Lesson Plan
Center for History Education

The Iran Hostage Crisis

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
While the Iranian Hostage Crisis was a watershed moment, few history classes take on the complex series of events leading up to it. Using declassified documents, including a hostage's diary, young historians create their own reports to...
Primary
US Army Center

U.s. Army Center of Military History: Peace Becomes Cold War, 1945 1950

For Students 9th - 10th
A discussion of historical events that led to the Cold War from the perspective of the U.S. Army. Particular emphasis is placed on military leadership and policy.
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Wilson Center Digital Archives: Cold War History

For Students 9th - 10th
Presents a historical survey of the cold war by using documents. Explores the documents through an interactive site as a pathway through history.
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Wilson Center: Cold War History

For Students 9th - 10th
A large collection of documents from the Cold War era.
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Woodrow Wilson Center: Digital Archive: Economic Cold War

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a loosely related collection of primary source documents that discuss economic issues during the Cold War period. These documents are all varied in topic and geographical coverage, ranging from the 1950s to the 1980s, and coming...
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Woodrow Wilson Center: Digital Archive: Intelligence Operations in the Cold War

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of primary source documents that discuss intelligence issues during the Cold War. The documents come from archives in many different Soviet bloc countries. They are mainly decision memorandums, descriptions, agreements, and...
Primary
Mount Holyoke College

International Relations: Communist Bloc Expansion in the Early Cold War

For Students 9th - 10th
This Mount Holyoke college site provides the text of Douglas J. Macdonald's "Communist Bloc Expansion in the Early Cold War: Challenging Realism, Refuting Revisionism."
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Woodrow Wilson Center: Digital Archive: Cold War Origins

For Students 9th - 10th
This collection of primary source documents discusses international relations during World War II and the years shortly after. It begins with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in 1939 and ends with documents from the 1950's. The...
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Woodrow Wilson Center: Digital Archive: End of the Cold War

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a collection of primary source documents covering the collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980's. The collection contains documents from archives in most of the former Soviet bloc countries. They discuss the changes...
Primary
Mount Holyoke College

David T. Fautua: The "Long Pull" Army of Korean War

For Students 9th - 10th
Provides a lengthy account of United States Cold War policy, NSC-68, and the United States policy towards the Korean War.
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Woodrow Wilson Center: Digital Archive: Inter Korean Relations After the War

For Students 9th - 10th
This collection presents documents on inter-Korean relations from the end of the Korean War through the Park Chung Hee military coup.
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Woodrow Wilson Center: Digital Archive: Interkit, 1966 1987

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of primary source documents surrounding the Interkit Story. These documents give insight into policy coordination and national interests in the Soviet Bloc in the second half of the Cold War.
Primary
PBS

Pbs: American Experience: Truman Doctrine

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a copy of a speech given in 1947 that describes US intent in stopping the spread of communism. It outlines threats to communist expansion into Greece and Turkey, and the US response to such a threat. This is a great primary...
Primary
The History Place

The History Place: Ronald Reagan: "Tear Down This Wall"

For Students 9th - 10th
Primary source text, graphics, photos and audio-clips of President Reagan's historic speech given on June 12, 1987, in West Berlin calling for an end to the Cold War and the Berlin Wall.
Primary
Google Cultural Institute

Google Cultural Institute: Years of Change

For Students 9th - 10th
A visual chronology of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, in East Germany from diary excerpts, historical snippets, and photographs. The German Reunification period ran from 1989-1991.
Primary
Rutgers University

Rutgers Oral History Archive

For Students 9th - 10th
This archive records the personal experiences of the American men and women who served on the homefront and overseas during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. Also offers resources on the men and women who...
Primary
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: The Atomic Bomb and the Nuclear Age

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection that uses primary sources to explore the Atomic Bomb and the Nuclear Age it started.
Primary
PBS

Pbs News Hour: Essays and Dialogues: George Kennan

For Students 9th - 10th
Transcript of a NewsHour interview with George F. Kennan (1904-2005), the man credited with articulating the policy of containment that shaped U.S. foreign policy toward communism at the start of the cold war.
Primary
Harvard University

The Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System Online

For Students 9th - 10th
The Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System Online is a collection of hundreds of interviews of Soviet Refugees in the years of the Cold War. The collection is comprehensive including aspects of all walks of life of these refugees...
Primary
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Woodrow Wilson Center: Digital Archive: Cuban Missile Crisis

For Students 9th - 10th
Documents concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962-a major confrontation that brought the Soviet Union and the United States close to war over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Primary
US Army Center

U.s. Army Center of Military History: The u.s. Army in Vietnam

For Students 9th - 10th
This site gives an in-depth look at the U.S. Army action during the Vietnam War. To find more information about Diem's overthrow, look under the section labeled 635.
Primary
George Washington University

National Security Archive: George Kennan's "Long Telegram"

For Students 9th - 10th
Find the entire contents of George Kennan's "Long Telegram" in which he expressed outlook on post-war Soviet Union. It was not flattering.
Primary
Mount Holyoke College

Effect on u.s. u.s.s.r. Relations From Bay of Pigs

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State. It provides a typical example demonstrating the cold war relations and tensions.
Primary
Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Fordham University: Modern History Sourcebook: On American Intervention in Korea, 1950

For Students 9th - 10th
The Modern History Sourcebook offers a very interesting primary source that presents the Soviet position of the beginning of the Korean War. A great resource for comparing US/USSR claims about the origins of the Korean War.

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