Revise for GCSE History in 36 days
These are the topics identified in the AQA syllabus.
Click on the blue numbers for specific revision content.
Add days and dates as appropriate in the left-hand columns.
WARNING
These revision notes are aimed AT THE AQA EXAM ONLY.
And before you use this, make sure you are revising the right topics - you will need to adapt it to your own syllabus.
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Suggested Day |
Topic |
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1 The alliance system and the Arms race. |
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2 Moroccan Crises 1905 and 1911. |
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3 Bosnian Crisis 1908-9. |
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4 Sarajevo, Austria/Hungary and the Serbs; |
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5 The Schlieffen Plan; |
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6 Events leading to the outbreak of war. |
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7 Inter-war Overview |
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8 Paris Peace Conference: Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau – their views and motives. |
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9 Terms of Treaty of Versailles – territorial changes, military restrictions, war-guilt and reparations. German reaction to the Treaty. |
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10 The League of Nations: membership, organisation, powers & peacekeeping role. |
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11 Crises of Manchuria (1931-2) and Abyssinia (1935-6). |
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12 Hitler’s aims: Aryan supremacy and lebensraum; Hitler's policies 1933-8: the Saar; Rhineland; Austria 1938. |
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13 Appeasement and Chamberlain; Sudetenland and Munich Agreement; |
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14 Czechoslovakia, March 1939; growing tensions, 1938-9 including role of USSR; Nazi-Soviet Pact; Poland and outbreak of war. |
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15 Cold War Overview |
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16 East-West ideological gap; |
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17 Decisions made at Yalta and Potsdam, and their importance; |
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18 Soviet expansion into Central and Eastern Europe; Iron Curtain; |
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19 Truman Doctrine; Marshall Plan; attitudes of Stalin and Truman. |
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20 Berlin 1945-48; Berlin blockade and airlift. NATO and Warsaw Pact. |
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i Korean War; |
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ii Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful co-existence and the USA’s response; The beginnings of the Arms Race; space race; |
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iii Hungary, 1956; |
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iv U2 incident, 1960; |
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v Berlin Wall; President Kennedy’s visit to Berlin, 1963. |
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vi The background in Cuba; Castro; friendship with USSR; Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs; the crisis of 1962 and its results. |
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21 BEF in Europe, 1939-40; Dunkirk; |
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22 Evacuation; |
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23 Battle of Britain; the Blitz and air-raid precautions; |
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24 Conscription; internment; |
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25 Censorship and propaganda; |
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26 Battle of the Atlantic and the effects of submarine warfare; rationing; the role of women |
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27 D-Day and defeat of Germany. |
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29 Government of Nicholas II in 1914; nature of Russian society in 1914; traditional loyalty; opposition groups. The role of Rasputin; Impact of World War I on Russia; military defeat; food shortages and transport dislocation at home. Political upheaval and Tsar’s abdication/ creation of the Russian republic; Problems facing the Provisional Government and its failures, including military defeats and their effects at home. |
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30 Growth of Bolshevik organisation in summer/autumn 1917; The Bolshevik seizure of power, and the reasons for their success. Foundation of totalitarian rule; end of World War I for Russia, and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; creation of the USSR; Causes, nature and consequences of the Civil War, 1918-1921. War Communism; Kronstadt Mutiny; the New Economic Policy; Roles of Lenin and Trotsky. |
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31 Struggle for power with Trotsky; elimination of other rivals in the 1920s; purges in the 1930s; the 1936 Constitution. Propaganda and censorship; Collectivisation of agriculture; Five Year Plans and growth of industry; economic effects. |
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33 Origins of the Weimar Republic; effects of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany; Problems of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1924: political weakness; challenges from the Left and Right; Spartacists; Kapp Putsch; invasion of the Ruhr; hyperinflation. Recovery of the economy; the Dawes and Young Plans; the role of Stresemann. |
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34 Early career of Hitler; founding of the Nazi Party; Mein Kampf; Munich Putsch; decline in support in the Stresemann years. Inability of the Weimar Republic to cope with the Depression. Growth in support for the Nazis, 1929-1933; and its reasons; elections of 1932; invitation to lead coalition government, 1933. |
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35 Hitler's consolidation of power - Reichstag Fire; Election of March 1933; Enabling Act; Elimination of political opposition – political parties, Trade Unions. Night of the Long Knives; death of Hindenburg; Hitler becomes Führer. One party law and order – the SS and Gestapo. Control of education, youth movements and the media; censorship and propaganda. Cultural, racial and religious persecution; |
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36 Economic policy; increased employment through public works programmes, rearmament and conscription; self-sufficiency. Effects of Nazi policies on people living in Germany. |
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| 37 America Overview | ||
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38 Growth of Isolation 1919-1922. Rejection of the peace treaty; reasons for refusing to join the League of Nations. Tariff policy: Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922; immigration controls; quota system of 1921. |
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39 Was 1920s America 'The Promised Land'?. Mass production (e.g. Ford and the motor industry); consumer boom; hire purchase, purchase of shares; stock market boom. Continuation of poverty (e.g. farmers); Afro-Americans. Ku Klux Klan and racism; Prohibition; organised crime, e.g. Al Capone. Developments in entertainment e.g. Hollywood, jazz. The flappers. |
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40 America in Depression, 1929-1933 Problems of the 1920s, (e.g. overproduction, lack of credit control, unequal distribution of wealth; tariff controls). Effects of the Wall Street Crash; collapse of business and industry; unemployment and its effects; failure of Hoover’s Government to deal with depression. |
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41 Recovery from Depression, 1933-1941 Election of FDR; the fireside chats; banking crisis; New Deal and the Alphabet Agencies: TVA, NRA, WPA, CCC, AAA. Effects of the New Deal in achieving its aims; limitations; opposition to it; impact of World War II on American economic recovery. |
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