OCR GCSE History A key terms

Government measures intended to influence when people have children and how many children they have.

A severe shortage of food across a population that causes widespread starvation, illness and death.

A worker specialising in shoeing horses.

The national government of the United States, distinct from the governments of individual states.

The belief that women should have equal rights and opportunities, and campaigning to achieve this equality.

The Fair Employment Practices Commission, established by Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802 in 1941 to address discrimination in defence employment.

Military service owed to a lord or monarch as part of the obligations attached to holding land.

A system of relationships in which landholding was linked to obligations of loyalty and service between a lord and those holding land from him.

Respect and obedience towards parents and ancestors, an important principle in traditional Confucian teaching.

A tactic used in the US Senate to delay or block a vote by prolonging debate.

The Nazi euphemism for the programme to murder the Jews of Europe.

A rapid rise in asset prices driven by expectations of further price increases, followed by a collapse when confidence fails.

The major changes in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century methods of raising and managing money, especially government borrowing and investment through joint-stock companies.

China’s programme of centrally planned economic development for 1953–57, which prioritised heavy industry using the Soviet model.

Roosevelt’s initial programme, beginning in 1933, of federal action to provide emergency help, revive the economy and change how it was regulated.

Young women associated with the 1920s who challenged traditional expectations through their clothing, appearance and social behaviour.

The compulsory removal of people from their homes by the state, including the relocation of African communities to Bantustans under apartheid.

A medical procedure carried out without genuine consent to make a person unable to reproduce.

The legal process through which a lender takes possession of a property because the borrower has failed to make mortgage repayments.

The loss of property to the state as a punishment, such as the confiscation of estates belonging to Jacobite supporters.

A programme to improve agriculture, industry, defence, and science and technology, originally announced by Zhou Enlai in 1964 and pursued under Deng Xiaoping.

Old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits: categories attacked during the Cultural Revolution as obstacles to a new Communist society.

An amendment to the US Constitution that guarantees equal protection of the laws. Its equal-protection clause was central to the challenge against state-enforced school segregation.

A German questionnaire used during de-Nazification to investigate a person's political activities and involvement with the Nazi regime.

The legal right to vote in elections.

A programme adopted in 1955 by the ANC and its allies, calling for democratic government, racial equality and changes to the distribution of land and wealth.

A person who was not legally bound to a lord as an unfree peasant. The protections for free men in Magna Carta did not amount to equal rights for everyone.

The Federal Republic of Germany, established in May 1949 from the three Western occupation zones.