World History Teachers Blog
This is a webpage written by high school teachers for those who teach world history and want to find online content as well as technology that you can use in the classroom.
Monday, September 29, 2025
Hindu India: Terrific Short Documentary
Monday, September 22, 2025
Rome Reborn: Narrated by Khan Academy
Khan Academy took the model and narrated the the tour of the buildings making the clip even more meaningful to students.
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Hanseatic League: Two Good Video Clips
It started in the middle of the 13th century and continued for 300 years. At its height, it included over 200 cities like Lübeck, Reval, Riga, and Dorpat.
Some of the products traded included Flemish cloth, salt, herring and furs. And Novgorod traded wax and honey.
Some historians even argue that the League was a forerunner of the European Common Market today.
Here are two short clip that summarize the importance of the League. The first takes you on quick tour of the Hanseatic museum in Bergen. And the second takes you on a tour of Lübeck.
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
How Dark were The Dark Ages?
They were full of color with carnivals, and revived popular drama and they invented the university.
And don't forget architecture! Gothic cathedrals brought color and light.
Saturday, September 6, 2025
European Sailors and Navigational Tools in the Age of Encounter and Exchange
One includes the Mariners Museum lets you explore the instruments of exploration as well the explorers by time period. During the Age of Discovery, you can look at short biographies of the major explorers, and short overviews of ships like the carrack and carrack and tools like the backstaff and quadrant.
PBS World Explorers is another great resource. It uses Google Earth to show voyages of Cabot, Drake, Magellan and Vespucci, DeGamma, and Columbus.
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Buddhism Along the Silk Road: Hyperdoc
Here is a Hypedoc (Webquest) about the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Road between the 2nd and 12th centuries.
It's based on a terrific website simply called " A History of the Silk Road. It has tabs for Buddhism, important people, travelers (including Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo), inventions (such as paper and gunpowder), Pax Mongolica, and even the Belt and Road Initiative.
Another resource for the hyperdoc was the Sackler Museum's digital exhibit of the Sogdians (who the museum called "Influencers on the Silk Road.") The Sogdians were central Asian nomads known for their trade and agriculture during their golden age between the 4th and 8th centuries.
The variety of religion was a big feature of Sogdian culture. In an essay called "Believers, Proselytizers, and Translators, the authors review the development of Zoroastrianism, which started in Iran.
My hyperdoc takes students into the Sackler Exhibit and asks them questions about Zoroastrianism and introduces them to the geography of the Silk Road with a terrific google map. In addition, it looks at the development of Buddhism, especially at its height during the Song Dynasty. Students also read some of Ibn Batuttua's writing about Muslim life in West Africa.
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Greece and Rome: Two Excellent Overviews
The Greece review runs 18 minutes and the Rome review runs just over 20 minutes.
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Mugals- Art & Tolerance
All four promoted and patronized art. That art was colorful and liberal, at least by Muslim standards. Persians, for example, were scandalized by the art calling it "too ripe and rounded' and "too bright and colorful." According to Dalrymple, that was because the art did not show the "restraint and geometric perfection of Safavid painting."
The Mughal love for art and its emphasis on liberalism shows a strong humanist streak in many Mughal emperors and especially, Akbar.
According to Dalrymple, Akbar "succeeded in uniting Hindus and Muslims in the service of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state, promoting Hindus in his civil service, marrying Hindu princesses and entrusting his army to the Rajput ruler of Jaipur."
Akbar's love for art included religious Christian art like frescoes of Christain saints and painted images of Christ.
Although the art exhibits about which Darylmple writes closed long ago, his essays offer world history students an engaging overview of the Mughals.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Sunni/Shia Divide- Resources
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From Pew Form on Religion and Public Policy |
- The New York Times: How do Sunni and Shia Differ
- An awesome Prezi with embedded video clips
- NPR: Origins of the Sunni/ Shia split
- Council of Foreign Relations: A terrific eight minute video clip reviewing the differences
- NBC News: A short but good clip, What Are the Differences Between Sunni and Shiite Muslims?
