Flashcards · 4HI1 · Topic 2

Paper 2 – Investigation and Breadth Studies flashcards

78 cards on Topic 2, subtopics 2.1 to 2.13. Pick a subtopic or study them all.

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2.1 Historical Investigation A1: The Origins and Course of the First World War, 1905–18

Investigation skill: what does “How far does Source A support Source B?” require?: Cross-referencing: identify specific points where the two sources agree and where they disagree, using contextual knowledge to explain why. It is not asking which source is more reliable or useful.
Which crises raised international tension between 1905 and 1913?: The Moroccan crises (1905 and 1911), the Bosnian crisis (1908) and the Balkan Wars (1912–13).
Why did the Schlieffen Plan fail?: Belgian resistance, the British Expeditionary Force, faster Russian mobilisation than expected and the Allied victory at the Marne (September 1914).
What happened at Verdun (1916)?: A German attack from February 1916 intended to wear down the French army. The French held out (“They shall not pass”) but both sides suffered huge losses.
What were the Battles of the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917)?: British-led offensives on the Western Front that gained little ground at enormous cost. The Somme began on 1 July 1916; Passchendaele (Third Ypres) was fought in heavy mud from July to November 1917.
Why did Germany lose the war in 1918?: The Spring Offensive failed, US troops arrived, the Allies counter-attacked in the Hundred Days, the blockade caused shortages, and Germany’s allies collapsed. The armistice came on 11 November 1918.

2.2 Historical Investigation A2: Russia and the Soviet Union, 1905–24

What was Bloody Sunday (January 1905)?: Troops fired on a peaceful procession led by Father Gapon taking a petition to the Tsar in St Petersburg. It set off the 1905 revolution.
What were Stolypin’s policies (1906–11)?: Repression of revolutionaries (many executions) combined with land reform to create a class of prosperous, loyal peasants. He was assassinated in 1911.
What was the Kornilov affair (August 1917)?: General Kornilov appeared to march on Petrograd. The Provisional Government armed the Bolshevik Red Guards to defend the city, which increased Bolshevik support.
What was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918)?: The peace treaty in which Bolshevik Russia left the First World War, giving up large areas of land, population and industry to Germany.
Why did the Bolsheviks win the Civil War (1918–21)?: They held the central heartland and railways, Trotsky built a disciplined Red Army, War Communism supplied it, and the Whites were divided and geographically spread out.
Why did Lenin introduce the New Economic Policy in 1921?: War Communism had caused famine and revolts, including the Kronstadt mutiny. The NEP let peasants sell surplus grain and allowed small private businesses.

2.3 Historical Investigation A3: The USA, 1918–41

Why did the US economy boom in the 1920s?: Mass production (Ford’s assembly line), new consumer goods such as cars and radios, credit and hire purchase, advertising, and Republican policies of low taxes and high tariffs.
How did the USA restrict immigration in the 1920s?: Quota laws in 1921 and 1924 sharply limited immigration, especially from southern and eastern Europe.
What was Prohibition (1920–33)?: A national ban on making and selling alcohol (18th Amendment). It led to speakeasies, bootlegging and gangsters such as Al Capone, and was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.
How did the Wall Street Crash (October 1929) lead to the Depression?: Share prices collapsed, banks failed, savings were lost, demand fell, businesses closed and unemployment rose to about a quarter of the workforce by 1933.
What were the “three Rs” of Roosevelt’s New Deal?: Relief (help for the unemployed and poor), Recovery (reviving industry and farming) and Reform (changing the system to prevent another depression).
Name four New Deal agencies and what they did: CCC: jobs for young men in conservation. AAA: paid farmers to cut production. TVA: dams and electricity in the Tennessee Valley. WPA (1935): public works jobs.

2.4 Historical Investigation A4: The Vietnam Conflict, 1945–75

What did the Geneva Accords (1954) decide?: After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam was temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, with elections planned for 1956. The elections were never held.
Who were the Viet Cong?: Communist guerrillas in South Vietnam (the National Liberation Front, formed 1960), supplied from the North along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
What was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 1964)?: After reported attacks on US ships, Congress allowed President Johnson to use military force in Vietnam without a declaration of war.
Why was the Tet Offensive (1968) a turning point?: Although the communist attacks were defeated militarily, they showed that the war was far from won and turned much of US public opinion against it.
What was Vietnamisation?: Nixon’s policy from 1969 of withdrawing US troops and handing the fighting over to the South Vietnamese army.
How did the Vietnam War end?: The Paris Peace Accords (January 1973) withdrew US forces. North Vietnam captured Saigon on 30 April 1975, and Vietnam was united under communist rule.

