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, 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.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Using Images to Understand the Interwar Period
Among the 45 images are Hitler and Mussolini shaking hands in Germany, Japanese aircraft carrying out air raids over China, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek sitting with the chairman of the Yunan provincial government, and four Italian soldiers taking aim in Ethiopia in 1935.
Together, the images offer a terrific overview of the rise of fascism and authoritarianism around the world in the 1920s and 30's.
Classroom Connection: Last year, I gave students the link to the images and had them sort them at least four different ways. Then I asked them to log into a common Google Doc, which I posted on Google Classroom, and create a descriptive title for each group. Students could easily see what others were posting with the common Google Doc.
The lesson took about 25 minutes and allowed students to analyze interesting images and manipulate them in ways that might help them better understand the interwar period.
Thanks to my colleague, Jeff Feinstein, who gave me the sorting idea for this lesson and Brenda Liz Garcia who posted the link to the Atlantic story on Facebook.
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
World War I: China & Africa Participate
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Ten Historians: 10 Different Interpretations on Who Started WWI
Sir Max Hastings - military historian, argues that Germany was most responsible. "It alone had power to halt the descent to disaster at any time in July 1914 by withdrawing its "blank cheque..."
Another historian, Sir Richard J Evans -Regius professor of history, University of Cambridge, argues that Serbia was most responsible. "Serbian nationalism and expansionism were profoundly disruptive forces and Serbian backing for the Black Hand terrorists was extraordinarily irresponsible."
And a number of historians like John Rohl - emeritus professor of history, University of Sussexe, put the blame on Austria Hungary and Germany. He argues that "the war broke out as the result of a conspiracy between the governments of imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary to bring about war."
These short arguments might be an interesting assignment for students. They could read the ten arguments and make their own assessment of who or what started the war.
Students will also see that historians do not always agree on causes and outcomes of historical events.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Opium Wars: CNN Millenium & The Story of China
Here are two clips about the Opium Wars. One is from CNN Millenium, which I often show my students and the other is from Micheal Wood in The Story of China. Both are short, about 8 to 10 minutes.
In the CNN Millenim video, the Opium War starts at 28.49 and runs to 36.50. The clip from The Story of China is eight minutes long.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
MIT's Visualizing Cultures: Opening Japan, Opium War
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
The Meiji Revolution: Excellent Clip from the Pacific Century
Here is an excellent 14-minute clip about the Meiji Revolution from the Pacific Century, the 1992 PBS 10-part documentary about the rise of the Pacific Rim. Part two, from which the attached clip comes, is about the Meiji Revolution.
It is dated but still does a good job. It begins in 1868 when Mutsuhito became the Meiji Emperor.
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Storymaps: WWI, Black Plague, Ancient Greece
Their software includes story maps for over a dozen titles in World and US history, including the Age of Exploration, the First Crusade, Ancient Greece, the Black Death, the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire, Egyptian Funerary Practices, and many more.
The story maps are engaging and include images, maps, graphs, and primary sources presented in an engaging manner like the excerpt below from the First Crusade story map.
In addition to the First Crusade, I also looked at the Black Death, World War I, and ancient Greece, which has many maps, amazing images, and even a video of a drone flight over the Acropolis.
Student worksheets with each story map include charts and questions for students to complete as they move through the story map. Here is a hyperdoc I made from those questions for the Black Plague.
Thursday, January 2, 2025
Russian Revolution: Short Documentary
Friday, December 27, 2024
Did Reconstruction Have Elements of Genocide? " I Saw Death Coming"
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Global Pandemics: The Plague of Athens
Follow an Athenian doctor, Nikos, as he tends to the sick and dying. Those infected by the endemic faced a horrible death. Some of the symptoms included intense fever and laceration of the bowels along with diarrhea. According to the historian Thucydides, many developed “small pustules and ulcers.”
Nikos struggles to help his patients. One asks him to help him end his life. Bound by the Hippocratic oath, Nikos is not so sure that he can comply but he understands his patient will die a painful death.
Decide for yourself what would you have done if you were Nikos and find out what Athens looked like during this time using this multimedia website. Click on the “Chromebook Web App.” Once the website loads, click the down arrow at the bottom of your screen.
Your students will learn about Athens just as the plague breaks out. They will learn about possible pathogens like typhus and smallpox and what the endemic did to the political stability of Athens. The plague stretched Athens to its limits. Athenians blamed the gods, and ostracized leaders like Themistocles and Alcibiades, the most popular citizen after Socrates' death.
Sunday, December 8, 2024
The Haitian Revolution: Understanding Liberte and Equality
In the short video clip below, Professor Gaffield explains how different stakeholders in revolutionary Haiti understood equality and liberty.
In addition to the video, you can explore Professor Gaffield's website, Haiti and the Atlantic World here. It includes links to both primary and secondary sources.
And here's a link to a terrific essay about Jean-Jacques Dessalines in The Conversation called Meet Haiti’s Founding Father, whose black revolution was too radical for Thomas Jefferson. Professor
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Were all slaves illiterate? Not necessarily
Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Nationalism Explained
Max Fisher explains the origins of national identity in this excellent five-minute clip for the New York Times. He notes that the idea of a national identity is relatively new.
Just before the French Revolution, for example, France was not really a nation. Half the people could not even speak French. Ethnicity did not line up with borders either.
Over time, the idea that language race, and borders should equal a country developed. And then nations began to create myths to suggest that their nation always existed.
Check it out. This short clip might help students understand the importance of nationalism.