KS3 History Key Terms & Vocabulary

Every key term and definition you need for KS3 History, organised by topic. 412 definitions across 18 topics, free to read and practise with spaced-repetition flashcards.

Russia and revolution Norman England Reform, democracy and the franchise The Second World War and the Holocaust Elizabethan England The Industrial Revolution Restoration and Glorious Revolution Empire and the slave trade End of empire and decolonisation The Black Death and social change The First World War English Civil Wars Welfare state and post-war Britain Women's suffrage and rights Magna Carta and Parliament Medieval Church and Crown Tudor Reformation 20th-century USA

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Russia and revolution

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Collectivisation: Stalin's policy of forcing peasants to combine farms into large state-controlled units.
Five-Year Plans: government plans to rapidly industrialise the USSR.
Nicholas II: the last Tsar of Russia, ending three centuries of Romanov rule when he abdicated in March 1917.
1917 revolutions: caused by the strain of war, food shortages and popular anger at Nicholas II's autocratic rule.; On Bloody Sunday (22 January 1905) Imperial Guard troops shot peaceful protesters petitioning the Tsar outside the Winter Palace.; In March 1918 the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, ending Russia's fighting in WW1.; Stalin's collectivisation policies caused a famine that killed millions in Ukraine.; Stalin's forced policy of combining peasant farms into state-controlled units was called collectivisation.; Under collectivisation, peasants were forced onto state-run farms.; Stalin's centralised economic plans were called the Five-Year Plans.; Stalin's Five-Year Plans were designed to rapidly industrialise the Soviet Union.; Stalin's mass political killings were called the Great Purges.; Stalin's purges of perceived enemies in 1936–38 were called the Great Terror.; Critics and rivals of Stalin were sent to forced-labour camps called gulags.; The network of Soviet prison labour camps was called the Gulag.; Millions died in Ukraine during the 1932–33 famine known as the Holodomor.; Vladimir Lenin returned from exile to Petrograd in April 1917 and demanded "Peace, Bread, Land".; Vladimir Lenin led the Bolsheviks to power in the October 1917 revolution.; Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917 (NS) during the February Revolution after strikes, food riots and army mutinies in Petrograd.; The October Revolution culminated in the Bolshevik storming of the Winter Palace in November 1917 (NS), ending the Provisional Government.; The capital was renamed Leningrad in January 1924 after Lenin's death (it had been Petrograd from 1914).; Stalin's purges in the 1930s killed millions of Soviet citizens.; Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family were executed by the Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg in July 1918.; By 1916–17 Russia was reeling from heavy WW1 casualties, severe food shortages and widespread strikes in major cities.; Stalin outmanoeuvred his rival Leon Trotsky to take Soviet leadership after Lenin's death.; Stalin took power as Soviet leader after Lenin's death in 1924.; The Tsarist regime collapsed in 1917 because of WWI losses, food shortages and political unrest, not any single foreign invasion or natural disaster.; The Russian Revolution of 1917 created the world's first communist state, which became the Soviet Union (USSR).

Norman England

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Demesne: the portion of a manor's land the lord kept for his own use rather than letting to tenants.
Norman society: organised as a pyramid: king at the top, then tenants-in-chief (barons), then knights, then peasants/villeins at the base.
Feudal system: a hierarchy in which land was granted in exchange for loyalty and service.
Motte-and-bailey castle: a wooden tower built on a raised mound (motte) beside a fortified enclosure (bailey).
Motte-and-bailey castles: the first Norman fortifications used to control England after 1066.
Tenant-in-chief: a noble who held land directly from the king, ranking immediately below him.
William: crowned king of England on Christmas Day 1066.
Witan: the Anglo-Saxon council that decided on the successor to Edward the Confessor.; The Bayeux Tapestry depicts events leading to the Norman Conquest.; The Domesday Book of 1086 was William I's survey of landholdings and property across England.; In 1086 William commissioned the Domesday Book to record landholdings and taxation.; William commissioned the Domesday Book to record who owned what land so it could be taxed.; By 1086 nearly all of England's land was held by Norman nobles.; Forest Law reserved exclusive hunting rights over vast areas of England to the king.; In 1066 Harald Hardrada of Norway also invaded England before William's victory at Hastings.; Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king, was killed at the Battle of Hastings.; William ordered the Harrying of the North in 1069–70 to crush Anglo-Saxon resistance with deliberate devastation.; William's victory at Hastings ended Anglo-Saxon royal rule in England.; The Battle of Hastings was fought near Hastings, in Sussex.; Hereward the Wake led Anglo-Saxon resistance against William from the Isle of Ely.; In return for land, Norman barons owed the king knight service (a quota of mounted armed knights) and oaths of loyalty.; By 1086 nearly all significant Anglo-Saxon landholders had been dispossessed and replaced by Normans.; Harold Godwinson defeated the Viking invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge just before facing William.; William's main claim was that Edward the Confessor had reportedly promised him the English throne.; William defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings.; William of Normandy invaded England in 1066.; William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Reform, democracy and the franchise

