How does or society punish people who break the law? What effect does guilt have on a person's life? In what way does or society demand we conform to certain conventions? Such questions, found in this study guide, are sure to...

Join the American Red Cross as well as Mickey and friends as they help to prepare young scholars for natural disasters. After reading brief informational passages about earthquakes, floods, fires, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes,...

Those new to teaching an AP level language and composition prep course and seasoned veterans will find much to treasure in a unit that is designed to help young language scholars develop the skills they need to analyze the language...

Score a home run with this packet of information on the very first player of the Negro League to be elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame — cultural groundbreaker and sports legend Satchel Paige. These worksheets include a...

A timeline can be a powerful learning tool because it reveals a pattern in events. While few would consider St. Augustine, Florida a hotbed of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, a selection of background information and a timeline of...

There are a number of social, emotional, and physiological reasons why teenagers start smoking, and why they continue smoking into adulthood. Help class members understand why smoking begins in youth—and how to protect themselves from...

Do you want to hear a joke about nitrogen and oxygen? NO. We all know there is oxygen in the air and that plants produce oxygen, but how was it discovered? Scholars read a handout, answer questions, and analyze material in the...

From a PBS special on dueling, this web page focuses on the effect that dueling had on early American history and society's acceptance of this violent custom.

The America that greeted the first Europeans was, thus, far from an empty wilderness. It is now thought that as many people lived in the Western Hemisphere as in Western Europe at that time -- about 40 million. Estimates of the number of...

From the American Experience series on PBS, this is "The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken", a comprehensive multi-media look at the early American popular country music group.

The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a flood of millions of newcomers....

The first of the British colonies to take hold in North America was Jamestown. On the basis of a charter which King James I granted to the Virginia (or London) company, a group of about 100 men set out for the Chesapeake Bay in 1607....

The English began exploring and settling into the Carolina Colony in the late 1500-early 1600s. The land was already inhabited by Native American tribes. How did they all get along? Who were the Native Americans on the land?

Native Americans inhabited the New World long before European explorers began establishing settlements on the land. This entry addresses the challenges the natives had to face upon Europe's arrival, trials in relationships, and how...

Whatever early colonial prosperity there was resulted from trapping and trading in furs. In addition, the fishing industry was a primary source of wealth in Massachusetts. But throughout the colonies, people relied primarily on small...

For a variety of reasons, those who came to settle the early colonies sought a new homeland. Puritans, for example, established several settlements in Massachusetts. These English colonists were a pious, self-disciplined people who...

The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a flood of millions of newcomers....

This encyclopedia article talks bout the Council on African Affairs which dealt with the correlation of the struggle of African Americans and the colonial problems in Africa. It was supported by many civil rights activists of the time.

Two excerpts from Early American author Washingtom Irving about his preference for writing short works and why.

Learn all about Native American sign language using this online dictionary. An alphabetical listing of terms with directions of how to form the words is included. Also find links to related information .. what the symbols mean, hand...

Interesting resource for finding information on the life of Preston Sturges, comedy writer, and film director in early Hollywood.

This web page examines Benjamin Franklin, the Boston Tea Party, First Continental Congress, and the Second Continental Congress in 1775, where Canadians were invited to attend. Learn more about the flow of revolution and loyalty on each...

The oldest of 10 children and a scion of the planter aristocracy, Madison was born in 1751 at Port Conway, King George County, VA, while his mother was visiting her parents. In a few weeks she journeyed back with her newborn son to...

John Francis Mercer, born on May 17, 1759, was the fifth of nine children born to John and Ann Mercer of Stafford County, VA. He attended the College of William and Mary, and in early 1776 he joined the 3d Virginia Regiment. Mercer...