- Pew Form on Religion and Public Life: The Sunni-Shia divide: Where they live, what they believe and how they view each other
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Comics Ideal for World and US History
Here is one of several great comics ideal for World History and U.S History. They were developed by the NYCDOE Department of Social Studies & Civics and tweeted by Joe Schmidt, a curriculum specialist in New York who helped develop the resources.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Using Google Gemini to Create Assignments
If you have never used AI to create an assignment, you should give it a try.
I teach World History, both AP World and general World History for freshmen. I uploaded chapter 1 and 2 about early man and the Paleolithic era in our textbook, Patterns of Interaction, to Google Gemini, and asked it to create a choice board assignment.
Here is a link to what it created. I copied the assignment to another google doc and color coded the choices.
Next, I uploaded Chapter 2 about early river valley civilizations and asked it create another choice board. Again, I copied it to another google doc and color coded it.
You can also ask Gemini to create a vocabulary matching quiz based on any chapter you are studying. Here is a matching quiz I asked it to create on the Paleolithic era. I copied it to a google doc and reformatted it.
I experimented further and asked Gemini create a test and it did a decent job. It's definitely worth checking out.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Alexander the Not So Great: Through Persian Eyes
In an fascinating article for BBC News Magazine, Iranian historian, Ali Ansari, professor in modern history and director of The Institute of Iranian Studies at The University of St Andrews, Scotland, suggests that Alexander came to regret the destruction he wrought in Persia. He believes that had Alexander lived, "he may have restored and repaired more" than he did during his life.
You can also listen to Professor Ansari on BBC4 Radio 4 in an an excellent 3-part series "exploring world history from a Persian perspective." Each episode is about 30 minutes and offers some great history through Persian eyes. In part 1, Professor Ansari discusses Zoroastrianism.
Monday, June 16, 2025
A History of the World, I Guess: Bill Wurtz's CLEAN Version
It was made by Bill Wurtz who also made a history of Japan that was released in 2015 and earned over 3 million views on its first day. But be careful. Look for the clean version before showing it to your class.
Monday, May 5, 2025
Who Were the Sogdians
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Decolonization in Ghana & Kenya: Two Short Documentaries
Both are from CCTV News, a 24-hour English news channel, of China Central Television, based in Beijing.
You can find questions for both videos in the New Visions Global Curriculum for 10th grade. Look for the unit on decolonization and nationalism. You'll find links to both videos with questions and other short activities
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Manchurian Crisis & Rape of Nanking
Here are two video clips about Japanese imperialism during the interwar period.
The first reviews the Manchurian crisis and the failure of the League of Nations while the second, from CCTV News, speaks to eyewitnesses about the Nanking Massacre.
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Cold War Stations Activity
One of my colleagues developed it years ago. It includes seven stations, each with cartoons, documents, or photographs for students to process. I printed it out for seven different stations, but students could also work on it online.
Here's a google link to the handout that students complete. If that does not work, try this dropbox link to the student worksheet. And here is a link to the activity on google slides. You can simply print out all the material for the different stations.
Here is a Dropbox link to the slideshow.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Online Archive for WWII
The archive includes primary sources such as images, cartoons, and documents.
One of the most interesting parts of the archives is the investigations of significant issues designed for high school students.
Find out what went wrong at Gallipoli or if Britain could have done more for the Jews during WWII. The website gives you an overview of each issue along with a chart of primary sources to help students come to a conclusion.
The database is divided into four themes:
Saturday, February 22, 2025
A Global Guide to WWI
The Guardian has a terrific interactive site about the global nature of World War I. It has interactive maps, original news reports, and videos exploring the war and its effects from many perspectives.
Ten historians give a brief history of the war through global lenses in a video that takes the viewer through the war.
My colleague and I put together a hyperdoc that takes students through the site and helps them understand the global nature of the war.