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1842 Chartist petition: signed by millions before its rejection by Parliament.
Great Reform Act: passed in 1832.
Rotten borough: a constituency with very few voters that still elected an MP, often two.
Rotten boroughs: tiny constituencies that nonetheless returned two MPs to Parliament.; The 1832 Reform Act expanded voting to middle-class men and abolished rotten boroughs.; The 1832 Act increased the electorate but most adults still could not vote.; The 1832 Great Reform Act removed many rotten boroughs and gave seats to industrial towns.; The 1867 Reform Act extended the vote to many working-class men in towns.; The Chartist demand for secret voting was achieved by the Ballot Act of 1872.; The Ballot Act of 1872 introduced the secret ballot to British elections.; Chartism (1838–58) was a working-class movement demanding voting rights and political reform.; The name "Chartism" is given to the 1838–58 working-class movement demanding the vote.; Most Chartist demands (manhood suffrage, secret ballot, no property qualification, payment of MPs, equal constituencies) were eventually achieved after the movement itself faded.; Universal manhood suffrage and the secret ballot — two key Chartist demands — became reality by 1918.; Chartist petitions to Parliament gathered millions of signatures but were rejected by MPs.; After 1928 all adults aged 21 and over in Britain could vote.; All women over 21 won the vote with the Equal Franchise Act of 1928.; By 1900 no women in Britain could vote in parliamentary elections.; By 1900 not all adult men in Britain could vote — property and residence qualifications excluded around 40% of men.; The People's Charter (1838) demanded six points, including votes for all men.; The People's Charter of 1838 contained six demands.; Before 1832, only around 5% of adults could vote in British general elections.; Before the Reform Acts, some constituencies had MPs but only a handful of voters.; The Representation of the People Act, which extended voting rights, was passed in 1918.; Parliamentary seats with very few voters before 1832 were called rotten boroughs.; The 1867 (Second) Reform Act extended the male franchise to many urban working-class men.

The Second World War and the Holocaust

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Auschwitz-Birkenau: the largest Nazi extermination camp.
Auschwitz: the largest Nazi extermination camp, in occupied Poland, killing more than a million people.
Blitz: the German bombing of British cities (1940–41).
Holocaust: Nazi Germany's systematic state-sponsored murder of around six million European Jews.
Operation Barbarossa (June 1941): Germany's surprise invasion of the Soviet Union.
Operation Pied Piper: the codename for the mass evacuation of British city children to safer rural areas during WW2.
Operation Sea Lion: Germany's planned but ultimately cancelled invasion of Britain in 1940.
British cities: rationed during WW2 partly because German U-boats sank merchant ships carrying food and supplies across the Atlantic.
Wannsee Conference (January 1942): the meeting at which Nazi officials coordinated the Final Solution.; The Battle of Britain (1940) was fought mainly in the air between the RAF and the German Luftwaffe.; The sustained German bombing campaign against British cities was called the Blitz.; Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 because Germany invaded Poland despite British and French warnings to withdraw.; D-Day, the Allied landings in Normandy, took place on 6 June 1944.; In May–June 1940 the Dunkirk evacuation (Operation Dynamo) rescued British and Allied troops from the French port of Dunkirk.; Children were evacuated from cities to escape German bombing raids during WW2.; Children evacuated from British cities during WW2 were called evacuees.; The Nazi "Final Solution", agreed at the Wannsee Conference in 1942, was the plan to murder Europe's Jews.; Hitler took his own life in Berlin on 30 April 1945, before Germany formally surrendered on 8 May 1945 (VE Day).; The Holocaust, under Nazi policy, referred to the systematic murder of around 6 million Jewish people.; Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939; Britain and France declared war on 3 September 1939.; Rationing in WW2 was a scheme that limited how much food and other goods each person could buy.; In wartime Britain rationing imposed strict limits on food and goods per person.; The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–43) was a turning point because it halted the German advance into the USSR.; Germany surrendered in May 1945 (VE Day, 8 May 1945).; British women took on many roles in industry and the armed forces during WW2 (Land Army, ATS, WAAF, WRNS, munitions).; Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

