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Democracy and Dictatorship 1900-

A Year 9 history course covering the dramatic transformation of Europe and the wider world from 1900 to 1945: the fight for women's suffrage, the First and Second World Wars, the rise of Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, the Holocaust, China's revolutions and the early Cold War. Designed for KS3 students moving toward GCSE-style historical thinking.

Every topic starts with a short, clear account of what happened and why, then asks you to use it: answer a question, weigh a decision, argue a point. There are no marks and no exam language, just the habit of explaining causes and judging what mattered.

A question you will meetWhy did so many Germans accept a dictatorship in the 1930s?

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Rights and Reform

1860s – 1920s

How did women win the right to vote — and at what cost?

The Suffragist and Suffragette Movements

• Who Were the Suffragists? (NUWSS)
• Who Were the Suffragettes? (WSPU)
• Why Did the Movement Split?

Tactics and the Militancy Debate

• Peaceful Tactics: Petitions, Lobbying and Marches
• Militant Tactics: Arson, Bombs and Hunger Strikes
• Emily Wilding Davison and Martyrdom
• The Cat and Mouse Act (1913)

Women, War and the Vote

• Women's Work in WWI
• The Representation of the People Act (1918)

Legacy: From 1918 to Equal Suffrage

• The Equal Franchise Act (1928)
• Legacy and the Long Road to Equality

A World at War

1914 – 1918

How did a local assassination become the first global war?

The Long-Term Causes of WWI (MAIN)

• Militarism: The Arms Race
• Alliances: The Two Armed Camps
• Imperialism: Competition for Empire
• Nationalism: Pride, Rivalry and the Balkans

The Assassination and the July Crisis

• The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand (1914)
• The July Crisis: How War Became Inevitable

The Western Front: Trenches and Tactics

• The Schlieffen Plan and Its Failure
• Trench Warfare: Design and Daily Life
• Conditions in the Trenches
• Technology and Tactics: Gas, Tanks and Aircraft

Key Battles of WWI

• The Battle of the Marne (1914)
• The Battle of the Somme (1916)
• The Battle of Passchendaele (1917)

The Wider War

• War at Sea: Blockades and U-Boats
• Gallipoli and the War Beyond Europe
• America Enters the War (1917)

The End of the War and Its Human Cost

• The Armistice (November 1918)
• The Human Cost of WWI
• The Treaty of Versailles: Terms and Reactions

The Rise of Dictators

1917 – 1939

How did democracy collapse and totalitarianism rise across Europe?

The Russian Revolution (1917)

• Russia in 1914: Tsar, Peasants and War
• The February Revolution: Fall of the Tsar
• Lenin and the Bolsheviks: The October Revolution
• The Russian Civil War and the Red Terror

Stalin and the Soviet Union

• Stalin's Rise and Consolidation of Power
• Collectivisation and the War on the Peasantry
• The Five-Year Plans and Industrialisation

Mussolini and Italian Fascism

• Italy After WWI: Humiliation and Instability
• The March on Rome and the Seizure of Power (1922)
• How Mussolini Built His Dictatorship

The Weimar Republic and Its Instability

• The Birth of the Weimar Republic
• Crises and Recovery (1919-1929): From Hyperinflation to Stresemann
• The Great Depression and the End of Weimar

Hitler's Rise to Power

• Hitler and the Early Nazi Party
• The Munich Putsch (1923) and Its Aftermath
• How Hitler Came to Power Legally (1933)

Nazi Germany: Control and Repression

• The Nazi Police State: Control and Terror
• Indoctrination and Social Control: Propaganda, Youth, and Women
• Opposition Inside Germany

The Causes of World War Two

• Hitler's Expansionist Foreign Policy: Remilitarisation, Anschluss, and the Sudetenland
• Appeasement: Why It Happened and Why It Failed
• The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Invasion of Poland

Total War

1939 – 1945

How did the Second World War become the deadliest conflict in history?

The War in Europe: Blitzkrieg to D-Day

• Blitzkrieg and the Fall of France (1940)
• The Battle of Britain
• D-Day and the Liberation of Western Europe (1944)

The Eastern Front

• Operation Barbarossa: Hitler Invades the USSR
• The Siege of Stalingrad
• The Turning of the War in the East

The War in the Pacific

• Japan's Imperial Expansion
• Pearl Harbor and America Enters the War
• Island-Hopping and the Pacific Campaign

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