Teaching
History Online
Number
79: 30th March, 2003
Introduction
1.
Cuban
Missile Crisis
2.
ICT
History
3.
Berlin
Blockade
4.
Profiles:
Cold War Warriors
5.
Battle
of Baghdad 1917
6.
Henry
Street Settlement
7. Pentrich
Historical Society
8. 45th
Infantry Division
9. White
Mughals
Introduction
Spartacus Educational
publishes Teaching
History Online every week. The newsletter includes 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 to create a community
of people involved in using the Internet to teach history. Currently
there are 26,860 subscribers to the newsletter.
John Simkin
spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
Cuban
Missile Crisis: In October 1962 the world was on the verge of
a nuclear war. President Kennedy of the United States had issued a
war-alert command. Polaris submarines armed with nuclear weapons took
up positions close to the Soviet Union. B-52 bombers also with nuclear
weapons were ordered into the air. A further 105 short-range missiles
in Europe and 156 intercontinental missiles in the United States were
prepared for firing at the Soviet Union. What had brought the world
to the brink of destruction? These activities cover the history of
Cuba, Fidel Castro, Bay of Pigs, Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy
and ends up with a simulation on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
ICT
History: This section of Andrew Field's website offers explanations
and articles on use of ICT within history. All have been written by
history teachers in the spirit of sharing good practice and ideas.
It is hoped that this section will continue to develop further, and
submissions for future case studies will be very gratefully received.
Currently the website includes examples of how PowerPoint and Digital
Projectors have been used in the classroom.
Berlin
Blockade: After the defeat of Germany in 1945 the country was
divided into four zones. Each zone was controlled by a different country
- Britain, USA, France, USSR. Germany's capital Berlin was also divided
into four zones. However, Berlin was deep inside Soviet territory.
As a result, West Berlin became a very clear example of the contrasting
attitudes of Stalin towards Germany and the attitudes of the other
three powers. Stalin decided that the Western powers would have to
be driven from West Berlin. In the Summer of 1948 he blocked all road,
rail and water links to West Berlin from the Western zones. This Public
Record Office activity looks at one of the most important events of
the Cold War.
Profiles:
Cold War Warriors: This CNN website provides a collection of biographies
of important figures in the Cold War. This includes Konrad
Adenauer, Salvador Allende, Yuri
Andropov, Clement
Attlee, Ernest
Bevin, Willy Brandt, Leonid
Brezhnev, George Bush, Jimmy
Carter, James
F. Byrnes, Fidel
Castro, Winston
Churchill, Alexander
Dubcek, Allen
Dulles, John
Foster Dulles, Dwight
Eisenhower, Mikhail
Gorbachev, Vaclav
Havel, Andrei
Gromyko, Erich
Honecker, Ho
Chi Minh, Lyndon
B. Johnson, George
Kennan, Nikita
Khrushchev, John
F. Kennedy, Henry
Kissinger, Jan
Masaryk, Vyacheslav
Molotov,
Richard
Nixon, Joseph
Stalin, Ronald
Reagan and Harry
S. Truman.
Battle
of Baghdad 1917: In the First World War the Ottoman (Turkish)
Empire sided with the Germans and Austrians. The Turks had held Mesopotamia
since 1534 and they had a firm grip on many of the Persian and Arabian
oilfields. Britain wanted that oil for its large navy. The British
gained Basra and its oil wells in November 1914. They also occupied
the terminal of the oil pipeline and the refineries on the island
of Abadan in the river of Shatt El Arab, in the south-western corner
of Persia (Iran). In December 1916 the Mesopotamian Expeditionary
Force crossed the river Tigris and captured Kut-el-Amara. Over the
next few months the British and went on to take Beersheba, Jaffa and
Jerusalem. This website takes a look at what happened when the troops
reached Baghdad in March 1917.
Henry
Street Settlement: In 1893, Lillian Wald founded the Henry Street
Settlement to help build better lives for the inhabitants of Manhattan's
Lower East Side. Today the Henry Street Settlement has a community
mental health clinic, a battered women's shelter, transitional residences
for homeless families and single women, three day care centers, a
senior center, programs and services for older adults, a multi-disciplinary
arts center, arts-in-education programming, home care initiatives,
and a broad spectrum of educational, employment, recreational, camping,
community service, after-school, counseling, and leadership development
programs for young people. The website includes a history of the High
Street Settlement and a biography of Lillian Wald.
Pentrich
Historical Society: The Pentrich Historical Society website takes
you on a journey through the history of the Derbyshire village of
and its people. From Roman times, when Pentrich was a Roman encampment
to 1817, when Jeremiah Brandreth led a group of local men to revolution.
At the time of the Pentrich Revolution the Industrial Revolution had
gathered momentum, but the government no longer seemed to represent
the people and there was much talk of revolution up and down the country;
many local societies met and made plans to overthrow of the government.
At Pentrich the plans became reality, and ultimately led to the partial
demolition of the village, the execution of three men and the transportation
of fourteen others.
45th
Infantry Division: The
45th Infantry Division was one of four National Guard Divisions activated
in 1940 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, foreseeing the possibility
of war on the horizon. The campaigns it fought in were Sicily, Naples-
Fogia, Anzio, Rome-Arno, Southern France, Central Europe, Ardennes
Alsace, and Rhineland. The World War II Recreation Association in
conjunction with BSA Venturing Crew 1941 have developed a website
to preserve the history of the 45th Infantry Division and the individual
Veterans who served in it.
Book
Section
White
Mughals: The Mughals, it was said, arrived as 'ruddy men in boots'
and left as 'pale persons in petticoats'. For a time, it looked as
if India's Western colonisers would follow their example. From the
early sixteenth century, when the Inquisition passed laws banning
Portuguese in Goa from wearing the dhoti, to the eve of the Indian
Mutiny, the 'white mughals' who wore local dress and adopted Indian
ways were a source of embarrassment to the imperial administration
of the subcontinent. William Dalrymple describes such colourful figures
as Major General Claude Martin, who kept a harem including his favourite
wife and her three sisters, and Alexander Gardner, an American mercenary
whose self-invented costume included a tartan turban adorned with
egret plumes. Above all he unearths the romantic tale of James Kirkpatrick,
British Resident at the Court of Hyderabad from 1797 to 1805, who
fell in love with and married Khair-un-Nissa. In White Mughals, William
Dalrymple uncovers an exotic and previously unexplored world. The
book will confirm his reputation as one of the finest writers at work
today. (William Dalrymple, HarperCollins, ISBN 0 00 225676 2, £20)
.
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