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
Diary of a Civil War Nurse
Photo, Armory Square Nurses, National Library of Medicine

What was life like for Amanda Akin, Civil War nurse in Washington, DC?

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Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1945-1972
Image, United Nations Poster, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.

Peruse this collection of recently declassified foreign policy documents. [...] »

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site Virtual Museum Exhibit
Mural, Frederick Douglass appealing to President Lincoln, 1943, LoC

What was life like in abolitionist Frederick Douglass's home in Washington, [...] »

History Quiz

Test your history knowledge
Carriages and Wagons

Trade in your old Cabriolet for a new 1876 Landau? Test your knowledge of [...] »

The "Daisy" Ad

Johnson, Goldwater, and the politics of fear.

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Women at War

Women have fought in every U.S. war, but only recently have they gained [...] »

Beyond the Textbook

Question textbook narratives
20th-century Jewish Immigration
Dry plate negative, approx. 1920-1930, Jewish colonies and settlements, LOC

Divided into two waves of immigration by textbooks, the continuity 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 [...] »

Jim Crow Segregation: The Difficult and Anti-Democratic Work of White Supremacy
Print, For the Sunny South. An Airship. . . , 1913, Library of Congress

The fight against segregation and its discriminatory practices does not [...] »

National Resources

Federal teaching resources
Mine Safety and Health Administration
Photo, Mule driver, adolescent. . . , 1915, U.S. Bureau of Mines, MSHA site

Ever considered using mining to teach labor history?...

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U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Lithograph, [Patent medicine label for unnamed. . . ], 1830-1870, LoC

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has images of patents online [...] »

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Commemorate the lives of the millions of people murdered during the [...] »

Ask a Historian

On Telegrams and Telephone Calls
Detail of Wallace for President poster, 1968

On the record and off the record communications between Washington and [...] »