Edexcel GCSE History key terms

An eighteenth-century intellectual movement that emphasised reason, observation, education and the possibility of improving society.

A person held as another person’s property and forced to work without freedom to leave.

The study of patterns of disease in populations, including how diseases spread and how they can be controlled.

Campaigns seeking the same legal protection and opportunities for people regardless of their background.

An increase in the scale or intensity of a conflict, such as committing more troops or extending bombing.

A group with a shared cultural, linguistic or ancestral identity that differs from the majority population.

The idea that a population could be ‘improved’ by controlling who reproduced. Nazi eugenics used false claims about heredity to justify coercion and persecution.

The organised movement of people away from places considered dangerous to safer areas.

Formal exclusion from membership of a Christian Church.

Being forced to leave a country, often as a political punishment.

People living outside their home country, often because of political opposition or persecution.

African-American migrants who left the southern United States for Kansas in the movement known as the Great Exodus, particularly in 1879.

Specialist work to identify and make safe explosive devices and unexploded munitions.

An artistic approach that uses distortion and exaggeration to communicate emotions rather than simply reproduce appearances.

Using threats to demand money or something else from another person.

Additional taxation granted by Parliament to meet exceptional expenses, especially the costs of war.

An organised group within a political party that promotes its own views or policies.

Organising a separate group within the Communist Party to promote policies against the party leadership. Lenin banned such factions in 1921.

An influence that helped bring about, or held back, a historical development.

The way two or more influences work together, with one enabling, strengthening or limiting another.

Land left without a sown crop for a period so that the soil could rest.

An animal or creature believed to be a spirit assisting a witch.

An extreme shortage of food that causes widespread hunger and starvation.

An extreme nationalist political position; groups active in Notting Hill promoted racial exclusion and hostility towards non-white migrants.

A Palestinian nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat whose armed groups carried out raids against Israel. It was initially separate from the PLO.

Palestinian armed fighters who carried out raids into Israel; Egypt supported their raids during the 1950s.

The national government of the USA, as distinct from state and local governments.

The West German state formed in May 1949 from the Western occupation zones of Germany.