A guide to the language of history
History glossary
Understand the people, places and ideas behind the stories. Find a term, read its meaning, then explore it in context.
253–288 of 797 terms
Führer
the German word for leader, used by the Nazi regime as Hitler's supreme political title.
Gang of Four
the radical Maoist faction arrested after Mao's death and blamed for many Cultural Revolution abuses.
garrison
a group of soldiers stationed to defend a fort, town, or other military position.
Gas chambers
rooms or sealed spaces used by Nazi Germany and its collaborators for mass murder during the Holocaust.
Genocide
the intentional attempt to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Gentiles
non-Jewish peoples in Jewish and early Christian usage.
German Labour Front
the Nazi organisation that replaced independent German trade unions in 1933.
German Workers' Party
the small Munich nationalist party Hitler joined in 1919 before it became the Nazi Party.
ghettos
sealed urban districts where Nazi authorities forced Jews to live in isolation, overcrowding, hunger, and disease.
Glasnost
Gorbachev's policy of greater openness in Soviet public life and debate.
Gleichschaltung
the Nazi process of bringing German institutions under party control.
Globalisation
the growing connection of economies, cultures, politics, and people across the world.
globalization
the growing integration of economies, cultures, technologies, and politics across borders.
Gold Beach
the British D-Day landing beach between Omaha and Juno.
Gospel
the Christian message of good news about Jesus, or the written accounts of his life.
Goths
Germanic-speaking peoples who interacted with Rome as enemies, refugees, soldiers, settlers, and rulers in late antiquity.
Government of National Unity
the post-1994 coalition government formed after South Africa's first democratic election.
Great Leap Forward
Mao's 1958-1962 campaign to rapidly transform agriculture and industry through mass mobilization.
Great Schism
the formal break associated with 1054 between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
Japan's wartime vision of a Japanese-dominated order in Asia.
Griot
A West African oral historian, performer and keeper of social memory.
Group Areas Act
the 1950 apartheid law used to assign residential and business areas by race.
guerrilla warfare
irregular warfare using mobility, local knowledge, ambushes, and political support.
Gulag
the Soviet system of forced labor camps used for punishment, repression, and economic extraction.
gunboat diplomacy
the use or threat of naval force to pressure another state into diplomatic concessions.
Gutenberg's press
Johannes Gutenberg's movable-type printing press, demonstrated in the 1450s, that transformed book production in Europe.
Hammurabi's Code
the famous Babylonian law collection issued by King Hammurabi in the eighteenth century BCE.
Harappan
relating to the Indus Valley civilisation, named after the city of Harappa.
Hawker Hurricane
a rugged British fighter aircraft that carried much of RAF Fighter Command’s combat burden in 1940.
Heliocentrism
the model that places the Sun, rather than Earth, near the center of the planetary system.
Hellenistic World
the Greek-influenced world that spread across the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia after Alexander the Great.
hereditary
passed down through family inheritance, usually within a ruling house, noble lineage or office-holding family.
heretic
a person judged by a religious authority to hold beliefs contrary to accepted doctrine.
hieroglyphics
the formal writing system used in ancient Egypt for sacred, royal, and monumental texts.
Hijra
Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina in 622.
hillfort
a defended settlement or enclosure, often on high ground, associated with parts of Iron Age Europe.
