World History Survey Essay Assignments
First Semester Assignments
Class introduction and review course syllabus
Review: Cornell Notes in 7 Easy Steps
Take Cornell Notes on the documentary history films we view in class. Then from your notes compose an evaluative essay. Essay assignments are due two days after we finish a video. Turn in both your notes and your essay stapled together. Your notes are NOT the essay and your essay are NOT your notes.
Video Essay: Hitler Lives! (Cornell Notes practice exercise -- 1 page essay and Cornell Notes)
Video Essay: Bridging World History -- Maps, Time and World History (1 page essay)
World history is a way of seeing the world — a worldview. It asks us to look for global patterns as we consider what has drawn humanity together. It also asks us to ponder what accounts for human difference through time. World history offers a way of grasping the Big Picture — seeing the history of the world not as separate elements but as an integrated whole.
In order to capture both the diversity and similarities of human experience, world history draws on case studies. These studies illustrate how people have faced global challenges in interacting with each other and the environment. Because of the breadth of world history, decisions must be made about organization and selection. By taking a thematic approach, by paying attention to space, scale, and time, and by using appropriate units of analysis, world history can be made meaningful in many ways to many people.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Content Standard: The student will analyze patterns of social, economic, political, and cultural changes of the Renaissance and Reformation.
Video Essay: The Renaissance (1 page essay)
Describe why the term Renaissance, literally means "rebirth" in French and is the period in European civilization immediately following the Middle Ages, conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge of interest in classical learning and values from ancient Greece and Rome.
The intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its own invented version of humanism derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said that "Man is the measure of all things." This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature. Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of metal movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniformly experienced across Europe. The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents, the substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the decline of the feudal system and the growth of commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially powerful innovations as paper, printing, the mariner's compass, and gunpowder. To the scholars and thinkers of the day, however, it was primarily a time of the revival of classical learning and wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and stagnation.
Video Essay: The Renaissance and the Age of Discovery (1 page essay)
Cite specific textual and visual evidence to assess the significance of the Renaissance on politics and artistic creativity as exemplified by Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Video Essay: Michelangelo (1 page essay)
Deeply religious in spirit and profoundly secular in the glorification of the human form, Michelangelo's masterpieces remain unequaled -- the Pieta, the Sistine Chapel ceilings, the statute of David. From his powerfully sublime Creation of Adam to the tormented agonies of the Last Judgment, he expresses the entire experience of the human condition. Michelangelo was caught between the conflicting powers and whims of two important patrons: the Medici family in Florence and the Papacy in Rome. Describe this world-significant artist and his struggle between his patrons.
Video Essay: I, Leonardo da Vinci (1 page essay)
Describe the life and amazing achievements of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest geniuses, inventors, and scientists of all time.
Video Essay: The Renaissance and the New World (1 page essay)
Analyze migration, settlement patterns, and cultural diffusion caused by the competition for resources among European nations during the Age of Exploration including the impact of the Columbian Exchange and the Atlantic slave trade.
Video Essay: Bridging World History: History and Memory (1 page essay)
How are history and memory different? Topics in this presentation range from the celebration of Columbus Day to the demolition of a Korean museum to the historical re-interpretation of Mayan civilization, exploring the ways historians, nations, families, and individuals capture, exploit, and know the past, and the dynamic nature of historical practice and knowledge.
Video Essay: Christopher Columbus (1 page essay)
Describe the significance to world history of the four voyages of Christopher Columbus to the New World.
Video Essay: The Battle For The Bible (1 page essay)
In the 14th century, the Roman Catholic Church was Western Europe's undisputed religious authority; and its central rituals -- the Mass and Communion -- the only legitimate pathway to salvation. The pope and the clergy held enormous power, and secular authorities looked to the Church for legitimization. Key to the Church's power was the fact that its rituals were conducted in Latin, a language inaccessible to the uneducated faithful. The public was completely dependent on the priesthood for access to salvation -- only through mysterious rituals conducted in an unfamiliar tongue could they conduct their spiritual lives. The program focuses upon four men: John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, and Thomas Cranmer. Examine how the translation of the Bible into the vernacular -- the language of everyday people -- was a key element in the series of reforms within the Catholic Church that eventually resulted in what we know as the Protestant Reformation.
Video Essay: The Protestant Reformation (1 page essay)
Summarize how the theological movements during the Reformation transformed society by comparing the impact of the ideas of Martin Luther and John Calvin.
Video Essay: The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition (1 page essay)
In response to the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church launched the Counter-Reformation (or Catholic Reformation). This included the founding of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) by Ignatius Loyola and the use of inquisitions against persons deemed heretics or enemies of the Church. Analyze how certain myths and deliberate falsifications concerning the Spanish Inquisition have come down through the centuries as factual assertions concerning its brutal character and climate of intolerance or repression.
Special Video Review Essay Assignment: Compose a four page essay comparing and contrasting the characters and personalities of Sir Thomas More (as portrayed in A Man for All Seasons) and Martin Luther (as portrayed in Martin Luther, Reluctant Revolutionary) and how they impacted their time and ours.
