSE: How important something was: how much difference it made, to how many people, and for how long.
Six-Day War (1967): The war of June 1967 in which Israel captured Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Social crime GCSE: A crime that many people did not think was wrong, such as poaching or smuggling.
Socialism in One Country IGCSE: Stalin's policy of building up the strength of the USSR first, rather than trying to spread revolution to other countries.
Soweto Uprising (1976) IGCSE: Protests by school students in Soweto from 16 June 1976 against being taught in Afrikaans. Police shot many of them.
SPaG GCSE: Spelling, punctuation, grammar and specialist terms, worth 4 marks on two GCSE questions.
Stakhanovite GCSE: A worker who beat production targets, named after the miner Alexei Stakhanov, who cut a record amount of coal in one shift in 1935.
Stalemate IGCSE: A situation in which neither side can win, as on the Western Front from late 1914 until 1918.
Stamp Act (1765) GCSE: A British tax on printed materials in the American colonies, which caused protests and was repealed in 1766.
Stasi IGCSE: The East German secret police.
States' rights IGCSE: The idea that the individual states, not the federal government, should hold most power. Southern leaders used it to defend slavery.
Statuto IGCSE: The constitution granted by King Charles Albert of Piedmont in 1848. It was the only Italian constitution of 1848 that survived.
Stimulus points GCSE: The two bullet points printed under some questions. You may use them, but top answers add a point of your own.
Suez Crisis (1956): After Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, Israel, Britain and France invaded Egypt. US and UN pressure forced them to withdraw.
Superpower IGCSE: A state with huge military, economic and political power. After 1945 there were two: the USA and the USSR.
Swaraj IGCSE: Self-rule for India.
Taisho democracy IGCSE: The period of more democratic party politics in Japan in the 1910s and 1920s, named after Emperor Taisho (reigned 1912 to 1926).
Tenants-in-chief GCSE: The barons and churchmen who held land directly from the king in Norman England, in return for loyalty and service.
Tennis Court Oath (1789) IGCSE: The promise made by the deputies of the National Assembly on 20 June 1789 not to separate until France had a new constitution.
Terror (1793 to 94) IGCSE: The period when the French revolutionary government executed thousands of suspected enemies.
Tet Offensive (1968): Surprise attacks on towns across South Vietnam in January 1968. A military defeat for the communists, but a political shock for the USA.
Thegn GCSE: An Anglo-Saxon local lord who held land from the king or an earl in return for military service.
Thematic study GCSE: The Paper 1 study of change and continuity over a long period, about 1,000 years.
Tithing GCSE: A medieval group of about 10 men, each responsible for the others' behaviour.
Total war IGCSE: A war in which a country uses all its people, industry and resources, and civilians become targets too, as in the Second World War.
Totalitarian GCSE: A state where the government controls every part of life and allows no opposition.
Transportation GCSE: Sending convicts to colonies such as America and, from 1787 to 1868, Australia.
Treason GCSE: Betraying the monarch or the state, for example by plotting rebellion.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) IGCSE: The treaty of March 1918 that took Russia out of the First World War. Russia gave up huge lands, including Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine.
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) GCSE: The agreement that divided newly found lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal.
Treaty of Versailles (1919): The peace treaty Germany signed in 1919: it lost land and all its colonies, accepted blame for the war, paid reparations and was limited to an army of 100,000.
Trial by ordeal GCSE: A medieval test (hot iron, hot water, cold water) that left guilt for God to judge. It ended after 1215.
Triple Alliance IGCSE: The alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, formed in 1882.
Triple Entente IGCSE: The understanding between Britain, France and Russia, complete by 1907.
Truman Doctrine (1947): President Truman's promise in March 1947 to support free peoples resisting communism: the start of the policy of containment.
Turning point IGCSE: An event after which things changed direction. Paper 2 (c) questions often ask how far something was the key turning point.
Umkhonto we Sizwe IGCSE: 'Spear of the Nation': the armed wing of the ANC, set up in 1961 with Mandela as a leader, which began a sabotage campaign.
Unequal treaties IGCSE: Treaties forced on Japan and China by Western powers, giving those powers trading and legal privileges.
United Nations IGCSE: The international organisation set up in October 1945 to replace the League, keep peace and promote human rights and cooperation.
Unrestricted submarine warfare IGCSE: Sinking any ship in the war zone without warning, even neutral ones. Germany's use of it from February 1917 helped bring the USA into the war.
Utility GCSE: How useful a source is for a particular enquiry, judged by its content and provenance.
Vaccination GCSE: Giving a person a weakened or related form of a disease to make them immune, begun by Edward Jenner against smallpox in 1796.
Vagabond GCSE: A wandering poor person without work, feared and punished in Tudor England.
Veto IGCSE: The power to block a decision, held by each of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
Vietcong IGCSE: South Vietnamese communist guerrillas who fought the Diem government and the USA: the military force of the National Liberation Front (NLF), set up in 1960.
Vietminh IGCSE: The Vietnamese independence movement led by Ho Chi Minh, which fought the Japanese and then defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Vietnamisation GCSE: Nixon's policy of handing the fighting in Vietnam to the South Vietnamese army while US troops came home.
Vietnamisation IGCSE: Nixon's policy of handing the fighting to South Vietnam's army while US troops came home.
Wall Street Crash (1929) IGCSE: The collapse of share prices on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929, which helped cause the Great Depression.
War Communism: Bolshevik policy from 1918 to 1921: nationalised industry and grain requisitioning.
Watergate IGCSE: The scandal over a 1972 break-in at the Democratic Party's offices and Nixon's cover-up of it, which led to his resignation in August 1974.
Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) IGCSE: Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that can kill very large numbers of people.
Wergild GCSE: Anglo-Saxon compensation paid to a victim or their family, replaced by fines to the king after 1066.
Witan GCSE: The council of leading nobles and churchmen who advised the Anglo-Saxon king.
Yom Kippur War (1973) IGCSE: The war that began with a surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria on 6 October 1973, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.
Zionism IGCSE: The movement to create a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

Practise History free Revision checklist