Professor Joyce E. Chaplin covers Benjamin Franklin's creation of one of the first accurate charts of the Atlantic Gulf Stream in 1768 and the history of scientific research in the British colonies, both by Franklin and other scientists, that allowed the creation of such a chart.
This website presents a valuable collection of resources for examining the Salem Witch trials of 1692. There are full-text versions of the three-volume, verbatim Salem Witch trial transcripts, an extensive 17th-century narrative of the trials, and full-text pamphlets and excerpts of sermons by Cotton Mather, Robert Calef, and Thomas Maule. The site also offers four full-text rare books written in the late 17th and early 18th centuries about the witchcraft scare. Descriptions and images of key players in the trials are presented as well.
Access is provided to more than 500 documents from the collections of the Essex County Court Archives and the Essex Institute Collection, and roughly 100 primary documents housed in other archives. There are also seven maps of Salem and nearby villages. Basic information on the history of Salem/Danvers is complemented by eight related images and a brief description of 14 historical sites in Danvers.
During the French and Indian War (17541763), the British colony of South Carolina felt threatened by French activities in the Mississippi Valley. To counter this threat, the colony sent the Independent Company of South Carolina to construct and garrison what became Fort Loudoun. This move helped to ally the Overhill Cherokee Nation in the fight against the French and guaranteed the trade would continue between the Cherokee and South Carolina. In the course of the fort's four-year existence, relations between South Carolina and the Cherokee Nation broke down. In August, 1760, the Cherokee captured Fort Loudoun and its garrison.
Today, the fort offers tours and occasional living history events.
Kyle Zelner of the University of Southern Mississippi discusses the military history of British North America prior to the Revolutionary War, arguing for the significance of this history to both military and general U.S. history overall. Zelner also covers the Revolutionary War itself. This lecture was part of "What Students Need To Know About America's Wars, Part I: 1622-1919: A History Institute for Teachers," held July 26-27, 2008, at the First Division Museum in Wheaton, IL, sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Wachman Center and by the Cantigny First Division Foundation.
Video and audio options are available.
This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, traces the settlement of Illinois from the early years of European exploration of North America to the 1860s. It focuses particularly on the relationship between settler groups and Native Americans, on the construction of infrastructure that linked Illinois to the rest of the emerging U.S., and on the changing culture of the state's occupants.
This session features a talk from Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor and lessons created and demonstrated by three teachers.
"This course focuses on the development of an indigenous political culture in the British colonies. It pays special attention to the development of representative political institutions and how these emerged through the confrontation between colonists and King and proprietors."