Social+Studies

=__GENERAL AMERICAN HISTORY RESOURCES__=
 * American Experience(PBS) - companion Web sites for the American Experience documentary series examining important events and people in American history. Each site includes resources such as descriptions of the events, biographies of key figures, primary source documents, interactive maps and transcripts of the film.
 * American Masters- (PBS) - biographies of historical figures
 * [|American Memory](Library of Congress)
 * [|Archiving Early America](Primary source material from the 18th century)
 * [|Best of History Web Sites]
 * [|Digital History]
 * George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media- a range of web sites for teachers and students. Includes web sites of archives and exhibits
 * History Buff- free primary sources - how events in american history were reported at the time
 * History Happens- a collection of music videos about characters from american history
 * [|History...It's Happening!](you may have to log into EBSCO to access some of these articles in full text)
 * [|The History Place]
 * [|InfoPlease Almanac: Year by Year 1900-2010]
 * National Archives and Records Administration - The Resources for National History Day Researchpage guides students on where to find material in the archives.
 * [|Our Documents](100 milestone documents in American history)
 * Old Pictures - an extensive collection of historic photographs from the 1850's through the 1940's. They have sorted their pictures into three categories; themed collections, picture collections, and defining moments. The website also contains an extensive library of old maps dating as far back as the 1300's. Their map collection is sorted by date, nation, and state.
 * The Smithsonian Institution- wide variety of exhibitions and collections on American history and culture
 * This Day in History (History Channel)
 * __U.S. Dept.of State: Future State__- information about current international affairs and state dept. activities
 * World Digital Library (Library of Congress & UNESCO) - rare documents from around the world - many with audio read-aloud

=__MAPS__= =__**PRIMARY SOURCES**__=
 * __Free Map Tools __- use maps in cool and unique ways
 * Mapping History- interactive and animated site to illustrate historical events
 * [|National Geographic Map Machine]
 * [|Xpeditions Atlas from National Geographic] (Maps made for printing and copying)
 * __**CHECK OUT KATHY SCHROCK'S GUIDE TO PRIMARY SOURCES**__
 * American Memory by the Library of CongressAmerican Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity.
 * [|Archiving Early America](Primary source material from the 18th century)
 * Awesome Stories- tells stories from history with links to primary sources.
 * Documenting the American SouthThis electronic text archive from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill contains primary source slavery narratives and first-person narratives of the South as well as a digitized library of southern literature.
 * EyeWitness to History- first-person accounts of prominent events in U.S. and world history, along with a simple explanation of the event’s importance.
 * History Buff- free primary sources - how events in american history were reported at the time
 * History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web Designed for high school and college teachers and students, //History Matters//serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for teaching U.S. history.
 * Milestone Documents- offers famous primary source texts with expert analysis and lessons plans, some at no charge, others for a small fee.
 * Our Documents (National Archives) - explore 100 milestone documents of American History

=__**U.S. GOVERNMENT**__=
 * [|iCivics]offers civics lessons created by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Includes printable games and writing assignments.
 * Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids (Gov't Printing Office) - explains in a kid-friendly manner how the U.S. government works; lessons are divided by grade level.

=__**THE CONSTITUTION**__=
 * The Constitutional Rights Foundationvariety of resources, including lesson plans and enrichment texts
 * The National Archives’ Charters of Freedomexplains the making of and impact of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. It includes images of the documents, biographies of the framers, and fun facts.
 * The University of Chicago’s Founders’ Constitution - an anthology of 18th century writings on the debate over the creation of the Constitution. The works are organized by sections of the Constitution, making it easy to understand how opinion of each founding father influenced the formation of the Constitution.

=__**PRESIDENTS**__=
 * 13 U.S. presidential libraries (National Archives) - resources such as Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats and Richard Nixon’s Watergate tapes.
 * The University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs- best resource for studying U.S. presidents. It provides detailed biographies of each president, along with profiles of his cabinet, a collection of speeches, and links to the most comprehensive sources for private and public papers.
 * [|White House] - listen to the President's weekly video address, read transcripts of White House press briefings, find the names of all current Cabinet members, and more. It also provides biographies of every president.

