GCE A/L History flashcards

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

Primary source

Material produced during the period under study by a participant or contemporary witness, such as inscriptions, coins, ola manuscripts or official records. It is analysed before later interpretations are consulted.

Internal criticism

Assessment of a source's content after authenticity is established: weighing the author's competence, bias, purpose and whether claims are corroborated by independent evidence.

Mahavamsa chronicle

Pali-language dynastic chronicle of Sri Lanka compiled around the fifth or sixth century CE, attributed to Mahanama. It is a key but religiously motivated source for ancient history.

Brahmi cave inscriptions

Early historic Sri Lankan inscriptions, mostly from around the third century BCE, recording donations of caves to the Buddhist monastic community. They provide the earliest written evidence of local society.

Balangoda Man

Late Pleistocene human remains found in Sri Lankan caves such as Fa-Hien Lena and Belilena, associated with microlithic stone tools and hunting-gathering lifeways.

Iron Age Sri Lanka

Protohistoric phase before written records, marked by iron tools, early rice cultivation and burial sites such as Ibbankatuwa, showing emerging social ranking and exchange.

Vijaya legend

Origin myth in the Mahavamsa describing the founding of the Sinhala dynasty by a prince from northern India. Historians treat it as ideology of legitimacy rather than plain record.

Hydraulic kingship

Model of ancient Sri Lankan royal authority resting on control of irrigation, tank and canal construction, and distribution of water, which underpinned dry-zone agriculture and state power.

Dutugemunu

Anuradhapura ruler credited in the chronicles with defeating the South Indian king Elara and unifying the island, and with major religious and irrigation patronage.

Parakramabahu I

Twelfth-century Polonnaruwa king remembered for large irrigation works, military campaigns and monastic reform, and as a model of the ideal Buddhist ruler.

Rajakariya

System of compulsory service to the king or state, often tied to land and caste, which colonial administrations later reformed or abolished. It structured pre-colonial labour obligations.

Kandyan Convention 1815

Agreement by which the Kandyan kingdom came under British rule, promising to protect Buddhism and traditional institutions. It completed British control of the whole island.

Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms

1833 reforms creating unified administration, a Legislative Council and English-based schooling, and reshaping land and legal systems under British colonial rule.

Roman-Dutch law

Legal system introduced by the Dutch and retained by the British in Ceylon, forming the basis of Sri Lankan civil law alongside customary Kandyan and later statute law.

Donoughmore Constitution

1931 constitution introducing universal adult suffrage and a ministerial system in Ceylon, widening political participation and preparing the ground for later constitutional change.

Sinhala Only Act 1956

Law making Sinhala the sole official language of Ceylon, displacing English. It provoked Tamil protest and became a central grievance in later ethnic conflict.

Ceylon National Congress

Political organisation founded in 1919 to demand constitutional reform and greater representation, marking the emergence of organised nationalist politics in colonial Ceylon.

Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact

1957 agreement between the prime minister and Tamil leader on language, devolution and resettlement, intended to address Tamil grievances but never implemented.

1971 JVP insurrection

Armed Marxist-Leninist uprising by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, mainly by unemployed youth, suppressed by the state with foreign military assistance.

Hammurabi's Code

Babylonian legal compilation of the eighteenth century BCE setting out penalties and social rules. It is a key source for Mesopotamian law and social hierarchy.

Indus Valley civilisation

Bronze Age urban culture of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, known for planned cities, drainage, seals and an undeciphered script, linked to Mesopotamian trade.

Mandate of Heaven

Chinese political doctrine holding that rulers govern with divine approval, which is withdrawn when they misrule. It justified dynastic change from the Zhou onwards.

Athenian democracy

System of citizen self-government in classical Athens, with assembly, council and juries, though excluding women, slaves and foreigners from political rights.

Factory system

Industrial organisation concentrating workers and machines in one workplace under supervision, replacing domestic production and shaping new class relations and urban growth.

Treaty of Versailles

1919 settlement ending World War I, imposing reparations and territorial losses on Germany and redrawing European borders. Its terms fuelled later resentment and instability.

Russian Revolution 1917

Upheaval that overthrew the tsarist regime and brought the Bolsheviks to power, creating the first communist state and reshaping twentieth-century international politics.

Causes of World War I

Combination of alliance blocs, militarism, imperial rivalry, Balkan nationalism and the Sarajevo assassination, which turned a regional crisis into a general European war.

Containment

Cold War strategy of the United States to limit the spread of Soviet influence through alliances, aid and military commitments, shaping conflicts from Korea to Vietnam.

Non-Aligned Movement

Grouping of newly independent states, emerging from the 1955 Bandung conference and formalised in 1961, seeking independence from both Cold War blocs.

Year of Africa

1960, when seventeen African countries gained independence from European rule, accelerating decolonisation and changing the balance of the United Nations.

Cuban Missile Crisis

1962 confrontation over Soviet missiles in Cuba, bringing the United States and Soviet Union close to nuclear war and prompting later arms-control efforts.

Collapse of the Soviet Union

1991 dissolution of the USSR into independent states, ending the bipolar Cold War order and reshaping global politics, alliances and economic relations.