Spotlight on Elementary Education

History has been shaped and influenced by the out come of ancient trials—such as the Trial of Socrates in 399B.C.—to Rosenberg Trial in the 1950s. This site offers a comprehensive look at 50 prominent court trials throughout history and its resources can be used to give young learners an introduction to the history of the modern judicial system.

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Website Reviews

Find quality websites & primary sources
Freedom: A History of Us
Photograph, Inside the Tenement, ca. 1890s, Freedom: A History of Us.

What exactly is freedom, and who possesses it?

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African Americans in Massachusetts
Cartoon, Colored Scholars Excluded from Schools, 1839, Anti-Slavery Almanac.

Compare perspectives on educational desegregation. How did it affect the [...] »

Selected Civil War Photographs

Explore more than 1,000 Civil War photographs.

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History Quiz

Test your history knowledge
Historical Improbabilities

Truth is stranger than fiction, they say. Can you tell the difference?

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Manias of the Gilded Age

Fads, crotchets, crazes, rages, and cultural fevers. Test your knowledge of [...] »

First Impressions: The U.S. and Japan

In 1854, Japan signed a treaty with the U.S. How did the U.S. and Japan see [...] »

Beyond the Textbook

Question textbook narratives
Women's Reform Movement
Print, A downright gabbler, or a goose that deserves to be hissed, 1829

The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 reflected the voices of [...] »

Denmark Vesey
An official report of the trials of sundry Negroes, 1822

Tried and executed in 1822, along with many other slaves, for a plotted [...] »

The Tet Offensive
Eddie Adams, Vietcong shooting prisoner cropped

American historians have depicted the Tet Offensive as the turning point for [...] »

National Resources

Federal teaching resources
Government Printing Office
Photo, Headlines posted in street. . , 1940, Jack Delano, Flickr Commons

GPO is the Federal Government's resource for preserving and providing access [...] »

National Portrait Gallery

Allow students to "meet" their favorite historical figures.

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Los Alamos National Laboratory
Photo, Kids watching rockets at the Summer Adventure, LANL site

Follow the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction through the protection [...] »

Ask a Historian

Divided Allegiance

Being born in the United States was not always a guaranteed path to [...] »