Elizabethan England

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Elizabeth I's Privy Council: the advisory body that helped her make day-to-day decisions of government.
Religious Settlement: a Protestant Church of England with some Catholic features retained — a deliberate "middle way" compromise.
Sir Francis Walsingham: Elizabeth's principal spymaster.; Philip II of Spain launched the Armada in 1588 to overthrow Protestant Elizabeth and restore Catholicism in England.; The Armada failed because of storms, English fireships and English ship tactics.; Atlantic storms off Scotland and Ireland wrecked many Spanish ships during the Armada's retreat home around the north of Britain.; Elizabeth's navy defeated the Armada using smaller, faster ships and fireships to break the Spanish formation.; Spain launched the Armada against England in 1588.; The Babington Plot of 1586 was a conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth I in favour of Mary, Queen of Scots.; William Cecil (Lord Burghley) led Elizabeth I's Privy Council and ran her government as her most trusted minister for decades.; Francis Drake completed the first English circumnavigation of the globe (1577–80).; Francis Drake led English raids on Spanish treasure ships and ports.; Elizabeth I never married, using marriage as a diplomatic tool and keeping her political independence.; Elizabethan explorers founded England's first colonies in the Americas (notably the short-lived Roanoke / "Virginia").; In 1588 England defeated the Spanish Armada.; English exploration under Elizabeth I began England's overseas trade networks and early attempts at American colonies.; At Calais the English broke the Armada's defensive crescent formation by sending fire ships into the anchored Spanish fleet.; Mary, Queen of Scots posed a Catholic threat because Catholic plots aimed to depose Elizabeth and place Mary on the English throne.; Mary, Queen of Scots was executed in 1587 after being found guilty of plotting against Elizabeth I.; The Elizabethan Poor Laws provided local relief for the "deserving poor" and punished vagrants.; Elizabeth I famously declined to "make windows into men's souls"; in practice she tolerated private worship so long as people attended the official Church externally.; Walter Raleigh attempted to establish an English colony at Roanoke in the 1580s.; Sir Walter Raleigh founded the short-lived colony of "Virginia" in North America in the 1580s.; Catholics who refused to attend Anglican services were called recusants and faced heavy fines.; The Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559 re-established Protestantism as England's official religion under Elizabeth I.

