The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Confederate states. The Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery in the United States. However, neither document defined freedom. The second lesson in the Reconstruction Era series examines...

Two powerful video clips launch a study of race relations in the United States after the Selma, Alabama riots, the passage of the Votings Rights Act, and the riots in Watts, California. 

Some words are best left unspoken.  Words matter, according to Benjamin Zander, conductor, teacher, and lecturer. To illustrate his point, Zander recounts a story told to him by a survivor of Auschwitz. As a result of her experience...

Introduce learners to The Silk Road, the first world-wide web. The narrator of this short, animated video traces the pioneers of globalization and the impact they had on culture and economy. The Scythians, Darius the First, and Alexander...

During his first few games as the first black player in Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson proved that he could withstand the wily curveball of Johnny Sain as well as the racial epithets shouted from opposing teams' dugouts. A short...

How do you get the truth unfiltered by middlemen? Tune into various sources and note the differences is the suggestion in a short video that begins by providing examples of how media gatekeepers have manipulated information and how those...

Why would Robert E. Lee order Pickett's Charge, an action that changed the course of the Civil War? Geographer and historian Anne Knowles uses digital technology to explain what she thinks is the missing piece in trying to understand...

Vladimir Lenin is on trial in an engaging, animated video where the merits and consequences of the formation of the Soviet Union and Lenin's actions are reviewed. This is a great way to illustrate how to establish and argue unique...

Do all languages have a common ancestor? Although no one yet knows the answer to that big question, the narrator of this short, animated video explains how linguists use migration patterns, geological features, and word clues to...

A four-part lesson features a video that details the life of a Mongolian queen. An eight-question quiz, related resources, and discussion questions follow the video to enhance the learning experience.

Three Latino Americans are the focus of an interactive that spotlights their accomplishments. Scholars get to know Lin-Manuel Miranda, Judy Reyes, and José Hernández through short informative text and videos. Participants read, take...

The United States Civil War forced Northern and Southern societies, as well as the people who made up those societies, to reconstruct their vision of themselves and their identities. A series of video-based web lessons look at the great...

Healing versus justice. The central source of tension following the United States Civil War was between the demands for healing and the demands for justice, the battle between President Andrew Johnson and Congress. A video introduces the...

Change may be slow in coming, but things do change. Oprah Winfrey and Black Entertainment Television CEO, Robert L. Johnson, discuss the opportunities available to them due to the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil...