Tip: Press ctrl and F (or apple and F on a Mac) to perform a keyword search of this page. To keyword search all Best of History Web Sites pages use the search engine located on the home page.
History/Social Studies Web Site for K-12 Teachers
A retired high school history teacher has produced a well organized and super-stocked resource of links to history and education-related sites. The site underwent a major overhaul recently; categories are so full of links it can feel overwhelming at times. Check out "Research and Critical Thinking" for teaching ideas.
PBS Online
PBS has a great source for information on a myriad of historical events and personalities. PBS's assorted and diverse web exhibits supplement specific individual television series and generally include a resume of each episode, interviews (often with sound bites), a timeline , a glossary, photos, and links to relevant sites. Categories include American History, World History, History on Television, and Biographies. Go to the PBS Teacher Source for lessons and activities.
Center for History and New Media
CHNM produces historical works in new media, tests their effectiveness in the classroom, and reflects critically on the success of new media in historical practice. CHNM's resources include a list of "best" web sites, links to syllabi and lesson plans, essays on history and new media, a link to their excellent History Matters web site for U.S. History, and more. Resources are designed to benefit professional historians, high school teachers, and students of history .
SCORE
The Schools of California Online Resources for Educators (SCORE) project is a terrific resource for teachers and students alike. Here you'll find reviews of education and history-related web sites, lesson plans, maps, and much more -- all arranged by grade level and content area. A must see.
Digital History
A great new site that includes: a U.S. history e-textbook; over 400 annotated documents, primary sources on slavery, Mexican American and Native American history, and U.S. political, social, and legal history; short essays on the history of film, ethnicity, private life, and technology; multimedia exhibitions; reference resources that include a searchable database of 1,500 annotated links, classroom handouts, chronologies, glossaries, an audio archive including speeches and book talks by historians, and a visual archive with hundreds of historical maps and images. The site's Ask the HyperHistorian feature allows users to pose questions to professional historians.
BBC: History
BBC's History section offers an impressive array of exhibitions, activities, games, photo galleries and other resources. Major categories include: Ancient History, Archaeology, Church and State, Science and Discovery, Society and Conflict, War and Culture, and Family History. There are also sections entitled Multimedia Room, Historic Figures, Timelines, Programmes, Reading Room, Talk History, For Kids, and History Trails.
History Teacher
An impressive, award-winning site from a New York high school teacher. Features many research links and curriculum resources for Global Studies, U.S. AP History, US European History, and American History and Government. Also has quizzes, news links, and more.
Digital History
The site includes an up-to-date U.S. history textbook; annotated primary sources on United States, Mexican American, and Native American history, and slavery; and succinct essays on the history of ethnicity and immigration, film, private life, and science and technology. Visual histories of Lincoln's America and America's Reconstruction contain text by Eric Foner and Olivia Mahoney. Our Doing History feature lets users
reconstruct the past through the voices of children, gravestones, advertising, and other primary sources. Reference resources include classroom handouts, chronologies, encyclopedia articles, glossaries, and an audio-visual archive including speeches, book talks and e-lectures by historians, and historical maps, music, newspaper articles, and images. The site's Ask the HyperHistorian feature allows users to pose questions to professional historians.
History Channel
A companion to the television channel, this commercial site contains a myriad of features and highlights for educators and students alike. Key offerings include: study guides and activities, ideas from teachers, special exhibits, speech archives, discussions, and "This Day in History." Also, try the UK site at www.thehistorychannel.co.uk and student site: www.historystudystop.co.uk
The History Place
This informative site features worthwhile exhibits (eg. American Revolution, Holocaust, Civil War),special presentations, essays, homework aids, and a guide to historic American areas.
BUBL: History
BUBL is a national information service for the higher education community, run by the Centre for Digital Library Research at the University of Strathclyde in the UK. BUBL offers free access to over 12,000 selected Internet resources. Links are extensive and all sites are reviewed.
Social Studies.org
National Council for the Social Studies offers support for social studies educators. Links are categorized by themes of the Curriculum Standards for Social Studies. Teachers share classroom experiences at the site and on the NCSS listserv.
Academic Info: History
Academic Info is a gateway to educational resources; the History Gateway provides links to World History Resources, Country and Regional Histories, Topical Histories, European History, and Additional Sites of Interest.
Smithsonian Education
The site is divided simply into three main categories: Educators, Families, and Students. The Educators section is keyword searchable and features lesson plans -- many pertaining to history. The Students section features an interactive "Secrets of
the Smithsonian" that teaches about the special collections at the Smithsonian.