The Industrial Revolution

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Coal: central to the Industrial Revolution because it fuelled the steam engines used in factories and on the railways.
1833 Factory Act: the first major law to limit child labour in British textile factories.
Industrial Revolution: the shift from hand-made goods made in homes to factory production using powered machines.
New industrial towns: crowded, polluted and had poor sanitation for ordinary workers.
James Watt: the Scottish engineer whose improved steam engine in the late 1700s transformed 18th-century industry.
Luddites: workers who smashed new factory machines in protest against mechanisation.
Steam engine: the key invention that powered Britain's industrial growth.
Steam: the new energy source that powered most 19th-century factories.; The 1848 cholera outbreak pushed Parliament toward public-health reform because polluted urban water supplies were spreading the disease.; 19th-century industrial cities were very unhealthy because overcrowding, poor sanitation and polluted water spread diseases like cholera.; Britain led the Industrial Revolution because coal, capital, colonies, canal networks and a stable government coincided.; Edmund Cartwright's power loom (1785) revolutionised cloth-making by mechanising weaving.; Edwin Chadwick's 1842 report on the labouring poor exposed slum overcrowding, poor sanitation and disease in industrial cities.; Young children worked long hours in 19th-century British factories and mines.; Vast quantities of coal were needed for steam power.; Factories concentrated workers and machines together in one building, replacing the dispersed domestic system.; Factory work replaced cottage industry by moving production from homes to large premises.; The 1833 Factory Act outlawed the employment of children under 9 in textile factories and limited hours for older children.; Industrialisation caused rapid urban growth and overcrowded cities with poor sanitation.; The Public Health Act 1875 required local councils to provide clean water and sewerage.; Public Health Acts in the mid-19th century forced cities to build sewers and clean-water systems.; The railway network revolutionised the movement of goods and people across 19th-century Britain.; The Stockton and Darlington Railway (1825) was the world's first public steam railway.; Britain's Industrial Revolution was led by the textile industry, especially cotton, mechanised in northern factory towns.; Trade unions slowly won the right to negotiate for workers over the 19th century.

Restoration and Glorious Revolution

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Charles II: restored to the English throne in 1660.
1688 revolution: called "Glorious" because monarchs changed with relatively little bloodshed in England.; The Bill of Rights made it illegal for a Catholic to become British monarch.; The 1689 Bill of Rights limited the monarch's powers and confirmed Parliament's authority.; The 1689 Bill of Rights established Parliament's supremacy over the monarch.; The Bill of Rights established Parliament's permanent role in lawmaking and set limits on royal power.; After 1689 monarchs needed Parliament's consent for taxation and could not maintain a standing army in peacetime.; The king restored to the English throne in 1660 was Charles II.; Power changed in 1688 with very little fighting on English soil — hence the label "Glorious".; The Glorious Revolution took place in 1688.; The Great Fire of London occurred in 1666.; The Great Fire destroyed much of London in September 1666.; The Great Fire of London began with an accidental fire in a bakery on Pudding Lane.; The Great Plague struck London in 1665.; Roughly 100,000 people died in the Great Plague of London (1665).; James II, the Catholic king, fled England in 1688 during the Glorious Revolution.; The Glorious Revolution followed an invitation issued by leading parliamentary figures to William of Orange.; Parliament invited William of Orange to replace the Catholic king James II.; The Plague of 1665 exposed poor sanitation and overcrowding in 17th-century English cities.; Theatre and Christmas celebrations returned to public life under Charles II.; Charles II reopened the theatres and brought back royal court culture after the Puritan Interregnum.; William of Orange and Mary II replaced James II as joint monarchs.; William of Orange invaded England in 1688, ending James II's reign.; Christopher Wren designed the new St Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire.

Empire and the slave trade

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Olaudah Equiano: a formerly enslaved African who wrote a famous autobiography about his experience.
Middle Passage: the forced shipping of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, the middle leg of the triangular trade.
Transatlantic slave trade: the forced transport of enslaved Africans to the Americas by European ships.
Sugar cane: the crop that drove demand for enslaved labour on Caribbean plantations.
William Wilberforce: the MP who led the parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade.; British ships transported roughly 3 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.; The British Empire reached its largest extent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.; By 1900, around a quarter of the world's land area was part of the British Empire.; Enslaved Africans worked mainly on plantations growing sugar, tobacco and cotton.; Enslaved Africans resisted in many ways: slowing work, sabotaging tools, and outright rebellion.; Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved African, wrote a famous 1789 autobiography that helped the abolition cause.; Liverpool and Bristol were two English ports that grew wealthy from the slave trade.; Liverpool grew rich on the slave trade during the 1700s, becoming the dominant European slaving port by the late 18th century.; Millions of Africans died during the Middle Passage and on plantations.; The brutal Atlantic crossing endured by enslaved Africans was called the Middle Passage.; The late-19th-century race for European powers to claim African territory was known as the Scramble for Africa.; The 1807 Slave Trade Act abolished the trafficking of enslaved people in the British Empire, but not slavery itself.; Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act in 1807.; Slavery itself across the British Empire was abolished by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, taking effect in 1834 (26 years after the slave trade was abolished).; The 1833 Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery itself across the British Empire (taking effect 1834).; Under the triangular trade, manufactured goods went to Africa, enslaved Africans to the Americas, and plantation produce (sugar, tobacco, cotton) back to Britain.; The triangular trade had three legs: Britain → Africa → Americas → Britain.; William Wilberforce led the parliamentary campaign against the slave trade for nearly twenty years until the Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807.

