Browse:
Keywords: Wwii
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: This site contains links to thousands of the most famous documentary photographs ever produced. The Farm Security Administrations's photographs cover the Great Depression, while the Office of War Administration's photographs look at the mobilization effort for World War II.
- Subject:
Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Primary, Secondary, Post-secondary
- Collection:
Library of Congress
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: American experience at home and abroad from Pearl Harbor to the end of the Cold War. Topics include: America's role as global superpower, foreign and domestic anticommunism, social movements of left and right, suburbanization, and popular culture.
- Subject:
Humanities, Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Post-secondary
- Collection:
MIT OpenCourseWare
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: This site shows the typewritten draft of the December 8, 1941, speech in which Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. The draft shows Roosevelt's hand-written edits, including his change of the phrase a date which will live in world history to a date which will live in infamy. Students can also listen to the beginning of the speech.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: 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.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: The term “buffalo soldiers” dates to post-Civil War conflicts with Indians who granted the honorific to an all-black cavalry outfit. Buffalo soldier units served in the Spanish-American War, World War I, and the Italian campaign of World War II, when elements of the 92nd Division were the only black units in that war to serve in combat. The road to Italy passed through various posts in the segregated South and Ft. Huachuca, an isolated Arizona outpost where the 92nd assembled for the final push. As featured in the novel and film Miracle at St. Anna, the 92nd distinguished themselves on the battlefield, disproving skeptics and earning an honored chapter in the history of World War II. Two years after the war ended, President Truman signed an order to desegregate the U.S. Armed Forces, closing the book on the buffalo soldiers.
- Subject:
Social Sciences, Humanities
- Grade Level:
Primary, Secondary, Post-secondary
- Collection:
Library of Congress
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: This site presents 1,600 color photos -- rural and small-town life, migrant labor, the Great Depression, railroads, military training, aircraft manufacturing, and mobilizing for World War II. A special feature, Collection Connections, provides ideas for learning about women in the war effort, New Deal work programs, farm workers, relief programs, and military training.
- Subject:
Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Primary, Secondary, Post-secondary
- Collection:
Library of Congress
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: Learning history from real people involved in real events brings life to history. The Grandparent/Elder Project provides a means to learn about the twentieth century from real people and primary sources. A 1913 New York Times newspaper provides a view of the world on the brink of a World War. An interview with a grandparent or significant elder provides a human face for life in the twentieth century. Through researching primary and secondary sources, students become conversant with significant aspects of twentieth century history.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: An interdisciplinary subject that draws on literature, history, anthropology, film, and cultural studies to examine the experiences of Asian Americans in U.S. society. Covers the first wave of Asian immigration in the 19th century, the rise of anti-Asian movements, the experiences of Asian Americans during WWII, the emergence of the Asian American movement in the 1960s, and the new wave of "post-1965" Asian immigration. Examines the role these historical experiences played in the formation of Asian American ethnicity, and explores how these experiences informed Asian American literature and culture. Addresses key societal issues such as racial stereotyping, media racism, affirmative action issues, the glass ceiling, the "model minority" syndrome, and anti-Asian harassment or violence. Taught in English.