Teacher Oz's History Page
An extensive and up-to-date list of humanities-related web sites covering: Ancient History, United States History and Government, The World, Wars, and Info, Military History Middle Ages, Renaissance, and The Enlightenment, England, France, and Russia, Biographies, Religion, Cultures, and Women and much more. Sites are usually not described or rated, however
Voice of the Shuttle: History Page
Part of an extensive guide to humanities resources that provides numerous links to feature sites, teaching resources, electronic journals, course syllabi, and much more
History Net
Offered by the National Historical Society, this well-organized site covers a diverse set of topics in World and American history. Noteworthy features include a picture gallery, archives, links to full-text historical magazines, eyewitness historical accounts, special features and book reviews
WWW-VL The History Index
The Central Catalogue provides direct links to network sites through its index and maintains a large number of files of pointers for countries, periods, and subject for which there is not yet a member site. A diverse and broad site with links to a multitude of topical historical areas. The scope of the listed categories is impressive, but some topics have a longer reach than others. Maintained by Lynn Nelson, Department of History, University of Kansas
Education World
This worthwhile commercial site contains lesson plans, special features, and is divided into 20 sub-categories including: Documents, Famous People, Women, Classical/Ancient History, Preservation, and more. They have reviewed over 700 web sites and have formulated yearly "Best Of" lists.
Spartacus: History
Run by a small educational publishing company, this website provides free online materials for major history curriculum subjects. Visitors can sign up for a free monthly e-mail newsletter covering web reviews and using technology in the history classroom.
Ask ERIC Virtual Library
Produced by the Education Research Information Center (ERIC) this site is an information clearinghouse on 16 specific subject areas. Of special note is its collection of thousands of lesson plans for varied grade levels and subject areas. There is a question-and-answer section and plentiful educational tips and guides.
Scholars' Guide to WWW
An extensive and well-organized guide to using the Web for general academic ends. Has an impressive set of history links.
Marco Polo
An impressive new entry that features reviewed links to top sites, professionally developed lesson plans, classroom activities, materials to help with daily classroom planning, and search engines.
Education Index
An annotated guide to the best education-related web sites. Reviews of historical sites are useful and comprehensive, though no distinction is drawn between American and World history. Well organized and reliable
World History : HyperHistory
Hyper History Online covers 3000 years of history through timelines, lifelines, maps and graphics. Much is under construction but the site holds promise
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
Sponsored by the Discovery Channel, this is a well organized and comprehensive guide for educators searching to make the best use of the web. Has good links in history section.
The Gateway
Contains about 7000 educational resources including lesson plans and curriculum guides. History links are divided by grade level and contain descriptions and reviews
SchoolHistory.co.uk
School History is a bountiful online history site that offers huge numbers of freely downloadable resources, interactive and entertaining history games and quizzes, interactive online lessons together with comprehensive links to online resources.
AwesomeStories.com
AwesomeStories.com is free, non-commercial educational web site for educators (as the basis for lesson plans) and students. Stories link to organized primary and secondary source materials found principally at U.S. and other worldwide national archives, museums, libraries, universities, news organizations and government websites. The purpose of the site (including its eight separate, stand-alone channels) is to take visitors on a virtual guided tour of relevant on-line source materials. Be sure to check out Click2History.
The History News Network
The HistoryNewsNetwork was created in June 2001 and features articles by historians on both the left and the right who provide historical perspective on current events. HNN exists to provide historians and other experts a national forum in which to educate Americans about important and timely issues, and the only web site on the Internet wholly devoted to this task . HNN is a nonprofit publication run by George Mason University, is updated daily, and averages roughly 1.5 million hits a month. Those of you who have visited the U.S. History landing page in Best of History Web Sites may have noticed that I link to HNN articles in the U.S. History in the Classroom section.
Teaching History
Is a journal of teaching methods that contains many links to web sites and includes contents of past issues
eHistory.com
eHistory.com - the site for history fans, enthusiasts and students. eHistory consists of over 130,000 pages of eHistory.com - the site for history fans, enthusiasts and students. eHistory consists of over 130,000 pages of historical content; 4,500 timeline events; 800 battle outlines; 300 biographies; and thousands historical content; 4,500 timeline events; 800 battle outlines; 300 biographies; and thousands
History Buff's
Produced by the Newspaper Collector's Society of America, this site includes press coverage of notable events in American history. It also showcases a President's Library and an Historic Voices Library featuring 12 audio recordings
Blue Web'n Weekly Updates
A Pacific Bell production, the Blue Web'n pages are an invaluable source of up-to-date reviews of education-oriented web sites. New sites are described, rated, and classified by grade level and content. Bi-weekly e-mail updates are free and are a great source of up-to-date information.
The Scout Report for Social Sciences(Wisconsin)
Here you'll find bi-weekly reports that cover select internet sites in the social sciences
McRel
The Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel) site provides educational resources, including lesson plans and many links to U.S, world, and general history sites. No reviews of sites, however
Classroom Connect
A respected source for educational resources such as web-linked activities. Has a popular newsletter on educational technology. Paid subscription is required to access most resources.
