Teaching History Online
Number 8: July, 2001
Contents
3. PBS History
5. Commonwealth War Graves Commission
6. National Italian American Foundation
7. BUBL History Reference Library
Introduction
Spartacus Educational will be publishing Teaching History Online every month. The newsletter will include news, reviews of websites and articles on using ICT in the history classroom. Members of the mailing list are invited to submit information for inclusion in future editions of Teaching History Online. In this way we hope create a community of people involved in using the Internet to teach history.
John Simkin
The multiple award winning Learning Curve has launched its latest piece of content. The Home Front: 1939-45 is designed to complement fully the History National Curriculum (Key Stages 2-4). Students can take a multimedia journey through seven different aspects the Second World War and make up their own mind as to why it occurred and how it was fought. Along every step of the way the student has unrivalled access to the original documentation, gaining a real experience of 'making history'.
History Department of the Teachers' Virtual School
The TVS History Department has been re-launched. As well as online lessons it includes a large collection of Resources, History Worksheets and History Quizzes. Other subject departments now available include English, Mathematics, Science, Design & Technology, Modern Languages, Geography, ITC, Music, Religious Studies, Politics and Sociology.
PBS is a non-profit media enterprise owned and operated by 347 public television stations in the United States. It also has one of the best educational websites on the Internet. So far the PBS has produced more than 135,000 pages of content. One of the joys of this website is that it is willing to provide in-depth material on people in history who are not as well known as they should be. This includes Joe Hill, A. Philip Randolph, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Marcus Garvey, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Richard Wright. Other topic covered include America and the Holocaust, The Donner Party, John Brown's Holy War, Scottsboro: An American Tragedy and Surviving the Dustbowl.
Created by Mike Chapman, the Victoria Cross website is dedicated to the 1354 people who have been awarded this medal since 1856. There are sections on all the military campaigns since the Crimean War. The section on the First World War is particularly impressive and visitors can access information about the 624 men who won the Victoria Cross between 1914-18. This includes details of the deed and location of the medal. Entries are also listed by regiment, rank, campaign and nationality.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) was established in 1917. Its duties involve marking and maintaining the graves of the members of the forces of the Commonwealth who were killed in the two World Wars. The CWGC is also responsible for keeping records of those who lost their lives and over the years has become an important source of information for those carrying out historical research. Earlier this year, the CWGC began to make this material available on the Internet. It is now possible to obtain details of the rank, regiment, date and burial of all members of the armed forces killed in the First World War. With over 600,000 visitors a week, the CWGC search engine sometimes takes a while to respond to queries.
National Italian American Foundation
Italian Americans are the fifth largest ethnic group in the United States. There are nearly 15 million people who have identified themselves as Italian Americans and the Census Bureau estimates that one in ten people in the country have some Italian blood. The National Italian American Foundation website provides information on the large number of Italian Americans who have made significant contributions to United States history. Factsheets available on the NIAF website includes Women Trial Blazers, Military History, Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs, Education and Italian Influences in Washington.
BUBL History Reference Library
BUBL Information Service, based at Strathclyde University Library, is a searchable database of Internet resources of academic relevance. The websites are organised by Dewey Decimal Classification and can be searched by subject or class number. The history main page has fourteen main categories that include: History Journals, World History, Biography, Genealogy, History of the Ancient World, History of the British Isles, History of Europe, History of Asia, History of Africa, History of North America and History of South America. These provide links to further categories. For example, the History of the British Isles, is broken down into websites on Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales. Each website listed has a brief review with information on the people and organisations that have created the website.
Germany 1900-1945 is the latest of the Spartacus Educational Encyclopaedias. Each entry contains a narrative, illustrations and primary sources. The text within each entry is hypertexted to other relevant pages in the encyclopedia. In this way it is possible to research individual people and events in great detail. The sources are also hypertexted so the student is able to find out about the writer, artist, newspaper, organization, etc., that produced the material.