- Subject:
Humanities, Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Post-secondary
- Collection:
MIT OpenCourseWare
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: An introduction to European history from around 1500 to the present. The central question that the course addresses is how and why Europe-- a small, relatively poor, and politically fragmented place-- became the motor of globalization and a world civilization in its won right. Put differently how did �western� become an adjective that, for better and often for worse, stands in place of �modern.� Our approach will be broadly cultural, i.e. it approaches politics, economics, social life, religion and other arenas as interconnected arenas in which men and women give their world meaning. Chief topics: the Renaissance, the epochal expansion of Europe into the new world, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the formation of overseas empires and the coming of capitalism, the Scientific Revolution, the French Revolution, liberalism and the industrial revolution, socialism and the rise of labor, modern colonialism, the world wars, communism and capitalism, decolonization, and the Cold War and the European Union. There will be mini lectures on trains, witches, and campus architecture among other topics.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: Andrei Gromyko served as Soviet foreign minister from 1957 to 1985. Beginning in 1943, when Soviet premier Joseph Stalin appointed the 34-year-old ambassador to Washington, Gromyko was an indispensable formulator of Kremlin policy toward the United States. Ultimately, he dealt with nine U.S. presidents. In this video segment, Gromyko chronicles the arms race, beginning in the 1950s under General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. At the time, each superpower had the ability to inflict "unacceptable damage" on the other. Still, neither side acted to stop the arms race until General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev opened the new era in the mid eighties. Under the leadership of Gorbachev, Gromyko concludes, Soviets have embraced the "principle of rational sufficiency" and initiated unilateral steps to stop the arms race. The interview Gromyko conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age is a wide-ranging reflection on nuclear strategy, foreign policy, and superpower diplomacy during the four-and-a-half decades since the dawn of the nuclear age. Gromyko begins the interview with a look at the Potsdam Conference, at which U.S. president Harry S. Truman informed Soviet premier Joseph Stalin that an atomic bomb had successfully detonated. Truman was perplexed by the non-reaction of the Soviet leader, who then submitted a private order to accelerate the Russian bomb project. Gromyko remembers how, following the war, it felt, at age 37, to challenge the experienced architects of the Cold War and the policies they conceived: the Baruch Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan. He recalls that Soviet proposals to ban all nuclear weapons and to place strict controls on facilities pursuing nuclear energy were "categorically rejected." Western powers, Gromyko asserts, missed the opportunity to stop the arms race before it began. He points to "a drastic hardening" of foreign policy, citing former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill's 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech as an "open declaration of the Cold War." Gromyko reserves his strongest criticism for the "doctrine of intimidation," the United States' classified National Security Memorandum 68, which marked a dramatic shift in U.S.-Soviet relations. His description of the 1962 Caribbean crisis stands in stark contrast to U.S. officials' accounts of the same episode, known as the Cuban missile crisis. He provides detailed recollections of his conversation with President John F. Kennedy during this period, concluding that it was "probably the most difficult meeting I experienced in all my 48 years of meeting presidents of the United States." Gromyko moves ahead to the period of detente. His retelling of last-minute changes prior to the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) I differs from that of national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Gromyko discusses the key Soviet objection to U.S. proposals during SALT II negotiations: the United States, which targeted the Soviet Union with forward bases around the world, demanded drastic reductions in the Soviet Union's principal deterrent-the heavy intercontinental ballistic missile. At Vladivostok in 1974, the two sides agreed on a basic framework for the SALT II Treaty, which was signed five years later. Reflecting on the trends he has observed during his long career as Soviet foreign minister, Gromyko sees more continuity than difference: each administration has tried to achieve military superiority, and the Soviet Union, always one step behind, has pressed to maintain "virtual parity" to safeguard its national interests. Much was achieved during detente, he recalls. While that term is no longer used, Gromyko sees parallels with-and holds out hope for-the current process of "deepening mutual understand and trust."
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: This site provides a standards-based lesson on how the use of posters during WWII helped win over the hearts and minds of the American people.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: For nearly half a century, Paul Nitze was one of the chief architects of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Nitze assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs. In this video segment, Nitze describes key issues confronting the incoming Kennedy administration. This transition period focused on the goals of the country's nuclear-strategic policy; how to approach crises in every region, from the Middle East to Vietnam; and whether to unify the armed services. Included are Nitze's recommendations regarding a conventional military buildup and a 'no-cities' policy, which would target military forces instead of civilian populations. Nitze's interview conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'At the Brink' moves the viewer through his work with the World War II Strategic Bombing Survey, which placed him in Hiroshima and Nagasaki soon after the atomic bombs were dropped. From 1950 to 1953, Nitze served as director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff, and from 1961 to 1963 he was assistant defense secretary. As his interview reveals, Nitze held key positions during the period after World War II when the United States emerged as a superpower and Cold War strategic policies were being debated and defined. His classified 1950 report, National Security Memorandum 68, remains a seminal document: it was initially designed to persuade President Harry S. Truman that an increasingly menacing world required major increases in spending on defense and foreign military assistance. Nitze was also a major contributor to the Gaither Report, which stressed the need for a survivable nuclear deterrent by citing the vulnerability of the U.S. bomber force. Nitze opposed the doctrine of massive retaliation from the moment John Foster Dulles announced it at a dinner party in 1954. He was involved in crisis contingency planning, including the Berlin blockade and airlift in 1948, construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. During the missile crisis, Nitze recalls, he worked out the scenarios of increasing military escalation to pressure the Soviets to withdraw the missiles. Finally, he describes his disappointment that, although Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara initially embraced his no-cities strategy, following the Cuban missile crisis McNamara entirely abandoned the notion of winnable nuclear war.
