Cambridge IAL History flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Mutilated victory

Italian nationalist grievance after the First World War that Italy had been denied the territorial gains promised in the 1915 Treaty of London, fuelling resentment and support for fascism.

March on Rome

October 1922 mass fascist demonstration that pressured the king into appointing Mussolini prime minister, giving fascism power through legal form combined with paramilitary intimidation.

Acerbo Law

1923 Italian electoral law granting the largest party two-thirds of seats, which helped Mussolini secure a parliamentary majority after the 1924 election and consolidate power.

Hyperinflation of 1923

German currency collapse triggered by passive resistance in the Ruhr and printing of money; it destroyed savings, aided extremist politics, and was ended by the Rentenmark and Dawes Plan.

Enabling Act 1933

German law allowing the government to legislate without the Reichstag for four years, passed after the Reichstag Fire and arrests of communist deputies, forming the legal basis of dictatorship.

Collectivization

Stalin's policy from 1929 of merging peasant farms into collective farms, accompanied by dekulakization and requisitioning, which caused famine and massive rural suffering.

League Council

Executive body of the League of Nations with permanent great-power members holding veto rights; its inability to enforce decisions against major states exposed collective security's weakness.

Manchurian Crisis

1931 Japanese seizure of Manchuria after the Mukden Incident; the League condemned Japan but imposed no effective sanctions, and Japan left the League in 1933.

Abyssinian Crisis

1935–36 Italian invasion of Ethiopia; League sanctions excluded oil and the Suez Canal, demonstrating great-power reluctance and discrediting collective security before the Second World War.

Article 231

Versailles treaty clause assigning responsibility for war damage to Germany, providing the legal basis for reparations and fuelling German grievance and demands for treaty revision.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

1928 agreement renouncing war as an instrument of national policy, signed by many states but lacking enforcement mechanisms, illustrating goodwill without effective collective security.

Appeasement

Policy of conceding to aggressive demands to avoid war, associated with British and French concessions to Hitler; debated for responding to real constraints while encouraging further demands.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

1930 US tariff raising duties on imports, which provoked retaliation and contracted international trade, worsening the Depression and illustrating how domestic politics damaged global recovery.

New Deal relief recovery reform

Three criteria for assessing Roosevelt's programme: immediate help for the unemployed, economic restoration, and lasting institutional change such as Social Security and banking regulation.

Wagner Act 1935

US National Labor Relations Act guaranteeing workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively, establishing the National Labor Relations Board and marking a major reform of the Second New Deal.

Court-packing plan

1937 Roosevelt proposal to add justices to the Supreme Court after rulings struck down New Deal laws; it failed but coincided with the Court's shift toward upholding regulation.

Lend-Lease Act

1941 US law allowing supply of war material to nations fighting the Axis, ending strict neutrality and marking growing American commitment to the Allied cause before formal entry.

Scopes Trial

1925 Tennessee case over teaching evolution, symbolizing the cultural conflict of the 1920s between rural religious traditionalism and urban modernism, widely reported by national media.

Berlin Blockade

1948–49 Soviet closure of land routes to West Berlin, answered by the Western airlift; it ended in Soviet failure and accelerated the division of Germany and Europe.

Brezhnev Doctrine

Soviet doctrine asserting the right to intervene in socialist states to defend socialism, used to justify the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and abandoned by Gorbachev in the late 1980s.

Glasnost

Gorbachev's policy of openness and greater freedom of information from 1986, which exposed Soviet problems and weakened the legitimacy of party rule rather than strengthening reform.

Perestroika

Gorbachev's programme of economic and political restructuring from 1985, intended to modernize the Soviet system but which destabilized party authority and contributed to the USSR's collapse.

Treaty of Rome

1957 agreement establishing the European Economic Community among six states, creating a common market and institutions that advanced European integration beyond coal and steel cooperation.

Hungarian Uprising 1956

Revolt against Soviet control under Nagy, crushed by Soviet forces; it demonstrated the limits of de-Stalinization and confirmed that bloc membership was not negotiable.

Inchon landing

September 1950 UN amphibious operation behind North Korean lines that reversed the Korean War's course, prompting Chinese intervention after UN forces approached the Yalu River.

Dien Bien Phu

1954 French defeat in Vietnam that ended colonial rule, leading to the Geneva Accords partitioning Vietnam at the 17th parallel and setting the stage for US involvement.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

1964 US congressional resolution authorizing military action in Vietnam after reported attacks on US ships, functioning as a broad mandate for escalation without a formal declaration of war.

Tet Offensive

1968 coordinated North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attacks across South Vietnam; a military failure but a political shock that eroded US public support and credibility.

SEATO

1954 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization formed to contain communism, illustrating alliance-building in Asia; it proved weak and dissolved in 1977 after member disengagement.

Brown v. Board

1954 Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning Plessy and providing legal momentum for the civil rights movement.

Voting Rights Act

1965 US law banning discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests, enabling federal oversight of elections and sharply increasing Black voter registration in the South.

War Powers Act

1973 US law requiring congressional notification and approval for sustained military action, passed over Nixon's veto as a reaction to undeclared wars in Korea and Vietnam.