Edexcel GCSE History key terms

A conclusion drawn from evidence rather than directly stated by it.

A general rise in prices, reducing how much a given amount of money can buy.

The networks and facilities that allow people, goods and information to move, including roads, railways and communication routes.

The 1987 US–Soviet agreement to eliminate their land-based missiles with ranges of 500–5,500 km.

A court order requiring someone to carry out or stop a particular action.

In eighteenth-century smallpox prevention, deliberately introducing smallpox material into a healthy person to produce a usually milder infection and future protection. It could still cause death or spread smallpox.

An established organisation with authority and influence over society, such as government or the Church.

Discriminatory practices within an organisation’s procedures, culture or behaviour, rather than only prejudice expressed by individual members.

A society in which people of different racial backgrounds participate together with equal rights, rather than being separated by race.

People engaged in academic, cultural or specialist work, such as professors, writers, editors and engineers.

A system of spies, informants and contacts used to gather information about threats.

The interaction of different influences, so that the effect of one depends partly on the actions of others.

A Church punishment restricting public religious services and sacraments in a particular territory.

An additional charge paid by a borrower for the use of borrowed money.

A temporary arrangement intended to operate while a longer-term settlement is negotiated.

Movement from one place to another within the same country.

An official identity document used within a country to regulate residence and movement.

Confinement by the government without an ordinary criminal trial, often used during wartime against people considered a security threat.

An Arabic word meaning ‘shaking off’, used for a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

The name colonial opponents gave to the punitive Coercive Acts of 1774 and the associated Quebec Act, which they regarded as threats to their rights.

Police work aimed at discovering what happened in a crime and identifying the offender by collecting and checking evidence.

A person who provides money for a project in the hope of gaining a financial return.

Unemployment concealed by excluding people from official statistics, rather than finding them paid work.

A Jewish armed organisation opposed to continued British rule in Palestine. It carried out the King David Hotel bombing on 22 July 1946.

The political and military division between Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe and the Western countries during the Cold War.

The artificial supply of water to land so that crops can grow.

Israel’s national armed forces, established from the Haganah as the new Israeli state was created in 1948.