Secondary 2 History

Certificates sold by the Church, said to reduce punishment in purgatory; sold on a mass scale from 1515 to fund St Peter's Basilica, they triggered the Reformation.

The 1517 list of debate points Luther posted on the Wittenberg Castle Church door, attacking indulgences — the start of the Reformation.

Luther's core teaching: people are saved through faith in God, not through money, good works or church rituals.

The claim that the Bible is the only final authority in faith — popes and church tradition stand beneath it.

Professor of theology at Wittenberg who launched the Reformation with the Ninety-five Theses (1517) and translated the Bible into German.

The 1521 assembly of the Holy Roman Empire where Luther refused to withdraw his teaching, sealing the break with Rome.

The Church's heaviest penalty, cutting a person off from the sacraments; Pope Leo X imposed it on Luther in 1521.

In Catholic teaching, where souls are purified after death; indulgences claimed to shorten the suffering there.

Gutenberg's movable-type printing (c. 1450); it spread the Ninety-five Theses across Germany in two weeks and was the key to the rapid spread of reform ideas.

The churches that followed Luther, Calvin and other reformers and broke from Rome; the name comes from the princes who 'protested' a ban at the 1529 Diet of Speyer.

French reformer, author of the Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), who from 1541 turned Geneva into a reformed city where church and state worked as one, teaching predestination.

Calvin's key doctrine that God has already chosen who will be saved; the faithful showed their election through diligence and discipline.

England's national church, established when Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534 with the king as its supreme head; Elizabeth I later set its moderate doctrine.

The 1534 Act of Parliament declaring the English king supreme head of the Church of England, rejecting papal authority in England.

The Catholic Church's self-reform and counter-attack: the Council of Trent cleaned up abuses and restated doctrine, while the Jesuits taught and missioned, winning back ground.

The Catholic council of 1545–1563 that reaffirmed doctrine, banned the sale of offices and indulgence abuses, and set up seminaries — the programme of Catholic reform.

The order founded by Ignatius Loyola and approved in 1540, famed for strict training, schools and overseas missions that carried Catholicism to Asia and the Americas.

Henry IV of France's 1598 edict granting the Huguenots freedom of worship — a major step towards toleration; revoked by Louis XIV in 1685.

The war of 1618–1648 that grew from a German religious conflict into a Europe-wide struggle with terrible losses, ending with the Peace of Westphalia.

The 1648 peace ending the Thirty Years' War: it recognised the Protestant states, built the system of sovereign states, and made toleration a growing norm.

The transformation of European learning in the 1500s–1600s, replacing ancient authority with observation, experiment and mathematics — from Copernicus's heliocentrism to Newtonian mechanics.

The theory that the sun lies at the centre with Earth and the planets orbiting it, proposed systematically in Copernicus's On the Revolutions (1543).

Ptolemy's model, orthodox through the Middle Ages: a fixed Earth at the centre with sun, moon and stars circling it.

Polish astronomer whose On the Revolutions (1543), published as he lay dying, proposed heliocentrism — the usual starting point of the Scientific Revolution.

Italian scientist who from 1609 used a telescope to find Jupiter's moons and Venus's phases, supporting heliocentrism; tried by the Inquisition in 1633, he died under house arrest in 1642.

English scientist whose Principia (1687) stated the law of universal gravitation and three laws of motion; he also invented calculus independently of Leibniz.

Newton's law that any two bodies attract each other, the force growing with mass and shrinking with the square of distance — one law for heaven and earth.

The procedure of observation, hypothesis, experiment and revision — urged by Bacon and Descartes and demonstrated by Galileo.

The English scientific society founded in 1660, publishing papers and testing claims by experiment — science organised as an institution.

The optical instrument that appeared in the Netherlands around 1608; Galileo improved one and turned it to the sky, bringing unseen heavenly evidence to human eyes.

The European movement of the 1600s–1700s that used reason to criticise old regimes and superstition, upholding liberty, equality and natural rights.

The capacity to think and judge by logic and evidence; Enlightenment thinkers made it, rather than tradition, authority or superstition, the test of truth.

Locke's teaching that people are born with rights to life, liberty and property — granted neither by governments nor laws, which therefore may not violate them.