End of empire and decolonisation

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Commonwealth: a voluntary association of mostly former British colonies that cooperate voluntarily.
Decolonisation: the process by which colonies became independent of their former rulers.
Partition: followed by mass violence and migration because religious communities ended up on the "wrong" side of the new borders.
Suez: conventionally described as a national humiliation that exposed Britain's reduced global power after 1945.; Most African colonies gained independence from European powers during the late 1950s and 1960s, with 1960 itself known as the "Year of Africa".; The Commonwealth of Nations is a voluntary association made up largely of former British colonies; it is not an economic, military, or religious union.; Mahatma Gandhi led the non-violent Indian independence movement against British rule.; In 1947 India gained independence from Britain.; In 1947 India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain.; The 1947 Partition of British India created the independent states of India and Pakistan and triggered mass cross-border migration and violence — the first major step in Britain's post-war decolonisation.; Muhammad Ali Jinnah led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first leader at Partition.; The 1960 "Wind of Change" speech was delivered by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in Cape Town.; Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company in July 1956, triggering the Suez Crisis.; The Partition of India displaced more than 10 million people in 1947.; Roughly 14 million people moved during Partition, the largest mass migration of the 20th century.; The Partition of India in 1947 was the splitting of British India into independent India and Pakistan, causing mass migration.; Partition caused mass migration and millions of deaths.; At Partition in 1947 British India was split into India and Pakistan.; The 1947 Partition of India created two countries: India and Pakistan.; Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt in late October–November 1956 to seize the canal after Nasser's nationalisation.; US President Eisenhower used financial pressure (including threats to sterling via the IMF) to force the three invading powers to withdraw without their political objectives.; The Suez Crisis took place in 1956.; Macmillan's speech signalled that Britain accepted African nationalism was unstoppable and that African colonies would gain independence.

The First World War

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Poison gas: first used as a major weapon during the First World War.
Poison gas: used by both sides during the First World War.
Trenches: wet, cold and dangerous, and were infested with rats and lice.; WW1 fighting ended with the armistice at 11:00 on 11 November 1918.; Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, triggering the chain of events that led to WW1.; After WW1 Germany was forced to drastically reduce the size of its army and navy under the Treaty of Versailles.; Germany first used poison gas as a major weapon at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915.; Machine guns and barbed wire made infantry attacks extremely costly and produced the Western Front stalemate.; The four main causes of WW1 are summarised by the acronym MAIN: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism.; No man's land was the muddy, wire-strewn, cratered strip between opposing front-line trenches.; At the Battle of the Somme (1916) British forces suffered roughly 57,000 casualties on the first day, including nearly 20,000 killed.; The Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916) was the bloodiest day in British military history, with roughly 57,000 casualties on the first day.; The British first used the tank in mass at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.; The Triple Entente opposed the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and their allies) during WW1.; In 1914 two alliance systems faced off: the Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy).; The 1919 Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to accept blame, pay heavy reparations, lose territory and limit its armed forces.; The Treaty of Versailles angered Germans because it blamed Germany solely and demanded huge reparations.; Many historians argue that the punitive Treaty of Versailles helped create the conditions for the Second World War.; Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles is the famous "War Guilt clause" that made Germany accept blame for causing the war.; The continuous line of trenches running through France and Belgium was called the Western Front.; The Western Front became a stalemate because machine guns and barbed wire made attacks extremely costly and gains tiny.; The First World War began in 1914.

