Boundless US History Textbook

I just discovered Boundless which has twenty-four different textbooks and is not married to the concept of pages (thankfully).  One of the subjects is US history.  It is a great "book" on the subject and even has several multiple choice questions on each topic.  If you sign up you can even get free PowerPoints and there is a search engine so you can find topics easily. 

George Washington's Teeth

I've told my students for years that George Washington paid slaves for some of his false teeth, but I never knew that he also got some from donkeys, cows and horse!  The New York Times has a fascinating new blog called the Upshot that you might want to look at for "news, analysis and grpahics about politics, policy and everyday life."

Cold War Site

The History Learning Site has a great page on the Cold War.  Here, for example, is its definition of it.  It breaks up the topic into a number of concepts so you can pick which ones you might want your students to use.  

Interactive Immigration Map

Here's a great interactive map from the Washington Post that allows you to see how many immigrants populate counties across America and where they came from. For example, click on Baltimore, Maryland and you'll see 19,265 are foreign born out of a total population of 651,154.

You can also click on a particular country from which immigrants came and see where they settled in the United States.

You'll need flash drive to  view the map.

The Cold War

It has been a while since I posted a John Green video but with all our snow days you might be going a wee bit quickly to finish the year and might want a quick review.  So above is a flipped video on the Cold War.    All John Green videos can be found here. 

Texting Small Groups in Remind101

I should have written about this a month ago, but if you have three or more students you want to reach, but do not want to connect with your entire class, then you can text that group only using Remind101. To do it go to the "To" box and start printing in the name of each student.  It will autofill and you can even add names from multiple classes.  

Changing Face of America

Atlantic Magazine has an awesome set of maps, two of which you can see below, which show the changing face of America  by race and ethnicity.  The top map shows percentages of immigrants since 1960 and the bottom map shows which immigrants were first generation and which were second since 1900.

Letter from a Young Castro to FDR

As part of my work with the College Board this past weekend, we unexpectedly found a letter from a 12 year old Fidel Castro written to FDR.  One can assume that FRD never saw the letter, but Castro put the White House response on his school's bulletin board.  In it Castro asked for $10 and told him that if FDR needed iron, his birthplace was the perfect place to get it.

Here is an interesting interpretation of the letter that argues that Castro did not need the money since he was going to a private Jesuit school, but posits that perhaps it was part of a class assignment.

Now how could you use this in the class.  My idea is many leaders grew up with normal backgrounds and made a decision to be different at some point.  What might this letter say about Castro and why would a future enemy of the US care, in 1940 about the re-election of one of our presidents? 

Changes in AP US History

I am on a College Board advisory panel for 6-12th grade changes and am sitting in a meeting right now and just found out about Advanced in AP which has the changes that are coming in AP US History.  Other changes in other subjects will be added to the site as they come about. 

Civil Rights Act of 1964

In light of the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, above is a three minute primer on it from the History Channel showing period video. 

Child Labor in America 1908-1911

Amazing photographs by Lewis W. Hine of child labor in America in the early 20th century at The History Place. Hine used his photographs to stimulate social reform.  This gallery of child labor photographs is quite moving.

Lyndon Johnson's Announcement not to Run for President

Thanks to Frank Franz for Tweeting this short video from the speech when Lyndon Johnson announced that he was not running for re-election for president.  Having only heard the most famous line from it, it is interesting to watch the entire speech.