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
19th Century Advertising, Harper's Weekly
Teresa Bagioli Sickles confession, 1859

Can I interest you in a metallic artificial leg?

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SCETI: Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image

Search and browse a collection of resources covering topics ranging from the [...] »

History of the American West, 1860-1920
Photograph, Where gold was first discovered in Colo., 1890, L.C. McClure, Denver

More than 30,000 photographs capture life in Colorado from 1860 to 1920.

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History Quiz

Test your history knowledge
Presidential Moments: Inaugural Addresses

Can you match these famous first words with their presidential speakers?

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Celebrate More Than St. Patrick

The Irish contributed more to the U.S. than shamrocks and folktales.

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First Ladies' Firsts

What about the other occupants of the White House?

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Beyond the Textbook

Question textbook narratives
The Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki
photographic print, Second atomic bombing of Nagasaki, 1945 August, LOC

Controversial issues are often simplified in textbooks. Discover the facts [...] »

The Tet Offensive
Eddie Adams, Vietcong shooting prisoner cropped

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

Coal and the Industrial Revolution
Photo, At the close of the day, January 1911, Lewis Hine, Library of Congress

How can the story of coal help students understand the nature of today's [...] »

National Resources

Federal teaching resources
National Museum of Natural History
Photo, . . . trephining [sic]. . . , 1926, Library of Congress

Don't let "natural history" scare you away! The museum covers anthropology [...] »

Supreme Court of the United States

From John Jay to Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court is the final word in law [...] »

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, the nation's [...] »

Ask a Historian

The Possible Path of Barnard Bee
Digital image, Carol Highsmith, Confederates Marching, Library of Congress, 2010

Examination of counterfactual questions and how they are used in historical [...] »