=__**FIRST LADIES**__=
 * National First Ladies' Library - a national archive devoted to educating people about the contributions of First Ladies and other notable women in history. Click "Research" to find biographies, bibliographies, audio visuals, manuscripts, lesson plans and timelines.

=__**CONGRESS**__=

“Tying it All Together: The Legislative Process Explained.”
 * U.S. House of Representatives’ Educational Resources page - provides details on the legislative process, including “How Our Laws are Made,” and
 * The Center on Congress at Indiana University - offers interactive simulations that explain how Congress operates. It includes video and audio from congressmen and others**.**
 * The Library of Congress’ THOMAS-a database of congressional activity dating back to 1973. You can find bills, treaties and the congressional record, and track current activity on the House and Senate floor.
 * Library of Congress’ A Century of Lawmaking-provides the records of the Continental Congress, Constitutional Convention and first 43 sessions of Congress (1789-1873).
 * The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress offers short biographies of every senator and representative in U.S. history.

=__**NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES**__=


 * Google News Archive- search historical newspapers that cannot be found elsewhere in Google
 * Time magazine- access to articles dating back to 1923.
 * The Times of London- explore topics such as War & Revolution, Politics & Civil Rights, and Exploration.
 * The New York Times- free articles dating from 1851-1922 and 1987-present.
 * Rag Linen- an online museum and educational archive of rare and historic printed newspapers.
 * The Sports Illustrated Vault- offers all the magazine’s articles since its 1954 debut.
 * Library of Congress’ Chronicling America- displays images of late 19th and early 20th century American newspaper pages.
 * Cornell University and University of Michiganlibraries’ Making of America projects are collections of journals and newspapers from the antebellum, wartime and reconstruction periods.
 * Wisconsin Historical Society - an archive of every issue of Freedom’s Journal, the first newspaper to be owned and operated by African-Americans.

=__INTERVIEWS__=
 * TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)- inspiring, amusing and cool talks with innovative thinkers and leaders. Learn about emerging technologies, the fashion world, religion, medicine, and much more from the Web site of the TED Prize and annual TED Conference.
 * Mike Wallace Interviews- a series of prime-time television interviews conducted between 1957 and 1960. Wallace donated 65 interviews conducted between 1957 and 1958 to the University of Texas, which hosts video and transcripts of the conversations.
 * Charlie Rose- Charlie Rose interviews with writers, politicians, artists etc. since 1991.
 * The Paris Review - hosts an archive of intiew excerpts with authors dating back to the 1950s.

=__SPEECHES__=
 * American Rhetoric-an archive of American speeches, lectures, sermons, interviews and “other important media events.” Its “Online Speech Bank” contains full text, audio and video for more than 5,000 speeches.
 * History and Politics Out Loud- a database of audio clips relevant to American history and politics.
 * Historical Voices -a fully searchable online database of spoken word collections spanning the 20th century.

=__**ORAL HISTORY**__=
 * Michigan State __**University’s**__ Vincent Voice Library- audio clips from more than 100,000 “political and cultural leaders and minor players in the human drama,” dating back to 1888. Access to particular clips depends on copyright laws. Most items held in the public domain are available for online listening as mp3 files.
 * PBS’ “People’s Century”- a 26-part documentary detailing the events of the 20th century through interviews with average citizens. The Web site includes interview clips and lesson plans.
 * The Library of Congress’ “Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories”- features audio of 20th century interviews of 23 former slaves.
 * The Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement - features testimony of members of Civil Rights organizations such as CORE, NAACP, SCLC and SNCC, who submit stories about their experiences or write commentaryon the movement and current events.
 * Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Archive Oral History Project- features interviews of soldiers and civilians from the U.S. and North and South Vietnam.
 * “What did you do in the war, Grandma?” and “The Whole World Was Watching: An Oral History of 1968” were projects conducted by South Kingstown (R.I.) High School students who interviewed family members about their experiences during significant times in U.S. history. The projects are great examples of how young students can contribute to the study of history.

