Kim discusses the early difficulties of the English colonists at Jamestown, and clears up some common misconceptions about John Smith and Pocahontas.
Kim discusses how the tobacco plantation system led to indentured servitude and eventually slavery in the area surrounding Jamestown and the Chesapeake Bay.
Kim discusses how John Rolfe's discovery that Virginia was the perfect environment to cultivate tobacco led to Jamestown's success -- and to a great deal of conflict between the English and the Powhatans, resulting in the first and second Anglo-Powhatan Wars.
This collection uses primary sources to explore Japanese American internment during World War II. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.
An overview of Japanese Imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Discussion of imperial powers in East Asia, the Opium Wars and the Meiji Restoration.
An introduction to Japan in World War I
This art history video dicussion examines Jasper Johns' "Flag", 1954-55, encaustic, oil and collage mounted on plywood, three panels, (MoMA).
Learn about the effects that the Second World War had on jazz music as well as the contributions that jazz musicians made to the war effort. This lesson will help students explore the role of jazz in American society and the ways that jazz functioned as an export of American culture and a means of resistance to the Nazis.
Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia, Peter S. Onuf has written extensively on sectionalism, federalism, and political economy, with a particular emphasis on the political thought of Thomas Jefferson. In this lecture, he looks at Jefferson’s opinions about federal government.
Explore the philosophical contributions that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made to the movement for American independence. The lesson introduces students to some of the important precursor documents, such as Franklin's Albany Plan of 1754 and Jefferson's Draft of the Virginia Constitution, that led to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
John Brown first made a name for himself as a militant abolitionist in 1854, when Brown traveled to Kansas following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, intent on defending the territory from the scourge of slavery. It was in “Bleeding Kansas,” named for violent conflicts between proslavery and antislavery settlers there, that John Brown led a guerilla warfare campaign against the territory’s proslavery settlers, including a deadly attack against residents of Pottawatomie Creek. By 1859, fueled by donations from wealthy abolitionists, Brown was again ready to strike a blow against slavery and slaveholders—this time in the South.
John Jay was a man of great achievement. During his lifetime he was a Founding Father, Signer of the Treaty of Paris, Second Governor of New York, and First Chief Justice of the United States.
If James Madison was the "father" of the Constitution," John Marshall was the "father of the Supreme Court""”almost single-handedly clarifying its powers. This new lesson is designed to help students understand Marshall's brilliant strategy in issuing his decision on Marbury v. Madison, the significance of the concept of judicial review, and the language of this watershed case.
Should someone be prosecuted for criticizing or insulting a government official even if the offending words are the truth? Should a judge or a jury decide the case? These were the key questions argued in the colonial New York trial of John Peter Zenger. The outcome deeply influenced freedom of the press in America. Access to this resource requires a free educator login.
Students align original FSA photographs from the 1930s and the author's own journal entries, to trace parallel elements John Steinbeck then incorporated into passages in The Grapes of Wrath.
Ibn Battuta is considered one of the world's greatest travelers. During the 14th century, he traveled an estimated 75,000 miles across most of the Eastern Hemisphere, three times farther than Marco Polo, in search of knowledge and for the love of travel. In today's world, this encompasses over 40 countries. To share the learning and research so highly valued by Islamic culture, the Sultan of Morocco, Abu Inan Faris, wanted Ibn Battuta's worldwide travels records and published when he returned home to Morocco after almost 20 years. Buttuta's reminiscences where chronicled in a jourla called The Rila and documents this enormous achievement. Ibn Battuta's journey gives us a first-hand account of life in the 14th-century Muslim world, while offering a glimpse of the world through the perspective of an education "cosmopolitan." The original book, handwritten in Arabic, can be viewed today at the National Library in Paris.
On May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (five separate cases consolidated under a single name), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that separate but equal public schools violated the 14th Amendment.
In this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory.
The purpose of this lesson is to teach students about the significance of the Judiciary Act of 1789 in establishing a federal judiciary, and the power of judicial review as outlined by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Case, Marbury v. Madison (1803). By the conclusion of this lesson, students will understand the key provisions of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and the structure of the federal judiciary, as well as the power of judicial review.
Curriculum unit on the historical context of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle and how the book helped reform efforts in Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.