Someone in Time
Someone in Time, produced by the Discovery Channel, is a fun, interactive site where each month a new "mystery history" guest appears. Your task is to identify the guest by the clues -- text, visual, or audio. An engaging and well designed site that students will enjoy.
Footnotes to History
Footnotes to History is an award-winning guide that provides an overview of ephemeral states, micronations, secessionist states, and every other kind of country you never heard of in high school. It features The Atlas of Forgotten Nations as well as links and other resources.
studentsfriend.com
This non-profit, teacher-to-teacher site is a guide for high school teachers of world history and geography, although much of the content is suitable for teachers of other social studies subjects as well. Content includes fundamental information about history teaching, resources, a concise alternative textbook and lesson plans.
Conversations With History
In this UC Berkeley site distinguished men and women from all over the world talk about their lives and their work. They reminisce about their participation in great events, and they share their perspectives on the past and reflect on what the future may hold. Guests include diplomats, statesmen, and soldiers; economists and political analysts; scientists and historians; writers and foreign correspondents; activists and artists
Ed's Oasis: Treasure Zone
Provides links to educator-recommended and student-centered web sites.
Social, Economic, and Political Change
Social, Political and Economic Change is supported by The International Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publication. It features links to free resources about long-term changes in social, political and economic systems. It also links to online history books and lectures.
This site also includes several reports about sociodemographic changes in the 20th century, and very long term historical world population and economic changes.
CNNfyi
CNNfyi provides teachers with instructional materials for integrating current events across the curriculum. A student section keeps students in grades 6-12 aware of the latest news of interest to them. Lesson plans, background material, profiles, links to useful Internet sites, and forums for interaction with other teachers are also included.
T.L. Winslow's Great Track of Time
A huge (and quirky) world history timeline and chronology with over 16,000 active links
See also:
TeacherServe (National Humanities Center)
Is designed to deepen course content by providing convenient access to scholarship tailored to classroom use. TeacherServe consists of a series of instructional guides on important topics in the humanities on the secondary level.
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence(FREE): Social Studies
More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds of Federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The result of that work is the FREE web site
History Central.com
History Central is offered by MultiEducatory, one of the earliest producers of multimedia software
Cartoons in History
Focus On Cartoons by Learning Curve (UK National Archives) is an online investigation into the history and use of political cartoons. It includes activities ranging from simple quizzes to in-depth interrogations of cartoons.
Political Cartoons and Cartoonists
Commercial site with articles and commentary on political cartoons. Mostly American focus.
History in Focus: What is History?
Focus highlights books, reviews and web sites which examine the nature of history and assess the changes in historical method and practice.
Economics Resources for K-12 Teachers
EcEdWeb is your headquarters for teaching resources for K-12 or pre-college economics. The menus at the top are designed to work the way you work: if you need a lesson or information on a particular concept (e.g. scarcity), start with Concepts
History of Economic Thought
This website is a clearinghouse of collected links and information on the history of economic thought, from the ancient times until the modern day.
Politics99
This website provides clear definitions and background of key political ideas including anarchism, capitalism, colonialism, communism, conservatism, democracy, fascism, feminism, individualism, liberalism, marxism, nationalism, pluralism, social democracy, socialism, zionism. Key political concepts such as anarchy, authority, equality, globalisation, liberty, power, state power and totalitarian are also included.
Clash of Steel
A small team of military historians has put together this site to further the study of military actions throughout history. This team is building a database of military engagements and commanders which can be searched for specific entries. It also powers a 'Battle of the Day' feature to which visitors can subscribe. This will e-mail daily information completely free on the anniversaries of actions and engagements. Visitors are also invited to contribute to discussion groups, or to add information
and entries to the database itself.
DailyPast.com
DailyPast.com is the brainchild of an English teacher in Europe who attempts to bring history to life by turning history into current events. DailyPast.com takes some creative license at times, but the "news" is engaging and historically accurate. There are also materials for educators, forum, and book suggestions.
Mr. Hostetler's Social Studies Home Page
The Concord Review
The Concord Review is a respected quarterly journal that has since 1987 published 550 high school history papers by students from 42 states and 34 countries. Its web site offers 51 sample essays, including all the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize (now $3000) winners from the last eight years. The National Writing Board, founded in 1998, offers independent assessment of high school history papers from 22 states, and sends each author a three-page report, with scores and comments. Both the Concord Review and National Writing Board have received much praise from high school and university educators and administrators.
On This Day
Daily historical facts, events, famous birthdays, world history, United States history and music history.
This Day in Alternate History
A daily calendar of alternate history events.