English Civil Wars

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Cavaliers: King Charles I's supporters during the Civil War.
Charles I: executed in London on 30 January 1649.
Civil Wars: fought over the rival claims of king and Parliament to political and religious authority.
Oliver Cromwell: a senior commander of the New Model Army, serving as Lieutenant-General of horse under its commander-in-chief Sir Thomas Fairfax.
Roundheads: supporters of Parliament against King Charles I.; Charles I's quarrels with Parliament over taxation, religion, and royal prerogative triggered the conflict.; The English Civil War broke out in 1642.; The two sides were the Royalists (Cavaliers), who supported the king, and the Parliamentarians (Roundheads), who supported Parliament.; Immediately after Charles I's execution, the Rump Parliament abolished the monarchy and declared England a Commonwealth (republic).; Cromwell's Puritan regime is conventionally said to have banned both Christmas celebrations and theatre performances.; Oliver Cromwell ruled England as Lord Protector during the Interregnum.; Cromwell took the title Lord Protector in December 1653.; During the Interregnum England had no king and was technically a republic, formally the Commonwealth of England.; The period from Charles I's execution in 1649 to the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 is called the Interregnum.; The Battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644) was a major Parliamentarian victory in which the New Model Army's precursor forces broke Royalist power in the north.; The Battle of Naseby (14 June 1645) was the decisive Parliamentarian victory that destroyed the main Royalist field army for good.; Parliament's New Model Army (formed 1645) was the first national, full-time professional army in English history.; Charles I ruled without summoning Parliament from 1629 to 1640 (the "Personal Rule") because he disagreed with MPs over taxation and religion.; Puritans, who dominated the Interregnum government, banned the observance of Christmas as too "Catholic".; Cromwell's regime kept Parliament's 1642 closure of London theatres in force throughout the Interregnum.; The king executed in 1649 after the Civil Wars was Charles I.

Welfare state and post-war Britain

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National Health Service (NHS): founded in 1948.
NHS: founded on the principle of being free at the point of use, available to all citizens.; The 1944 Education Act introduced free secondary education and selection by the 11-plus exam.; The 1944 Education Act (Butler Act) introduced free secondary education in England and Wales.; The 1944 Education Act raised the school-leaving age to 15 and guaranteed free secondary education to that age.; The post-war Labour government under Clement Attlee (1945–1951) nationalised industries and created the NHS.; The Attlee government nationalised major industries including coal, railways, steel, gas (and the Bank of England).; Aneurin (Nye) Bevan, Minister of Health, led the founding of the NHS in 1948.; William Beveridge wrote the 1942 report that became the basis of the welfare state.; Beveridge identified five "giants" to defeat: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.; The 1942 Beveridge Report proposed a welfare state tackling want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.; The Beveridge Report on social insurance and welfare was published in 1942.; Coal mines and railways were among the industries the Attlee government brought under state ownership.; After 1945 Britain built large numbers of new council houses, which helped clear bomb-damaged slums and modernise British cities.; Children were allocated to grammar / secondary modern / technical schools by the 11-plus selection exam.; Labour's post-war housing programme aimed to build around 200,000 homes per year.; "Nationalisation" meant bringing major industries (such as coal, rail and steel) into state ownership.; The NHS Act passed Parliament in 1946 and the service launched on 5 July 1948.; The National Health Service was founded on 5 July 1948 by Health Minister Aneurin Bevan — free at the point of use, funded by general taxation.; Mass-produced prefabricated houses ("prefabs"), often built with steel frames and concrete, helped solve the post-war housing shortage.; The 1944 Act created three types of state secondary school: grammar, secondary modern and technical.

