American History Websites

Explorers
This is a good website for explorers. It tells about them and then charts their                 explorations all over the world.  The website is: http://www.littleexplorers.com/explorers/indexd.shtml
 
 

Geography
MarcoPolo (National Geographic Society)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/
Xpeditions includes a collection of nearly 1,600 outline maps formatted for easy print out and includes reviewed web sites which provide very good educational geography resources.

Eyewitess
http://www.ibiscom.com

     The theme for this website is "History through the eyes of those who lived it." Until modern times, this entails reading portions of diaries and other writings. For modern history, hear audio clips of famous speeches, entertainment of the era, and news clips.  The snapshots allow you to view the times in a whole new way.

Kidinfo.com
http://www.kidinfo.com/American_History/American_Revolution.html
This is a list of hotlinks to almost everything you would ever need to know about the American Revolution

America's Story from America's Library
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi
    Think of this as the Library of Congress, light. Let students of American History explore this colorful site to find out tidbits about history, culture and the people of the United States
 

Words and Deeds in American History
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corhome.html
     The American Memory division of the Library of Congress has contributed another example of what makes the Web so wonderful. "Words and Deeds in American History" collects and posts original manuscripts and letters archived at the Library of Congress. Some have been grouped by such topics as the presidency, military affairs, arts and literature, etc. You also can perform keyword searches or scroll through the chronological list to pull out a few gems like a poem by 13 year old Helen Keller or Ernest Hemingway's assessment of Ezra Pound's mental condition.
 

Early America.com
http://earlyamerica.com

     A wealth of newspapers, documents, maps and images is available from this site, which focuses on the late 18th to early 19th Centuries in the United States. Younger students will enjoy the movies, which use artwork and documents of the time to tell the stories behind "The Real Face of George Washington" and "The Treason of Benedict Arnold." Especially helpful is the page "How to Read a 200 Year Old Document." For older students, this site houses the scholarly journal "The Early America Review." Try your hand at the online crossword puzzle.
 

Paul Revere Virtual Museum
http://www.cvesd.k12.ca.us/finney/paulvm/_welcomepv.html

     Thanks to Kimberly Hamilton, who created this site in conjunction with the SCORE project in California. Five exhibit halls cover the Poem by Longfellow, The Real Story, Colonial Boston, Ride with Paul Revere across the Charles River, and Music of the Revolutionary War. Activities and resources are covered in each exhibit hall.

Geography World
 http://members.aol.com/GeographyWorld

Brad Bowerman, a teacher from Jermyn, Pennsylvania, has put together this resource that links to everything on the web a geography teacher (cultural or physical) should need. A great find was the links to Maps and Globes, with lots of links to maps and a link to Map Jokes (with Map
Haiku also at that website). In the Geography Quizzes area, a lot of the legwork has been done for you...you just need to decide which quizzes to use. World regions are represented with many links that could benefit students researching individual countries. Included in these links are resources created by Mr. Bowerman himself.
 

The Presidents of the United States
http://www.netcolony.com/news/presidents

     Find out all the information about the past presidents of the United States, and gain some insight into the man who might be the next President. Students can discover typical bibliographic information, or go beyond the ordinary, by studying the text of famous presidential speeches, the educational background of each president, how they used military power, and who was appointed to the US Supreme Court during their term of office.
 

Benjamin Franklin : Glimpses of the Man
http://sln.fi.edu/franklin

     Start here to find out almost everything there is to know about Benjamin Franklin, the inventor, philosopher, writer, and diplomat. Includes lesson plans (ie. solar energy, electricity, and hot air balloon experiments) that focus on current implementations of Franklin's ideas. By the Franklin Institute.

The History Net
http://www.TheHistoryNet.com

     Brought to you by the National Historical Society, this rich, elegant Web site could serve as a central resource for teachers or students of history. From a huge archive of informative and appealing articles from U.S. and world history to personality profiles and eyewitness accounts, this Web site is a treat. Read the Welcome Page to get an easy introduction to what's available.

The American Civil War Homepage
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war

     The American Civil War Homepage links to "the most useful identified electronic files about the American Civil War (1861-1865). The page opens a gateway to multi-formatted resources about what is arguably the seminal event in American history." Here's a great one-stop Website for those studying the Civil War. It is clear and frequently updated.

The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2

     This thoughtful site provides access to thousands of primary resources AND online lesson plans with student activity pages that provide the high-quality scaffolding critical to good instruction. Developed by history professors Edward Ayers and William Thomas, this University of Virginia research project is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
 

For an excellent starting point which will then point you to many other good links, go to:
 http://www.historyguy.com/lexington_concord_links.html