The unwritten bargain between state and people: government rests on the people's consent, and if it breaks faith they may replace it.

French Enlightenment writer who attacked religious persecution and judicial injustice and championed free speech and toleration.

French thinker whose The Spirit of the Laws (1748) proposed separating and balancing executive, legislative and judicial power against despotism, shaping the US Constitution.

Dividing executive, legislative and judicial power among separate organs that check one another, so no one can monopolise power.

French Enlightenment thinker whose The Social Contract (1762) taught popular sovereignty: 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.'

The principle that the people are the final source of political power; governments merely act on the general will and lose legitimacy when they betray it.

The great reference work edited by Diderot and published from 1751, gathering Enlightenment knowledge and criticising the old order — a Europe-wide bestseller.

The colonists' slogan: since the colonies had no seats in Parliament, Parliament had no right to tax them.

The 1765 act taxing every paper document with a stamped duty; boycotted by the colonies, repealed in 1766.

In December 1773 the 'Sons of Liberty', disguised as Native Americans, dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston harbour against the tea tax and the East India Company monopoly.

Britain's 1774 reprisals for the Tea Party — Boston's port closed, Massachusetts' self-rule curtailed — which united the colonies instead.

Adopted 4 July 1776, drafted by Jefferson: all men created equal, with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, government resting on the consent of the governed.

Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army who led the war to victory; first president of the United States from 1789.

The American victory of 1777 that persuaded France to enter the war openly — the turning point of the revolution.

The 1781 siege where the allied American-French army trapped Cornwallis, whose surrender effectively ended the war.

Drafted 1787, in force 1789: federalism plus separated, mutually checking powers — the world's first written federal constitution.

The first ten amendments (1791) protecting speech, faith, assembly and other personal freedoms.

The consultative assembly of the three estates, unsummoned since 1614; Louis XVI had to recall it in May 1789, and it became the revolution's starting point.

The assembly the Third Estate declared itself in June 1789, vowing not to disperse until France had a constitution and claiming to speak for the nation.

On 20 June 1789, locked out of their hall, the deputies swore in a Versailles tennis court not to disperse until a constitution was made.

On 14 July 1789 the Paris crowd stormed the Bastille, the fortress of royal despotism — the revolution's outbreak; the date is France's national day.

Adopted August 1789: people born free and equal in rights, sovereignty in the nation, equality before the law, property inviolable.

Bourbon king of France whose Estates-General triggered the revolution; deposed in 1792 and executed in January 1793.

Robespierre's rule in 1793–94, executing 'enemies of the revolution' in droves — some 17,000 died by the guillotine.

Leader of the Jacobins and core of the Committee of Public Safety, master of the Terror; guillotined in the Thermidorian coup of 1794.

The execution machine adopted by the revolution and made the emblem of the Terror; both Louis XVI and Robespierre died beneath it.

The July 1794 coup in the Convention that toppled Robespierre, ending the Terror and swinging policy conservative.

French soldier and statesman (1769–1821): seized power by the coup of 18 Brumaire (1799), crowned emperor in 1804, issued the Napoleonic Code, and fell at Waterloo in 1815.

The supreme executive office Napoleon took after the 1799 coup, holding real power; made consul for life in 1802.

The Civil Code of 1804: equality before the law, protected private property, no return of feudal privilege — the model for civil law worldwide.

The 'battle of three emperors' (1805), where Napoleon crushed the Austro-Russian armies at the height of his generalship.

The blockade from 1806 banning continental trade with Britain to defeat her economically; it wounded Europe more than England.

The roughly hundred days in 1815 from Napoleon's return from Elba to his final defeat at Waterloo.

The battle of 18 June 1815 where Napoleon fell to the allied armies of Wellington and Blücher, ending his rule for good.

The victors' congress of 1814–15, under Metternich, rebuilding Europe on balance of power and legitimacy.

The diplomatic principle of preventing any one state from dominating by keeping the great powers in mutual check — the keystone of the Vienna order.

The consciousness of belonging to a nation and seeking its independence or unity; Napoleon's conquests woke it across Europe, powering the century's revolutions.