Women's suffrage and rights

Practise Women's suffrage and rights →Practise →

Suffragettes: women campaigning for the right to vote, often using direct action.
Margaret Thatcher: elected in 1979 to become Britain's first female Prime Minister.; The 1979 general election produced Britain's first female Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher).; The 1968 Ford Dagenham machinists' strike helped push the Equal Pay Act through Parliament.; The suffragettes adopted the slogan "Deeds, not words" to summarise their tactics.; Emily Davison died in 1913 after stepping in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby.; The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 gave all British women aged 21 and over the vote on the same terms as men.; The Equal Pay Act 1970 required equal pay for men and women doing the same work.; The Equal Pay Act became law in 1970.; The Equal Pay Act required equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex.; Some British women first won the right to vote in 1918.; Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903.; Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903 — the militant organisation whose wartime stand-down preceded the 1918 franchise.; The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave the parliamentary vote to women aged 30 and over, with property qualifications.; The 1918 Representation of the People Act let some women over 30 vote.; The 1975 Sex Discrimination Act prohibited discrimination on grounds of sex in jobs and education.; Suffragette direct action included arson and hunger strikes.; Militant suffragette tactics included smashing windows, hunger strikes and chaining themselves to railings.; British women's wartime work in WW1 helped strengthen the case for giving women the vote.; During WW1, British women took on roles previously male-only, including munitions work, agriculture and public transport.; Women in WW1 worked in munitions, transport, farming and nursing.

Magna Carta and Parliament

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Magna Carta (1215): the foundation document of barons-king-parliament relations — it forced King John to agree that the king couldn't tax without consultation.
Simon de Montfort: a baron who summoned the 1265 parliament that included commoners during his rebellion against Henry III.
Simon de Montfort: widely described in school history as the founder of the English Parliament because of the inclusive 1265 assembly.
Magna Carta: sealed at Runnymede, a meadow on the River Thames in Surrey.
Edward I's 1295 assembly: conventionally known as the "Model Parliament" because later parliaments followed its composition (lords, clergy, knights, burgesses).; Clause 39 — "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned … except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land" — is the foundation of due-process rights in English law.; The barons rebelled in part because John raised heavy taxes after losing wars in France (notably the loss of Normandy in 1204).; By the 14th century, English Parliament had split into two houses: the Lords (nobles and bishops) and the Commons (knights of the shire and burgesses from towns).; Pope Innocent III annulled Magna Carta by papal bull within months of its sealing (24 August 1215), reigniting the war between John and his barons.; Clause 39 promised that no free man could be imprisoned or seized without the lawful judgement of his equals — the textual root of trial by jury and due process.; Rebellious English barons forced King John to seal Magna Carta, demanding limits on royal abuses of power and heavy taxation.; Magna Carta established the principle that the king himself is subject to the law — the English root of the rule of law.; Magna Carta limited the power of the king by requiring him to follow agreed laws.; Magna Carta originally protected the rights of free men — primarily the barons — not all English subjects equally; unfree peasants (villeins) were largely excluded.; King John sealed Magna Carta in 1215.; Edward I summoned the Model Parliament in November 1295, the assembly traditionally treated as the prototype of fully representative English parliaments.; Simon de Montfort's parliament of January 1265 was the first English assembly to include knights of the shire and burgesses (townsmen) alongside barons and bishops.; Parliament's main lever over the king was the power to grant or refuse new taxes — a power barons used repeatedly to extract concessions.; Medieval parliaments developed in large part because kings needed the barons' (and later the commons') consent to raise new, extraordinary taxes.; The 1258 Provisions of Oxford built on Magna Carta by demanding regular meetings of barons and bishops to advise the king.

