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"Millions of Americans fought and died during the Civil War, and the legacy of the Civil War remains in the poetry and music left behind. Music was used extensively during the Civil War as a means of inspiring loyalty among the troops, and as a source of inspiration and motivation during marching. Poetry was written to encourage unity, to document the experiences of soldiers, and to share women's place in the war. Bands on both sides would frequently borrow songs and lyrics from the other side, using them as parodies. One such tune was "Dixie", though the song was created some period of time before the Civil War, it gained in popularity during this time. "Dixie" originally tells the story of a freed black slave yearning to return home to the simple life of the plantation, both the North and South however, created their own wartime versions. "The Battle Cry of Freedom" and "Home Sweet Home" also featured both Union and Confederate versions. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The Southern Cross," were poems that were later set to music."

Scholars of ancient history and IT experts at Stanford University have collaborated to create a novel way to study Ancient Rome. ORBIS, a geospatial network model, allows visitors to experience the strategy behind travel in antiquity. (Find a handy tutorial for using the system on the Web and YouTube). The ORBIS map includes about 750 mostly urban settlements of the Roman period

This activity is targeted to the critical analysis and construction of understanding of war poetry.  The tasks involve developing an understanding of the effects that warfare has on the individual soldier as a snapshot of the battle experience that most men experienced during the brutal trench war conflicts of the first world war.

Host: Joan Neuberger, Professor of History and Editor, Not Even Past Guest: H.W. Brands, Dickson, Allen, Anderson Centennial Professor of History, UT-Austin After the chaos of the American Civil War, Congress and lawmakers had to figure out how to put the Union back together again-no easy feat, considering that issues of political debate were settled on the battlefield, but not in the courtroom nor in the arena of public opinion. How did the defeated South and often vindictive North manage to resolve their differences over issues so controversial that they had torn the Union apart? Historian H.W. Brands from UT's Department of History reflects on this issues and how he has dealt with them in his thirty years of experience in teaching about Reconstruction: "It's one of the hardest parts of American history to teach, in part because I think it's the hardest to just understand."

This site discusses experiences aboard ships crossing the Atlantic.

'This blog is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters will be posted exactly 90 years after they were written. To find out Harry's fate, follow the blog!'

PeopleLink offers a unique solution for this vertical capable of delivering best in Class Video experience, flexible scalability, and a comprehensive set of data collaboration tools which make learning extremely effective & efficient.

documentary and transcript

Would be an excellent student activity if you lived in a country with a significant and extant material history. You register with this network and nominate run-down buildings that you and your students can then restore, under the guidance of these volunteers. I guess there are some ethical problems there, but it would still be a wonderful experience for the students.

"The Great Britain Historical Database is a large database of British nineteenth and twentieth-century statistics. A significant amount of work has gone into integrating the referencing of spatial units, and where practical assembling data for different dates into single tables." You can use it for free, with some limitations on the amount of information you can retrieve. Very valuable though as in my experience it's hard to get a hold of historical statistics.

The Great Britain Historical Database is a large database of British nineteenth and twentieth-century statistics. A significant amount of work has gone into integrating the referencing of spatial units, and where practical assembling data for different dates into single tables.

An excellent research tool provided by the US National Archives.

I usually avoid adding online secondary sources (most of them are so cursory and unreliable, in my experience) but this one has some substantial information on obscure topics that students often struggle to get information on, such as Bronze Age Mesopotamia. They'll definitely need to be careful with some of the details though and corroborate any information they use.

Here it is! If you'd like to become involved just please let me know and I'll give you teacher privileges. You can then approve your students' membership and monitor them. Any helpful feedback would be really appreciated - this is a collaborative effort and if we all feel ownership and have input it could be a great benefit to all of us. I suspect that especially our stronger students will benefit from this - those A students who need that extra stimulation can nerd it up on the network and help each other improve. Hope it works!

Several new members have joined in the last couple of days. I'd encourage you to get your students involved in 2010. Early results have been promising and we'd love to have you along!

I'm adding this again to try to drum up business; shameless promotion, I know. I'd encourage you to join up; it would be a great experience for your students. Hope to see you there...