=__**LETTERS, DIARIES AND BIOGRAPHIES**__=
 * Letters of Note - offers a digital copy of an historic handwritten note each day, along with a transcript. It includes this ingenious method of communicationduring the Revolutionary War.
 * The University of Virginia’s “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War”- chronicles two counties, Augusta County, Va., and Franklin County, Penn., contrasting their experiences from John Brown’s Raid to the end of Reconstruction.
 * The University of Michigan’s “Spy Letters of the American Revolution”- spy letters written by both American and British forces. It includes stories about the letters, maps of the routes they traveled, and biographies of those who sent and received the letters.
 * Archiving Early America presents a wide array of primary source material on 18th century America, such as newspapers, maps, writings and portraits. It also includes Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and an 1807 biography of George Washington.
 * The University of North Carolina’s “North American Slave Narratives” - slave biographies and autobiographies published as books or pamphlet

=__**WAR AND CONFLICT**__= =**__GEOGRAPHY__**= =__**CIVIL WAR**__=
 * History Animated - provides easy-to-follow animations of key battles in the Revolutionary War, Civil War and Pacific theatre of World War II, with a short description of each battle.
 * The University of Oregon’s Mapping History - provides interactive maps explaining events in American, European, Latin American and African history.
 * The CIA World Factbook-the Central Intelligence Agency gives an overview of every country in the world, with maps, flags and facts on physical and political geography.
 * [|Geospy from National Geographic Kids]Geography games - put you knowledge to work
 * TravelPod- has a fast-paced geography game with quizes on world capitals, location of popular cities, world flags and more.
 * [|American Civil War Homepage]
 * [|The Civil War](PBS)
 * [|Civil War Home Page]
 * [|Civil War@Smithsonian]
 * [|Civil War: United States Colored Troops]
 * [|Civil War Women: Primary Sources on the Internet]
 * [|Eyewitness to History - American Civil War]
 * [|National Underground Railroad Freedom Center]
 * [|Poetry and Music of the War between the States]
 * [|Remembering Slavery](Smithsonian Institution)
 * [|The Underground Railroad] (National Geographic)

=**IMMIGRATION**=
 * [|Immigration](Library of Congress)
 * [|LIFE photo archive hosted by Google]
 * [|National Park Service: History & Culture]
 * [|Poetic Waves: Angel Island]
 * [|Slavery in America]
 * [|Virtual Jamestown]
 * [|Westward Expansion]

=**COUNTRIES**=
 * [|Frommer's](Select your continent under destinations)
 * [|CIA World Fact Book]
 * [|Country Reports]
 * [|Fodor's Travel Online]
 * [|Great Buildings Collection](Link to architecture around the world and in history)
 * [|Library of Congress Country Studies]
 * [|Lonely Planet Destinations]
 * [|Planetware]
 * [|Yahoo's Country Index]

=**EXPLORERS**=


 * [|BBC Historic Figures]
 * [|Conquistadors](PBS)
 * [|Exploration Through the Ages](Mariner's Museum, Newport News, Va.)
 * [|Hall of Explorers]
 * [|Kid Info: Explorers]
 * Lewis and Clark>
 * [|Yahoo Explorer Directory]

=**MUSEUMS**=


 * [|Chicago Field Museum]w
 * [|Chicago History Museum](formerly Chicago Historical Society)
 * [|History Museums from KidsConnect.com]
 * [|Newseum]
 * [|Smithsonian Institute]

=**TIMELINE**= > Covers Ancient, Middle Ages and 16th-21st century history opening with the 20th century
 * [|eHistory Timelines]

=**WASHINGTON D.C.**=
 * [|White House History and Tours] (Includes presidential biographies)

=WORLD HISTORY=

Ancient Civilizations

 * [|Ancient Civilizations](British Museum)
 * [|Aztec-History.com]
 * [|Eyewitness to History]
 * [|Incredible Incas for Kids]
 * [|InfoPlease Almanac: World History]
 * [|Learner.org Interactives: Middle Ages]
 * [|Learner.org Interactives: Renaissance]
 * [|Lost Kingdom of the Maya](PBS)
 * [|Mark Millmore's Ancient Egypt]
 * [|Medieval Times and Castles]
 * [|Mundo Maya]
 * [|Pyramids: the Inside Story](PBS/NOVA)
 * [|World Images]