Amidst tensions over European political and territorial boundaries, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian terrorist in 1914 derailed peace in the western world by sparking World War IåÑone of the highest-casualty conflicts in modern times. While European nations quickly engaged, the United States immediately declared neutrality. By 1917, however, remaining neutral was no longer an option. The Great War would bring the United States out of isolationism and onto the world stage. It would also change life on the American home front forever. A centralized government took control of American life in an unprecedented fashion by instating a mandatory military draft, controlling industries, initiating food and ration restrictions, and launching elaborate campaigns to encourage patriotism. One of the most important, if temporary, changes brought by the war at home came from the stifled flow of labor, as men were pulled away by the draft and immigration slowed. The need for American labor provided second-class citizens, such as women and African Americans, a brief opportunity for better jobs. This glimpse would help foment in them a desire for more and equal opportunities after they were pulled away once more at waråÕs end. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLAåÕs Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from Digital Commonwealth. Exhibition organizer: Anna Fahey-Flynn.

A collection of photographs, posters, newspaper clippings, and other documents telling the stories of American civilians and military personnel during World War II.

Use this site to explore how you create communities, how you live in them, and how you change them. This site also has information on the career of city planning, and activities on city planning.

The Preamble is the introduction to the United States Constitution, and it serves two central purposes. First, it states the source from which the Constitution derives its authority: the sovereign people of the United States. Second, it sets forth the ends that the Constitution and the government that it establishes are meant to serve.

Examine the seven forms of propaganda found in advertising and politics. Discover the persuasive methods behind the messaging we see every day and gain skills to effectively identify and counter them. A classroom gallery walk challenges students to detect the propaganda techniques at work and evaluate their effectiveness.
LESSON OBJECTIVES: Differentiate among forms of persuasive media. *Identify bias, propaganda, and symbolism in media. *Identify forms of propaganda in use.

In this oral history from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Frank Dukes describes his role in the 1962 boycott of discriminatory stores and businesses.

Students learn about the rule of law and how it protects individual rights and freedoms. By performing short, scripted skits that illustrate what life might be like without the rule of law, students identify six factors that make up the rule of law and analyze how each factor affects daily life. Students then make connections between the rule of law and America's founding documents and think about the relationship between the rule of law factors. LESSON OBJECTIVES: Define the rule of law. *Explain how the rule of law protects individual rights and preserves the common good. *Recognize the influence of the rule of law on the development of the American legal, political, and governmental systems. *Analyze the necessity of establishing and enforcing the rule of law. *Examine how the rule of law affects everyday life. *Identify the effect of Marbury v. Madison and its relationship to the rule of law.

From the basics about slavery to the attitudes that defended it and the efforts of those who wanted to see it abolished, in this lesson students learn about this dark part of America's past.
** Please note: The section about the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 has been moved to a new mini-lesson called Slave States, Free States that explores the debate about the expansion of slavery. We recommend teaching this mini-lesson along with the Slavery lesson. Find it in our Geography Library.
LESSON OBJECTIVES: Explain the impact of slavery on African Americans. *Identify modes of resisting slavery through the actions of Nat Turner and Dred Scott. *Explain the ‘necessary evil' defense of slavery. *Describe the methods of the abolitionist movement. *Identify the inconsistencies in the founding documents regarding the legal existence of slavery

This site from ibiblio.org gives information about the historical relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States. After reading the summary on this page, click on the links at the bottom of the page to read about early cooperation, communist parties, World War II, and the Cold War.

From 1945 to 1991, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) engaged in the Cold War, a conflict in which the communist Soviet Union and the democratic United States competed for influence over countries around the world. During this era, the US and USSR also took their rivalry beyond earth into space through a series of aeronautic developments and flight tests known as the Space Race. After advances in defense technology during World War II and the United States‰Ûª use of atomic bombs, each side looked to propel its scientific and technological capability forward by building new missiles, rockets, and spacecraft. The Soviets had many early successes in the Space Race, including the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik (1957), and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin (1961). However, the United States caught up and eventually overtook the Soviet Union, particularly when American astronaut Neil Armstrong and the crew of the Apollo 11 mission became the first humans to land on the moon in 1969.

Students explore the physical and psychological effect of stress and tension on human beings. Concepts of stress and stress management are introduced. Students discover how perception serves to fuel a huge industry dedicated to minimizing risk and relieving stress. Students complete a writing activity focused on developing critical thinking skills. Note: The literacy activities for the Mechanics unit are based on physical themes that have broad application to our experience in the world concepts of rhythm, balance, spin, gravity, levity, inertia, momentum, friction, stress and tension.

In this civic engagement lesson plan, students brainstorm a list of local problems and action steps that they might take to solve these problems. After analyzing the concept of problem/solution alignment, students select a problem of their own and create an action plan to solve the problem. Ultimately, students are left with a deeper understanding of action steps they can take to address problems in their communities.
LESSON OBJECTIVES: Describe the ways that citizens can engage with their environment to affect political change. *Develop an action plan to solve a local problem. *Present action plan to the class.

What if Anne Frank hadn't kept a diary? What if no one could listen to Martin Luther King's Mountaintop speech? What if the camera hadn't been rolling during the first moon landing? Actively listening to the voices of the past and the people who matter to us is important, and StoryCorps wants you to lend your voice to history, too. Here's how. [3:18]

Contains a map which shows the synagogues which were destroyed on Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass.

Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States, but he played many political roles throughout our nation's history. His political life influenced the country in many ways, from the founding documents to the shape of our nation on the map. LESSON OBJECTIVES: Recognize how various individuals and groups contributed to the development of the U.S. government. *Trace the impact of significant events that surrounded the founding of the United States. *Big Ideas: Declaration of Independence, two-party political system, Louisiana Purchase, president, "Revolution of 1800”

On April 26, 1913, Confederate Memorial Day, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was murdered at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Leo Frank, the Jewish, New York-raised superintendent of the National Pencil Company, was charged with the crime. At the same time, AtlantaåÕs economy was transforming from rural and agrarian to urban and industrial. Resources for investing in new industry came from Northern states, as did most industrial leaders, like Leo Frank. Many of the workers in these new industrial facilities were children, like Mary Phagan. Over the next two years, Leo FrankåÕs legal case became a national story with a highly publicized, controversial trial and lengthy appeal process that profoundly affected Jewish communities in Georgia and the South, and impacted the careers of lawyers, politicians, and publishers. By the early twentieth century, Jewish communities had become well-established in most major Southern cities, continuing a path of migration that began during colonial times. The Leo Frank case and its aftermath revealed lingering regional hostilities from the Civil War and Reconstruction, intensified existing racial and cultural inequalities (particularly anti-Semitism), embodied socioeconomic problems (such as child labor), and exposed the brutality of lynching in the South. The exhibition was created by the Digital Library of Georgia (http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/). Exhibition Organizers: Charles Pou, Mandy Mastrovita, and Greer Martin.

In this lesson, students will interact with the ways that people encounter the Great Lakes through travel and leisure activities.

This website gives a short biography of Anne Frank. There are links to maps and photographs.

An explanation of the term "antisemitism" and its particular reference to the Holocaust.

Site created by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to explain the Final Solution, the Nazi plan to exterminate all Jewish people. Site provides extensive information about the plan and the method by using pictures and written descriptions. Also includes a glossary for difficult words.