This inquiry kit features Library of Congress sources relating to the major political parties in colonial America.

In this video from The Good Stuff: Time Capsule, learn about the Confederate flag, its origins on the Civil War battlefield, and what it means to citizens today. Utilizing video, discussion questions and teaching tips, students can explore the history of the flag, what it symbolizes and why it’s such a divisive symbol.

This resource is a facsimile of Henry Clay's handwritten draft of the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise consisted of a series of bills designed to alleviate growing sectional divisions in the country. Specifically, the bills provided for slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty in the admission of new states, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and established a stricter fugitive slave act.

Learn how the Mexican-American War led to the Compromise of 1850, and how the Fugitive Slave Law, a key component of the Great Compromise, fueled the antislavery movement through cases such as that of the runaway slave Anthony Burns in these video segments from The Abolitionists |AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

In this interactive lesson supporting literacy skills in U.S. history, students learn about the differences between the way white settlers and Native Americans thought about land and land ownership in the mid-1800s. Students explore the concept of Manifest Destiny and how it created conflict in the Great Plains. During this process, they read informational text, learn and practice vocabulary words, and explore content through videos and engagement activities.

They met in Philadelphia in May 1787. Fifty-five men from 12 different states gathered, intending to revise the Articles of Confederation... Thus began the Constitutional Convention – the four-month process of secret argument, debate and compromise that produced a document that would soon be known in all corners of the globe: the Constitution of the United States. This primary source set includes documents and images. A teacher guide is included to assist educators in utilizing the primary sources in their instruction.

How is the Constitution structured? In this episode of our "Close Reads: Explained" series, Kirk tackles the Constitution and explains its biggest concepts to you. What does the document teach us about the government it defines?

The Constitution acted like a colossal merger, uniting a group of states with different interests, laws, and cultures. Under Americaâ"s first national government, the Articles of Confederation, the states acted together only for specific purposes. The Constitution united its citizens as members of a whole, vesting the power of the union in the people. Without it, the American Experiment might have ended as quickly as it had begun.

This source consists of scans of the Constitution of the United States of America. This document was drafted in secret by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and was signed on September 17, 1787, establishing the government of the United States.

The Mandan tribe of the Upper Missouri River had been one of the most prosperous tribes on the Great Plains for centuries, where they held a great abundance of resources. Both other Native American tribes and European explorers traveled great distances to trade with the Mandans. The English, Spanish, and French attempted to claim ownership of the Mandan territories, with little success.

As cotton's reputation as a viable source of wealth grew, slave traders began to buy enslaved people in Maryland's eastern shore to take down to the Deep South. Harriet Tubman witnessed her older sisters being dragged away in chains, a memory that she would carry for the rest of her life.

As slavery started to unravel in the Confederacy, the North kept pressure on Lincoln to transform the Civil War into a fight for freedom—with Black and white abolitionists, liberal congressmen, and Black congregations asking him to heed the call.

This interactive timeline places American country music’s foundational roots and evolving sound into the context of broader events and movements in U.S. history. It provides specific examples of how the history of country music can be used to illuminate important themes in U.S. history including systemic racism, immigration, and technological innovation.

From balancing chemical reactions to analyzing famous literature, never before has one collection offered such an awe-inspiring range of content. Since 2011, brothers John and Hank Green have pioneered digital education with their series Crash Course on YouTube.

Lesson plans for learning about the American Revolution, with different intensities form 15 Min to several days, this would be a great resource for a new teacher or could be adapted for self paced student.

This 2-hour lesson plan helps students create a video to be used as an inflight video showing a historical event they are traveling to in the past. In this lesson, students document locations, historical figures, historical landmarks, and social conditions of that time. Because Adobe Premiere Rush enables professional video editing, this lesson empowers students to create a documentary-style video.

In this video from The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, we learn that despite the efforts of Europeans to erase the identities of slaves, they created a new culture.

The Curriculum Guide, Project-Based Activity, and Gallery Walk Activity provide support material for the film How the Monuments Came Down.

Most students are familiar with the Declaration of Independence. But have they ever critically examined the text or questioned the motives of its authors? In this lesson plan, students weigh contrasting interpretations by prominent historians to answer the question: Why did the Founders write the Declaration of Independence?

The second part of the lesson encourages students to think through what the Declaration of Independence means and what the grievances meant.

This is a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.