The 2008 Summer Teachers Conference focused on the year 1948. Lesson plans created by teachers attending the conference and powerpoint presentations delivered by speakers are presented on this site.
The world has never come closer to the brink of nuclear war than it did during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, one of the most dramatic episodes in U.S. diplomatic history. Discover the tense sequence of events that took place during the Cuban Missie Crisis.
This site examines the friendship and working relations that developed between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill beginning in 1940. Their relationship was crucial in the establishment of a unified effort to deal with the Axis powers.
This site opens a window into the lives of American diplomats and U.S. foreign policy -- how it is formulated in Washington and implemented at our embassies abroad. Transcripts of more than 1,300 interviews with U.S. diplomatic personnel capture their experiences, motivations, personal analyses, and private thoughts.
This course is designed to acquaint beginning students with some of the fundamental principles of international relations such as realism and idealism. Realism, for example is based on the assumption that the state constitutes the most important actor in the international system. The course will also explore the nature of idealism, which emphasizes the role of international norms and ethics, such as the preservation of human rights, as a means of realizing international justice. The course will also analyze international political economy and various theories ranging from mercantilism to dependency theory.
The Literacy for Globalists Project is a web-based citizen self-education curriculum about America's global affairs. Our goal is to empower participants -- Globalists -- to engage, broaden, and enrich a national discussion of U.S. foreign policy, supplementing the input of media and policy makers with the voices of citizens.
On February 15, 1898, an explosion ripped through the American battleship Maine , anchored in Havana harbor, sinking the ship and killing 260 sailors. Americans responded with outrage, assuming that Spain, which controlled Cuba as a colony, had sunk the ship. Two months later, the slogan "Remember the Maine " carried the U.S. into war with Spain. In the midst of the hysteria, few Americans paid much attention to the report issued two weeks before the U.S. entry into the war by a Court of Inquiry appointed by President McKinley. The report stated that the committee could not definitively assign blame to Spain for the sinking of the Maine . Publishers such as William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer used their many newspapers to stir public opinion over the sinking of the Maine into a frenzy, hastenening U.S. entry into the conflict. This February 17, 1898, front page story from Pulitzer's New York World suggested, on the basis of little evidence, the hand of the enemy in the destruction of the Maine.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steven Pifer discusses the United States' stance toward the Russian/Chechen conflict in this video from Wide Angle.
The CIA Kids' Page has a wide range of information that you can incorporate into your classroom. We have compiled several ideas for lesson plans to get you started. These plans – which emphasize history, communication, and problem solving – are adaptable for students of any age.
"Terrorism: A War Without Borders" is an instructional package produced in collaboration with a special committee of social studies educators. The video print materials, and other resources in this package are intended for use with middle school and high school courses.
Theodore Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to have his career and life chronicled on a large scale by motion picture companies (even though his predecessors, Grover Cleveland and William McKinley, were the first to be filmed). This presentation features 104 films which record events in Roosevelt's life from the Spanish-American War in 1898 to his death in 1919; 8 of these films have previously appeared in other American Memory presentations. The majority of films (87) are from the Theodore Roosevelt Association Collection, while the remainder are from the Paper Print Collection. Besides containing scenes of Roosevelt, these films include views of world figures, politicians, monarchs, and friends and family members of Roosevelt who influenced his life and the era in which he lived. Commemorative events up to 1921 are also included as well as silent documentaries compiled from earlier footage by the Theodore Roosevelt Association between 1919 and 1928. Four sound recordings made by Roosevelt for the Edison Company in 1912 in which he states his progressive political views are also included.
This lesson presents documents pertaining to the treaty that brought an official end to the Mexican-American War. Materials for teachers and links to other resources accompany the documents.
This is a lesson plan on the history, conflicts, and U.S. involvement surrounding Israel before and after its proclamation of statehood. This lesson correlates to the National History Standards and the National Standards for Social Sciences. It also has cross-curricular connections with history, government, geography, and language arts.
The Great War of 1914-1918 significantly shaped the course of the twentieth century, both at home and abroad. How can this pivotal event be personalized and brought to life for students in the new millennium? Unfortunately, increasingly fewer survivors of the World War I era are alive today to directly share their recollections of this historical time. Yet, by delving into the unique resources of American Memory and by creating two World War I-period newspapers of differing perspectives, students can gain an enduring understanding of The Great War
This is lesson plan aims to help students understand the causes of World War I and why the U.S. intervened. In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering U.S. territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This telegram helped draw the United States into the war.