Medieval Church and Crown

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Becket: canonised a saint by Pope Alexander III in 1173, three years after his murder; his shrine at Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site.
Becket: murdered inside Canterbury Cathedral.
Excommunication: the formal act of cutting a person off from the Church by the Pope or a bishop — a powerful political weapon against medieval kings.
Roman Catholic Church: the dominant Christian denomination in medieval England before the Reformation.
Monasteries: major centres of learning and farming in medieval Britain.
Pilgrimage: a long journey to a holy site.; Becket defended the jurisdiction and authority of the Church courts against Henry II's attempt to bring clergy under royal courts.; Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 by knights of King Henry II.; The archbishop murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 was Thomas Becket.; Medieval church services and the Bible were in Latin, which most ordinary people could not read.; Most medieval Christians believed in heaven, hell, and purgatory as the three possible destinations after death.; A major cause of the Henry II / Becket conflict was whether clergy accused of crimes faced royal or Church courts (the "criminous clerks" / benefit of clergy dispute).; Henry II did public penance at Canterbury Cathedral in 1174 in expiation for Becket's murder.; Medieval kings often clashed with the Church because both claimed authority over land, law, and people's loyalty.; Medieval monasteries provided learning, manuscript copying, and care for the sick, alongside worship.; Most medieval villages had a parish church at their centre, and the priest played a central social role in village life.; A parish priest's main duties were conducting Mass and the sacraments — baptism, marriage, and last rites.; Medieval pilgrims walked to shrines such as Canterbury and Walsingham to seek blessings, healing, forgiveness, or to fulfil a religious vow.; The Pope's power to excommunicate kings gave the medieval Church enormous political leverage over Christian rulers.; Peasants paid the local church a tithe — a tax of one tenth (10%) of their produce.

Tudor Reformation

Practise Tudor Reformation →Practise →

Sir Thomas More: executed in 1535 for refusing to accept Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church.; The Act of Supremacy (1534) declared Henry VIII the "Supreme Head" of the Church of England — finalising the Break with Rome.; The 1534 Act of Supremacy made Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church of England.; The Act of Supremacy was passed in 1534.; Mary I earned the nickname "Bloody Mary" for burning Protestants at the stake.; Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church because the Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.; The break with Rome went beyond Henry's personal annulment dispute because it made the Crown supreme over English religious life.; Henry VIII sought to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, his first wife and a Spanish princess.; Thomas Cromwell, as Henry's chief minister after Wolsey's fall, led the Reformation administratively and drove the legislative break with Rome.; The dissolution of the monasteries (1536–41) was Henry VIII's closure of English monasteries and seizure of their lands and wealth.; Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries for wealth, land, and Reformation politics (asserting royal supremacy over the Church).; The dissolution transferred huge wealth from the monasteries to the English Crown.; Much of the dissolved monastic land was sold by the Crown to its supporters and the gentry, binding them to the Reformation settlement.; Elizabeth I returned England to Protestantism after Mary's reign through the 1559 Religious Settlement.; During the Reformation an English Bible was translated and made widely available (notably the Great Bible of 1539, placed in every parish church).; Around 280 Protestants were burned at the stake during Mary I's reign.; Mary I (reigned 1553–1558) tried to restore Catholicism in England.; The Pilgrimage of Grace (1536) was a major northern rebellion protesting against the dissolution of the monasteries.; Cardinal Reginald Pole, papal legate and Archbishop of Canterbury, advised Mary I and rebuilt links between England and the papacy.; Cardinal Thomas Wolsey failed to secure the Pope's annulment of Henry's marriage and fell from power.

20th-century USA

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US Civil Rights movement: a struggle to end racial segregation and gain civil rights for Black Americans.
New Deal's slogan: the "Three Rs": Relief, Recovery, and Reform.; In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that school segregation was unconstitutional.; The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination in public places and schools across the United States.; The Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s worsened the Depression across the American Midwest, displacing farming families.; Franklin D. Roosevelt became US President in 1933 and launched the New Deal as his programme to fight unemployment after the Depression.; The Great Depression of the 1930s was a worldwide economic crisis triggered by the 1929 Wall Street Crash.; "Hoovervilles" were shanty towns built by homeless unemployed Americans during the Depression, named mockingly after President Hoover.; The March on Washington in August 1963 ended with Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.; Martin Luther King Jr. led the non-violent civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.; The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–56 was an Alabama protest against racial segregation on the city's buses.; In 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama.; Segregation in the southern United States was a system of laws separating Black and white Americans in schools, transport and public places.; The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), established in 1933, built dams and brought electricity to rural Americans across the Tennessee Valley.; Unemployment in the United States peaked at around 25% during the Great Depression.; The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned racial discrimination in voting across the USA.; The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 triggered the Great Depression in the United States.; The Wall Street Crash happened in 1929.

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