World Teach

The first clip comes from Media Rich Learning and covers the end of World War II, the Russian Revolution, and the beginning of the split between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The second clip concentrates on the Marshall Plan and comes from History .  It runs for only three minutes.

Here's an excellent documentary about the Russian Revolution that I found on School Tube. It's in three 9 minute parts.  I can't figure out who made the documentary but it's good, engaging, and relatively short. In the first nine minutes, the documentary outlines the causes of the revolution reviewing the plight of the peasants and workers and the abdication of the tsar. In the second part, Lenin arrives in Moscow on a sealed train car from Switzerland. He outlines his Marxist ideals and wrote down his vision for a socialist country in a paper called the April Thesis, which called for power to the Soviets and an end to the "imperialist war." In the third part, Lenin overthrows the Provisional Government and gets Russia out of World War I.

Here's an excellent 17-minute review of the Nuremberg Trial from History Skope that would be great for students.  It notes that the trial was the first time an international court sentenced criminals to prison and even death. The development of an international court came about after the Big Three considered three possibilities. Do nothing to the war criminals, kill them all by executive action, or put them all on trial, which is what they decided to do. History Skope outlines how the tribunal was set up and reviews the four types of crimes for which a person could be indicted: crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the three previous crimes.

Studying the twentieth century just before World War I? Here's a hyperdoc I made , using a template from Ms. Byars,  that allows students to research four significant events in the first decade of the twentieth century. The hyperdoc includes links for each event as well as links to short video clips. The events include the Bloody Sunday massacre in Russia in 1905 and the Russo-Japanese War in the same year. Students examine Georgii Gapon's petition to the tsar and the main concessions that Russia lost to Japan. Students also read about the collapse of dynastic China and the Mexican Revolution, both in 1910. The guiding question for students is to analyze the commonalities of these different events. The research should show students the instability or insecurity that characterized the beginning of the 20the century. In years past, I started the 20th century with World War I but a relatively new book by James Carter and Richard Warren...

Studying Japan? Here's are two great short clips on the Samurai and the Code of Bushido. One is from the History Channel and the second comes from Simple History.

Here are three terrific clips about the British  Empie and India. The first comes from BBC TWO and runs only four minutes. The second comes from the Armchair Historian and runs about eight minutes It explains how the British East India Company conquered India. The third clip is a 28-minute documentary from BBC TWO and explains how the British ruled India.

Teaching about the crisis in Venezuela.  Here are some resources that explain the origins of the crisis and what's going on now. The stories below explain the origins of the crisis. The essays from Origins and Al Jazeera are particularly good and include charts and graphs. ABC News has a good story with which includes a video clip. Al Jazeera has a great essay about the origins of the crisis called Venezuela's crisis explained from the beginning The Council for Foreign Relations has a story called Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate  Origins from Ohio State University has a terrific essay called The Roots of Venezuela's Failing State Foreign Policy has an interesting story called  How Venezuela Struck it Poor Vox also has a story about the beginning of the crisis called How Venezuela went from a rich democracy to a dictatorship on the brink of collapse The Guardian explains the origins of the crisis in this story called, Venezuela on the brink: a journey th...