The John Wornall House Museum [MO]

Description

Wealthy Kentuckian John B. Wornall built the John Wornall House in 1858. The home was built in the Greek-Revival style of architecture and became known as "the most pretentious house in the section." The home has been restored to its state immediately after it was built, and is open to visitors year round.

The home offers guided tours, special events, summer camps, and educational trunks. The website offers a history of the home, visitor information, and a calendar of events.

Hugh Mercer Apothecary [VA]

Description

This 18th-century building was restored to house the Hugh Mercer Apothecary. Dr. Mercer served the citizens of Fredericksburg with medicines and treatments of the time. Leeches, lancets, snakeroot, and crab claws made up just some of the remedies. Dr. Mercer practiced medicine for 15 years in Fredericksburg. His patients included Mary Washington. Dr. Mercer left his practice to join the Revolutionary army and died as a Brigadier General at the Battle of Princeton.

The site offers tours.

Wisconsin Maritime Museum [WI]

Description

The Wisconsin Maritime Museum is dedicating to chronicling the history of Wisconsin's maritime and shipbuilding history. The museum is located in Manitowoc, WI, Wisconsin's most famous shipbuilding port. The museum is home to the U.S.S. COBIA, a WWII fleet submarine.

The museum offers exhibits, guided tours, field trip programs, overnight programs with the U.S.S. COBIA, exhibits, and special events. The website offers an events calendar, visitor information, and access to the museum's research resources.

National Security Archives: The Pentagon's Spies

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Graphic, The Pentagon's Spies
Annotation

Provides more than 20 declassified Department of Defense documents from 1965-1995 on the history of a variety of "human intelligence" operations performed in recent times by Army, Navy, and Air Force units. The documents contain organizational histories of these units and operations, and offer information on espionage activities relating to events in Latin America, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Cuba, Panama, China, and Bosnia. Includes a 500-word introduction and four-title bibliography. The site offers a revealing glimpse into U.S. military espionage activities and will be of interest to students of political history, public policy, and international affairs.

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1861-1960

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Logo, FRUS
Annotation

Published annually by the State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) is the official record of major declassified U.S. foreign policy decisions and diplomatic activity. Material, including transcripts of tape recordings, comes from Presidential libraries and executive departments and agencies. Digitized material does not reflect the full range of the published volumes. Documents included have been selected for their ability to illuminate "policy formulation and major aspects and repercussions of its execution."

The first website covers the years from 1861 to 1960. Each volume of more than 500 pages contains an annual message from the President, a list of papers with subjects of correspondence, circulars on subjects such as sanitation and conservation, and chapters dedicated to individual nations. Decisions involve a wide range of topics, including international arbitration and the protection of migratory birds. Visitors may search volumes individually or the whole set by keyword, subject, and date.

The second website offers materials from 1945–1972. Materials come from the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. Additional volumes will be added on the Nixon and Ford administrations.

An Introduction to Historical Thinking and Reading

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Woodcut, "Reading Lady," Sekka Kamisaka, 1909, NY Public Library
Article Body

This Flash movie begins by introducing history as a subject of study that requires thinking and asking questions. It then uses a case study about the opening hostilities in the Revolutionary War to show and explain historical reading and thinking. The movie includes historians thinking out loud about two primary source documents regarding the shots fired on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775.

Viewers simultaneously see the text and the comments and questions that historians make in response to that text (slides 5, 7). Longer, additional examples of historians thinking aloud and analyzing these documents are also available (slides 6,7). The narrator uses these examples to introduce and clarify four kinds of questions that historians ask: sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. With ten consecutive mini-episodes, the movie permits users to control the pace and choose to review or skip particular segments.

New World Encounters

Description

Donald L. Miller, with Stephen Ambrose; Virginia Scharff; Waldo E. Martin, Jr.; Pauline Maier; Louis P. Masur; and Douglas Brinkley, explores the pre-Contact and contact history of the Americas, beginning with the Ice Age migrations, through the corn civilizations of Middle America, to the explorations of Columbus, de Soto, and other Spaniards.

AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History

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Logo, AMDOCS
Annotation

Provides links to approximately 390 documents, most of which are related to the nation's political, diplomatic, military, and legal history. Arranged chronologically, the site begins with excerpts of Christopher Columbus' journal of 1492 and ends, at present, with President George W. Bush's May 1, 2003 address announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq [update: documents reach from around 800 to 2007]. Includes speeches, statutes, treaties, court decisions, memoirs, diaries, letters, published books, and even a few songs. The site, created by Lynn Nelson, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Kansas, is valuable especially for high school and college students who need easy access to many of the canonical documents in American history.

Historical Society of Topsail Island and Missiles and More Museum [NC]

Description

The Historical Society of Topsail Island operates the Missiles and More Museum. The Missiles and More Museum contains exhibits addressing Operation Bumblebee, Osprey aircraft, Camp Davis, natural history, Native American life, and pirates. Operation Bumblee was a circa 1946-1948 confidential guided missile testing program under the U.S. Navy, while Camp Davis served as an important air training center for World War II.

The society offers interactive and traditional exhibits, monthly lectures, and school and group museum tours. Reservations are required for lectures and museum tours.

Fort Morris Historic Site [GA]

Description

The Fort Morris Historic Site preserves the history of Fort Morris, constructed in 1776 in order to protect the thriving colonial port of Sunbury. The fort was taken by the British after a brief bombardment in 1779, and was used again in the war of 1812 under the name Fort Defiance.

The historic site offers ranger-led tours, educational programs, and exhibits in the site's visitor center. The website offers a brief history of the fort, a photo gallery, and visitor information.