Lesson Plan The Decision to Escalate in Vietnam 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click here to download this three-lesson unit.
Spotlight on: Primary Source The end of the Vietnam War: conscience, resistance, and reconciliation, 1973 Vietnam was "America’s longest war." While US operations tended to be very limited between 1945 and 1964, escalation in the early months of 1965 eventually led to the deployment of more than 2.5 million military personnel to South...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Cold War in the classroom, 1952 Government and Civics, World History As the Cold War pervaded domestic as well as international spheres, Duck and Cover , an educational film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration and Archer Productions Inc., showed children how to react in case of a...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Robert F. Kennedy on Vietnam, 1967 Government and Civics, World History On May 15, 1967, CBS broadcast Town Meeting of the World , a program in which Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Governor Ronald Reagan of California answered questions posed by the moderator, Charles Collingwood; students from...
Lesson Plan The Soldier's Experience: Letters from Four American Wars 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click to download this four-lesson unit.
Interactive Walter Schirra Jr. Walter Schirra Jr. Cold War After completing ninety combat missions during the Korean War, Walter Schirra Jr. was named one of seven test pilots for NASA’s Project Mercury. Image Source: Yvette Smith, Photograph of Walter Schirra emerging from the...
Interactive Perry Watkins Perry Watkins Cold War Perry Watkins served fifteen years in the Army as an openly gay man. Despite this, in 1980, the Army revoked his security clearance and had him discharged because he was gay, a discharge he successfully fought in court. Image...
Interactive Grace Murray Hopper Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Grace Murray Hopper Cold War Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was a naval computer scientist who held the rank of rear admiral when she retired in 1985. Image Source: Lynn Gilbert, Photograph of Grace Murray Hopper in her office in Washington, DC,...
Interactive Alan G. Rogers Alan G. Rogers Iraq & Afghanistan Alan G. Rogers served in the Army during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. For his master’s thesis in policy management from Georgetown, Rogers wrote about the effect of the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on...
Interactive Jose Angel Garibay Jose Angel Garibay Iraq & Afghanistan In 1979, Simona Garibay and her youngest son, Jose Angel Garibay, came to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico. After his death in Iraq, the US government awarded Cpl. Jose Garibay posthumous citizenship....
Interactive Ashley White-Stumpf Ashley White-Stumpf Iraq & Afghanistan Ashley White-Stumpf served in the Army during the Afghanistan War. She was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for her service. Image Source: Photograph of the unveiling ceremony for...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Address to the Nation Announcing Operation Desert Storm, 1991 Government and Civics, World History On January 16, 1991, President George H. W. Bush announced the beginning of the military campaign to end an Iraqi occupation of neighboring Kuwait. The address was broadcast live on radio and television. It was the culmination of five...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Physicists predict a nuclear arms race, 1945 Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ This declaration of concern, written after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, offers insight into the Manhattan Project, an atomic development program led by the United States. The "Preliminary Statement of the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Discovering a mass grave in Iraq, 2003 Mark Rickert wrote this email while serving as a journalist with the 372nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment in Iraq. On this day, he and his group were investigating rumors of a mass grave. The letter is written to his grandfather,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Christmas in Kuwait, 1990 Geography, World History Cpl. Brett G. Coughlin arrived with Delta Company in Saudi Arabia at the port of Al Jubail on September 13, 1990. For the next three months the company trained in the northern desert of Saudi Arabia. By Christmas, its headquarters...
Lesson Plan President Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation, 1961 Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Click here to download this four-lesson unit.