The transformation from about the 1760s from hand production to machines and factories, beginning in Britain and carrying humanity into the industrial age.

Landowners fencing common fields into large farms and pasture; output rose while displaced peasants moved to towns as workers.

Gathering machines and workers under one roof on clock discipline, replacing cottage industry and creating the industrial working class.

John Kay's 1733 device doubling weaving speed and leaving spinners behind — the first domino of textile innovation.

Hargreaves' hand-powered spinning machine (c. 1764), letting one worker spin eight threads at once, later more — a leap in yarn output.

Arkwright's 1769 water-powered spinner producing strong yarn; needing waterpower, it fathered riverside factories.

Crompton's 1779 hybrid of jenny and water frame, spinning fine yet strong yarn that put British cotton ahead of the world.

Cartwright's 1785 powered weaving machine, catching weaving up with spinning — and undercutting the hand-loom weavers.

Legal protection for inventions letting inventors profit, and so encouraging innovation.

Pre-industrial production where rural families spun and wove at home for merchant buyers — displaced by the factory system.

The early steam engine of 1712, used to pump water from mines; thirsty for coal and weak in power until Watt improved it.

Scottish engineer: separate condenser grasped in 1765, patented 1769, rotary motion added in the 1780s — the engine became a general power source.

Watt's key improvement: keeping the cylinder hot with a separate condenser, slashing coal consumption.

Railway engineer who opened the Stockton–Darlington line (1825, the first public steam railway) and the Liverpool–Manchester railway (1830); his Rocket won the 1829 trials.

The Stephenson locomotive that won the 1829 Rainhill Trials, setting standards such as the multi-tubular boiler.

The British railway investment boom of the 1840s, with hundreds of acts in Parliament, building a national network.

Fulton's steamboat that carried paying passengers on the Hudson in 1807, proving steam navigation worked.

Brunel's steamship that crossed the Atlantic largely under steam in 1838.

The canal opened in 1869 joining the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, slashing the Europe-Asia run — the artery of steam shipping and imperial trade.

Rail timetables demanded one time nationwide, fixed by law in Britain in 1880 — life arranged by the minute.

The movement of people from countryside to town and the rising urban share; in 1851 Britain's towns first held more than half the population.

The crowded workers' quarters — back-to-back houses, shared privies, no clean water or drainage.

The waterborne epidemic that swept industrial Britain in 1832 and 1848, forcing public-health reform.

The employment of children in mills and mines for a fraction of adult wages in dangerous conditions, until legislation curbed it.

The act banning under-nines from textile mills, limiting ages 9–13 to nine hours, and creating the first factory inspectors.

The act barring women and boys under ten from underground work in the mines.

The act limiting women and young people to a ten-hour day, which in practice shortened the whole factory's hours.

The workers of 1811–16 who smashed machines against unemployment and wage cuts — the symbol of artisans' fear of machinery.

Workers' organisations bargaining collectively over pay and hours; banned in 1799–1800, legalised in 1824.

The workers' political movement of 1838–48 petitioning the six points of the People's Charter (manhood suffrage, the secret ballot and more); it failed then, but most points were later won.

The customs union of German states (1834) abolishing internal tolls and uniting the market — the runway of German industry.

The coal-and-iron region of western Germany which, with Krupp's steel, became the engine of German industrialisation.

Japan's all-round reform from 1868: state model factories, foreign experts, fostered zaibatsu — an industrial power within half a century.

The family combines (Mitsui, Mitsubishi and others) that bought the government plants and came to dominate Japanese industry.

The new wave of industrialisation, c. 1870–1914, built on steel, electricity, chemicals and the internal-combustion engine, led by Germany and the USA.

The cheap steelmaking process of 1856 that multiplied output and collapsed prices, opening the steel age.

Siemens' practical generator of 1866 that opened the electric age, with Edison's lamp (1879) and power stations (1882) following.

The engine burning fuel inside its cylinders; Otto's four-stroke design of 1876 matured it, breeding the motor car and the aeroplane.

Ford's 1913 mass-production method — the product moving past stations, one step each — slashing the Model T's price.

The powers' conference of 1884–85 setting the rules for partitioning Africa — the emblem of imperial expansion.