History key terms

Special Nazi courts that ordered forced sterilisation of people classified as having specified supposedly hereditary conditions.

Inheritance of the throne through the royal family rather than selection of the monarch by Parliament.

Holding religious beliefs that contradict the accepted teachings of the established Church.

A Spanish leader of the expedition that sailed from Cuba to Mexico in February 1519.

An ancient Greek historian who wrote the Histories in the fifth century BC, investigating the conflict between Greeks and Persians and the events leading to it.

A female companion or courtesan in ancient Greece; plural hetairai. Such women could offer intellectual conversation and artistic accomplishments as well as sexual companionship.

A system in which people or institutions are ranked above and below one another in status or authority.

A specially established court which tried Charles I in January 1649 on charges including making war against Parliament and the people of England.

A bomb whose explosive blast destroys buildings and can scatter dangerous fragments.

The removal of tenants from land in the Scottish Highlands, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as landowners reorganised their estates.

An offence involving an attempt to overthrow or betray the state.

Stealing from travellers on roads by using violence or threats.

Taking control of an aircraft or other vehicle by force.

A heavily fortified German defensive system on the Western Front, established in 1917.

Judging an earlier decision with knowledge of its later outcome, which the people making that decision did not possess.

A name used historically for India, particularly northern India in the context of Babur’s conquests.

The agricultural territory surrounding and supporting a city, including the land that supplies its food.

A credit arrangement allowing someone to obtain goods and pay for them in instalments rather than paying the full price immediately.

The Caribbean island now divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where Columbus founded La Navidad in 1492.

The conditions surrounding an event or development, such as political authority, religious beliefs and economic activity.

A focused question about the past that can be investigated using historical evidence.

Information historians use to answer questions about the past, including documents, images, buildings and archaeological remains.

The extent to which a historical place mattered, judged through its role, influence or consequences in a particular context.

An explanation of a past event developed by weighing evidence; different interpretations may give different weight to particular accounts or circumstances.

A distinct stage in the development or use of a site.

The wider importance of an event, including how it influenced later developments.

A place studied to understand the past through its physical remains and other historical sources.

Material from which historians obtain evidence about the past, such as a photograph, newspaper, official record or memoir.

A historic place studied through its location, buildings, design, uses and people to understand its relationship with events and developments in the past.

The surviving physical material of historic buildings and streets, which can remain even when their uses change.