2.5 Historical Investigation A5: East Germany, 1958–90

Why was the Berlin Wall built on 13 August 1961?: Millions of East Germans, many young and skilled, had escaped through West Berlin. The wall stopped the outflow.
Who led East Germany between 1958 and 1989?: Walter Ulbricht until 1971, then Erich Honecker until October 1989.
What was the Stasi?: East Germany’s Ministry for State Security, the secret police, which used a huge network of informers to watch the population.
What was Ostpolitik?: West German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s policy of improving relations with East Germany and the Eastern bloc. The Basic Treaty (1972) led to both German states joining the UN in 1973.
How did the East German regime collapse in 1989–90?: Mass emigration through Hungary and peaceful protests such as the Leipzig Monday demonstrations forced Honecker out. The Berlin Wall opened on 9 November 1989, and Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990.

2.6 Breadth Study B1: America — From New Nation to Divided Union, 1783–1877

Breadth Study skill: what does a “how far did X change” question require?: A judgement about the extent and pace of change over the period, supported by turning points and periods of continuity, rather than a list of events.
What was the Louisiana Purchase (1803)?: The USA bought the vast Louisiana territory from France, roughly doubling its size.
What was Manifest Destiny?: The belief, popular in the 1840s, that the USA was destined to expand across North America to the Pacific.
What were the Indian Removal Act (1830) and the Trail of Tears?: The Act allowed the forced removal of Native American nations east of the Mississippi to lands in the west. Thousands of Cherokee died on the forced march of 1838–39, the Trail of Tears.
How did the Mexican–American War (1846–48) increase sectional tension?: The USA gained vast new territory from Mexico, reopening the question of whether slavery would spread into it. The Compromise of 1850 tried to settle this.
What was Reconstruction (1865–77)?: The rebuilding of the South after the Civil War, including the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. It ended in 1877, after which Southern states imposed segregation and restricted Black voting.

2.7 Breadth Study B2: Changes in Medicine, c1848–c1948

What did John Snow show about cholera in 1854?: He mapped deaths in Soho, London, linked them to the Broad Street water pump, and had its handle removed. It showed cholera spread through contaminated water.
What was Pasteur’s germ theory?: Pasteur showed (published 1861) that microbes in the air caused decay, which led to the idea that specific germs cause disease.
How did Robert Koch build on germ theory?: He identified the specific bacteria causing particular diseases, such as tuberculosis (1882) and cholera (1883), and developed methods of staining and growing bacteria.
What did Lister introduce in 1867?: Antiseptic surgery, using carbolic acid to kill germs on wounds, instruments and dressings, which greatly reduced infection after operations.
How was penicillin discovered and developed?: Alexander Fleming noticed in 1928 that a mould killed bacteria. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain developed it into a usable drug around 1940, and it was mass-produced during the Second World War.
When was the National Health Service created, and what did it offer?: On 5 July 1948, under health minister Aneurin Bevan: healthcare free at the point of use for everyone in Britain.
What was Paul Ehrlich’s “magic bullet” (1909)?: Salvarsan 606, the first chemical drug to target a specific microbe, used against syphilis.

2.8 Breadth Study B3: Japan in Transformation, 1853–1945

Why is 1853 a turning point in Japanese history?: US Commodore Perry arrived with warships and forced Japan to open its ports to trade (Treaty of Kanagawa, 1854), ending its long isolation.
What was the Meiji Restoration (1868)?: The overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate and the return of power to the emperor, followed by rapid modernisation of the army, industry, education and government.
What did Japan gain from its wars with China (1894–95) and Russia (1904–05)?: From China: Taiwan. From Russia: influence in Korea and southern Manchuria. Japan annexed Korea in 1910.
Why was the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) significant?: It was the first modern victory of an Asian power over a European one, including the naval Battle of Tsushima (1905).
How did Japan expand in the 1930s?: It seized Manchuria (1931), left the League (1933), began full-scale war with China in 1937, and moved into South-East Asia in 1940–41.
How did Japan’s war end in 1945?: After atomic bombs on Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August) and the Soviet declaration of war, Japan surrendered; the formal surrender was signed on 2 September 1945.