Weimar Republic: Treaty of Versailles, Spartakist Rising, German Revolution, Bavarian Republic, Ruhr Occupation, Freikorps, Inflation, Unemployment, Dawes Plan, Reparations, Beer Hall Putsch, Kapp Putsch, Treaty of Rapallo, Young Plan, Locarno Treaty and League of Nations (16)
German Political Parties: Social Democratic Party, Spartacus League, German Worker's Party, German Communist Party, Nationalist Party, Catholic Centre Party, Independent Socialist Party and Nazi Party (8)
Foreign Policy: 1932-40: Appeasement, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Anti-Comintern Pact, Poland, Rhineland, Anschluss, Munich Agreement, Nazi-Soviet Pact, German-Japanese Pact, Invasion of Finland and Invasion of France (12)
Nazi Germany: 1932-45: Sturm Abteilung (SA), Schutz Staffeinel (SS), Nazi Party, Jews in Germany, Mein Kampf, Women in Nazi Germany, Gestapo, Reichstag Fire, 1933 General Election, Concentration Camps, Enabling Bill, Trade Unions, German Army, Education, Luftwaffe, Abwehr, Hitler Youth, German Girls' League, Christianity, Night of the Long Knives, German Fascism, Anti-Semitism, German Labour Front, Strength through Joy, Nuremberg Laws, Crystal Night, German Labour Service, White Rose Group, Wannsee Conference, Extermination Camps, Waffen SS, Death's Head Units, Final Solution and Nuremberg War Trials (34)
Political Figures in Nazi Germany: Otto Abetz, Max Amann, Artur Axmann, Klaus Barbie, Martin Bormann, Kurt Daluege, Theodor Dannecker, Richard Darré, Sepp Dietrich, Rudolf Diels, Karl Doenitz, Anton Drexler, Adolf Eichmann, Theodor Eicke, Franz Epp, Gottfried Feder, Eugen Fischer, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Friedrich Flick, Hans Fritzsche, Roland Friesler, Walther Funk, Irma Grese, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Walter Gross, Ernst Hanfstaengel, Veit Harlan, Rudolf Hess, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Hoffmann, Rudolf Höss, Ernst Jünger, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wolfgang Kapp, Emile Kirdorf, Erich Koch, Ilse Koch, Karl Koch, Josef Kramer, Gustav Krupp, Alfried Krupp, Robert Ley, Victor Lutze, Eric Ludendorff, Franz von Pfeffer, Heinrich Mueller, Ludwig Muller, Arthur Nebe, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Leni Riefenstahl, Karl Ritter, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Roehm, Bernard Rust, Fritz Saukel, Hjalmar Schachibbentrop, t, Walter Schellenberg, Baldur von Schirach, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, Kurt von Schröder, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Fritz Stangl, Johannes Stark, Gregor Strasser, Julius Streicher, Fritz Thyssen, Fritz Todt, Edmund Veesenmayer and Albert Voegle (74)
Resistance in Nazi Germany: Karl Barth, Ludwig Beck, Eduard Bernstein, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Klaus Bonhoffer, Rudolf Breitscheid, Wilhelm Canaris, Georgi Dimitrov, Hans Dohnanyi, Hans Gisevius, Carl Goerdeler, Willi Graf, George Grosz, Herschel Grynszpan, Heinrich Gruber, Werner von Haeften, Ulrich von Hassell, John Heartfield, Wolf von Helldorf, Erich Hoepner, Casar von Hofacker, Kurt Huber, Otto John, Jakob Kaiser, Edwald Kleist-Schmenzin, Gunther von Kluge, Kathe Kollwitz, Julius Leber, Marinus van der Lubbe, Helmuth von Moltke, Josef Muller, Willie Munzenberg, Martin Niemöller, Hans Oster, Friedrich Olbricht, Christoph Probst, Adolf Reichwein, Fabian Schlabrendorff, Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl, Inge Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Richard Sorge, Claus von Stauffenberg, Helmuth Stief, Carl Stulpnagel, Ernst Thalmann, Henning von Tresckow, Adam von Trot, Josef Wirmer, Juegen Wittenstein, Erwin von Witzleben and Peter von Wartenburg (52)
German Scientists: Max Born, Walther Bothe, Wernher von Braun, Walter Dornberger, Albert Einstein, Klaus Fuchs, James Franck, Walter Gerlach, Hans Geiger, Fritz Haber, Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, Ernst Heinkel, Gustav Hertz, Pascual Jordan, Max von Laue, Phillipp Lenard, Hermann Oberth, Hans von Ohain, Otto Meyerhof, Rudolf Peierls, Max Planck, Johannes Stark, Fritz Strassmann, Carl von Weizsäcker, Karl Wirtz (26)
Please email John Simkin at spartacus@pavilion.co.uk if you have information you want included in next month's edition of Teaching History Online.