OCR GCSE History A key terms

A provision of the Weimar constitution allowing the president to take emergency measures without prior parliamentary approval. The Reichstag could demand that these measures be withdrawn.

The contract confirmed in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that gave the South Sea Company monopoly rights to supply enslaved Africans to Spain’s American colonies.

A production system in which a product moves between workers, each performing a particular task.

The process through which migrants adopt aspects of the language, customs or way of life of the society in which they settle.

A person who has applied for protection as a refugee and is waiting for a decision on that application.

Economic self-sufficiency: producing enough food and raw materials within a country to reduce dependence on imports.

Organisations or officials exercising public power, including central government, local councils and the police.

The ability of a territory or community to govern its own affairs, even while belonging to a larger state.

An Indian nursemaid or nanny employed to care for children, including those of British families living in India or travelling to Britain.

Small local furnaces used during the Great Leap Forward to try to produce metal, often operated by people without the expertise needed to make usable steel.

An enclosed castle courtyard containing buildings and protected by walls or earthworks.

A government budget in which spending does not exceed income.

The name associated with the Bangladeshi cultural and commercial identity of the Brick Lane area.

A rush by depositors to withdraw their money because they fear a bank will fail; mass withdrawals can themselves force a bank to close.

The apartheid system of separate education for black South Africans, controlled through legislation including the Bantu Education Act.

A territory designated by the apartheid government as a homeland for a particular African ethnic group, used to restrict African political rights and preserve white control over the rest of South Africa.

A powerful noble who held substantial estates and exercised authority over people and land; the greatest English nobles were important partners and potential opponents of the monarch.

Power exercised by great nobles, based on resources such as land, wealth, followers and castles.

A rebellion by powerful nobles against a monarch’s authority or policies.

A fortified stone farmhouse in the English–Scottish borderlands, with livestock sheltered below and living accommodation above.

The alternating raised sections and gaps along the top of a wall, associated with defence and the appearance of a castle.

A programme intended to improve workplace facilities, including canteens, toilets and showers.

The campaign for Bengali to be recognised as a state language of Pakistan, remembered particularly through the protesters killed in Dhaka on 21 February 1952.

The Western operation that supplied West Berlin by aircraft during the Soviet blockade of 1948–49.

The Soviet closure of land and water supply routes into West Berlin from June 1948 to May 1949, intended to put pressure on the Western powers.

A guarded border barrier erected by East German authorities, with Soviet backing, from August 1961 to prevent people escaping through West Berlin.

A large handwritten public poster used to express political messages, demands or criticism.