- Subject:
Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Science and Technology
- Collection:
WGBH Open Vault
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: This course surveys the relationship between race and crime in the United States, with a special emphasis on the role this relationship has played in the development of American ideas about citizenship and nationhood.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: The film "Refugee" follows three young Cambodian American men on their journey to Cambodia to find family members. Students are invited to investigate individual experiences and develop critical thinking skills to analyze the choices individuals have during wartime. Students will also evaluate the sacrifices and benefits of becoming a refugee in another country.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: "Resettlement to Redress" recounts the history and experience of Japanese Americans after they were released from the internment camps when World War II ended. This lesson includes an interior monologue activity that asks students to put themselves in the shoes of Japanese Americans and try to connect with what their thoughts and feelings might have been during internment and the movement for redress and reparations.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: "Resettlement to Redress" recounts the history and experience of Japanese Americans after they were released from the internment camps when World War II ended. This lesson involves role-playing around the redress movement. It presents a different perspective on the redress movement and the issue of redress/reparations.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: "Resettlement to Redress" recounts the history and experience of Japanese Americans after they were released from the internment camps when World War II ended. This lesson requires students to read and understand a document that explains the reparations movement in detail, and it also requires them to ask questions about and to participate in a seminar on the issue.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: "Resettlement to Redress" recounts the history and experience of Japanese Americans after they were released from the internment camps when World War II ended. This lesson allows students to become familiar with the main characters of the video in an interactive and engaging way.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: "Resettlement to Redress" recounts the history and experience of Japanese Americans after they were released from the internment camps when World War II ended. In this lesson, it is expected that students will be able to develop and share their own opinions on the issue of redress/reparations to Japanese Americans.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: Dr. Randall Forsberg is executive director of the think tank she founded in 1980, the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies. In this video segment, she recalls the moment during arms negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union when she determined that the arms race is not driven by basic deterrence but by the imperative to gain superiority in threatening to win-without actually waging-nuclear war.In her wide-ranging interview for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'Visions of War and Peace,' Forsberg explores war-and-peace issues, military doctrine, the history and economics of nuclear-weapons development and policy, war-fighting capability and force structure, scenarios and resistance to arms reduction, the history of relations between the superpowers, and their interactions with developing nations. Seven countries, she asserts, account for 99 percent of nuclear weapons. The dispersal of weapons-in the form of the Rapid Deployment Force, tactical weapons, and missiles fitted with multiple warheads-heightens the risk of war in a world moving toward becoming what she calls 'a global nuclear porcupine.' Forsberg asserts that 'threatening to commit genocide as a way of conducting politics' is one of the most 'deeply immoral and subversive acts of government in the modern world.' Moreover, she maintains, a conventional military crisis could easily cross that nuclear threshold. Forsberg advocates the three Rs: 'reduce, restructure, and restrain' conventional forces-the other side of the military coin-that consume 75 percent of the U.S. military budget. She compares disarmament with abolitionism: most people understood that slavery was evil and didn't know when it would end, but they realized that they had to work until it was eliminated. Forsberg's analysis of the country's 'defense dependency' and of the shortcomings of the nuclear-freeze movement she spearheaded is laced with her optimism about Soviet Union general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. She has never abandoned her vision of an educated public that will prevail in 'demilitarizing international relations" to achieve a "secure, stable permanent peace.'
Take a Survey
Take a quick survey to tell us about your unique needs for teaching and learning.
Click here to start »