2.9 Breadth Study B4: China — Conflict, Crisis and Change, 1900–89

What happened in China in 1911–12?: A revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty; the last emperor, Puyi, abdicated in 1912 and China became a republic. Sun Yat-sen was a leading figure.
What was the Long March (1934–35)?: The retreat of the Communists from the Nationalists across thousands of kilometres to Shaanxi. Mao Zedong emerged as the Communist leader.
When was the People’s Republic of China founded?: 1 October 1949, after the Communists won the civil war. Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists retreated to Taiwan.
What was the Great Leap Forward (1958)?: Mao’s campaign to industrialise rapidly through communes and backyard furnaces. It led to a famine in which tens of millions died.
What was the Cultural Revolution (from 1966)?: Mao’s campaign to purge “bourgeois” and traditional influences, carried out by the Red Guards, which caused violence and chaos until his death in 1976.
What changed under Deng Xiaoping from 1978, and what happened in 1989?: Economic reform opened China to markets and foreign investment, but without political reform. In June 1989 the army crushed pro-democracy protests in and around Tiananmen Square.

2.10 Breadth Study B5: The Changing Role of International Organisations: the League and the UN, 1919–c2011

Why did the League of Nations fail?: Structural weaknesses: the USA never joined, it had no army, decisions needed unanimity, sanctions were weak, and Britain and France put their own interests first. It failed over Manchuria (1931) and Abyssinia (1935–36).
When was the United Nations founded?: Its Charter was signed in San Francisco in June 1945 and came into force on 24 October 1945.
How is the UN Security Council organised?: Five permanent members with a veto (USA, USSR/Russia, Britain, France and China) plus elected non-permanent members.
Why could the UN act in Korea in 1950?: The USSR was boycotting the Security Council, so it could not veto the decision to send UN forces to defend South Korea.
What was the first armed UN peacekeeping force?: The UN Emergency Force sent to Egypt after the Suez Crisis of 1956.
Give two examples of UN peacekeeping failures in the 1990s: Rwanda (1994), where the UN did not stop the genocide, and Srebrenica in Bosnia (1995), where a UN-protected safe area fell and thousands of Bosniak men and boys were killed.

2.11 Breadth Study B6: The Changing Nature of Warfare and International Conflict, 1919–2011

What was new about Blitzkrieg warfare (1939–40)?: Speed and coordination: concentrated tanks, motorised infantry and dive-bombers broke through and encircled the enemy, avoiding the trench stalemate of 1914–18.
How did the atomic bomb change warfare after 1945?: It made total war between nuclear powers potentially suicidal, leading to deterrence and mutually assured destruction (MAD) during the Cold War.
Why did guerrilla warfare succeed against the USA in Vietnam?: The Viet Cong used ambushes, tunnels and booby traps, blended into the population and avoided set-piece battles, so US firepower could not bring victory.
What did the Gulf War (1991) show about modern warfare?: A US-led coalition used air power, precision-guided weapons and modern communications to expel Iraq from Kuwait quickly with few coalition casualties.
How did the 11 September 2001 attacks change international conflict?: They began the “War on Terror” against non-state groups such as al-Qaeda, including the invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), and later widespread use of drones.

2.12 Breadth Study B7: The Middle East — Conflict, Crisis and Change, 1917–2012

What was the Balfour Declaration (1917)?: A British government statement supporting a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, while saying the rights of existing non-Jewish communities should not be harmed.
What happened in 1948 in Palestine?: Britain’s mandate ended and Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948. In the war that followed, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees.
What was the Suez Crisis (1956)?: After Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt. Pressure from the USA and USSR forced them to withdraw.
What territory did Israel capture in the Six-Day War (June 1967)?: The Sinai Peninsula and Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
What were the results of the 1973 Yom Kippur War?: Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. Arab oil producers used an oil embargo against Israel’s supporters, and the war led towards the Camp David Accords (1978) between Egypt and Israel.
What were the Oslo Accords (1993)?: Agreements between Israel and the PLO in which each recognised the other and limited Palestinian self-rule was set up in Gaza and parts of the West Bank.
What was the Arab Spring?: A wave of protests and uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and spread across the Arab world in 2011, toppling leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

2.13 Breadth Study B8: Diversity, Rights and Equality in Britain, 1914–2010

How did women gain the vote in Britain?: The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to women over 30 who met a property qualification. The Equal Franchise Act 1928 gave women the vote on the same terms as men, at 21.
Why is the arrival of the Empire Windrush (1948) seen as a turning point?: It brought one of the first large groups of Caribbean migrants to Britain after the war, beginning large-scale Commonwealth immigration.
What did the Race Relations Acts do?: The 1965 Act banned discrimination in public places; the 1968 Act extended this to housing and employment; the 1976 Act set up the Commission for Racial Equality.
Which laws of the 1970s tackled sex discrimination?: The Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
What did the Macpherson Report (1999) conclude?: Inquiring into the police handling of the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, it found the Metropolitan Police “institutionally racist”.
Name three milestones in gay rights in Britain: The Sexual Offences Act 1967 (partly decriminalised homosexuality in England and Wales), the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and the Equality Act 2010.