Both films are available on my MHS teacher webpage. This essay assignment is worth 200 points.
Sir Thomas More and Martin Luther were two men of great religious faith and principled beliefs.
By nailing his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Church door protesting the Roman Catholic Church's practice of issuing papal indulgences on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation. This act had tremendous consequences for world history - religious, social, economic, and political. It divided the previous united Christendom of Europe into two major divisions: Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Sir Thomas More was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councilor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 16, 1532. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge him as Supreme Head of the Church of England and refusing to acknowledge Henry's annulment from Catherine of Aragon. Tried for treason for not taking the Oath of Supremacy, More was convicted and beheaded.
Video Essay: The Wars of Religion (1 page essay)
Evaluate the tremendous impact of the various deadly and savage wars over religious belief and how they affected the social, economic, and political landscape of Europe as well as devastating the lives of millions.
Content Standard: The student will evaluate modern revolutionary movements influenced by the European Age of Absolutism and the Enlightenment including political, economic, and social transformations.
1. Compare how scientific theories and technological discoveries including those made by Newton, Copernicus, and Galileo brought about social and cultural changes.
2. Cite specific textual and visual evidence to analyze the impact of the Enlightenment including the theories of John Locke and Adam Smith on modern government and economic institutions.
Video Essay: The Road From Runnymede (2 page essay)
Trace the development of Anglo-American Political Institutions, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law, from Magna Carta through the American Constitution.
Video Essay: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1 page essay)
Analyze how Mozart changed European music with his over 600 compositions produced during his 35 years.
Video Essay: Heroes of the Enlightenment #1 (1 page essay)
Describe the impact that Issac Newton, Denis Diderot, the Marquis de Pombal, and Erasmus Darwin made upon the advancement of science and knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment.
Video Essay: Heroes of the Enlightenment (1 page essay)
Discuss the impact of the ideas and actions of the French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet, American statesman and philosopher Thomas Jefferson, and King Frederick the Great of Prussia in shaping the Enlightenment.
Video Essay: The Smile of Reason (1 page essay)
Describe the impact that Voltaire and Denis Diderot made upon the French Enlightenment, Adam Smith and David Hume on the Scottish Enlightenment, and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington on the American Enlightenment.
Content Standard: The student will evaluate modern revolutionary movements influenced by the European Age of Absolutism and the Enlightenment including political, economic, and social transformations.
Compare and contrast the causes and lasting impact of England’s Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution on the decline of monarchy and on the rise of representative government including the impact of the Napoleonic Wars and the resulting Congress of Vienna.
Video Essay: The French Revolution ( 3 page essay)
Evaluate the tremendous impact of the French Revolution in transforming France and European society.
Video Essay: The Guillotine (1 page Essay)
Evaluate the role of the guillotine in the later stage of the French Revolution known as the Reign of Terror under Maximilian Robespierre.
Video Essay: The Fallacies of Hope (1 page essay)
Analyze the impact of the Romantic movement on the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and trace the progressive disillusionment of the artists of the Romantic movement through the music of Beethoven, the poetry of Byron, and the sculpture of Rodin.
Video Essay: Napoleon Bonaparte (1 page essay)
Evaluate the impact on world history of the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he a son of the French Revolution or its ultimate betrayer?
Video Essay: Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution (1 page essay)
Describe how the remarkable military genius Toussaint Louverture established Haitian independence and helped transform the insurgency into a revolutionary movement, which by 1800 had turned Saint-Domingue, the most prosperous slave colony of the time, into the first free colonial society to have abolished slavery and explicitly rejected race as the basis of social ranking.
Video Essay: Ludwig van Beethoven (1 page essay)
Describe the composer Beethoven's tremendous career which revolutionized music forever.
Video Essay: Richard Wagner (1 page essay)
Trace and analyze the life of Richard Wagner, one of the greatest and most controversial composers in the history of music. He was a central and seminal influence on Adolf Hitler.
Video Essay: Tyrants and Plunderers (1 page essay)
Tyrants and Plunderers, examines those ruthless rulers, both ancient and modern, who used brute force (the "political means") to terrorize and exploit their subject peoples. The film focuses upon Alexander the Great of Greece; Genghis Khan of Mongolia; Suleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire; King Louis XIV of France; Czar Peter the Great of Russia; and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France. Modern tyrants and dictators include Saddam Hussein of Iraq; Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines; and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.
Video Essay: Building a Modern World (1 page essay)
Building a Modern World, examines those famous American entrepreneurs who used the "economic means" of creating wealth by the voluntary production and exchange of goods and services desired by the public to amass great fortunes and create business empires. The film focuses upon John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John Pierpont Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller.
Video Essay: Credit Where Its Due (1 page essay)
Evaluate how the Industrial Revolution impacted society world-wide.
Locate the origins of contemporary consumerism in the English Industrial Revolution, empowered by religious dissenters barred from all activities except trade. The invention of the steam engine, new forms of credit, surplus wealth, and opening markets laid the foundation for industrial society.
Video Essay: What the Doctor Ordered (1 page essay)
Describe the development of modern medicine, anesthesia, and antiseptics in prolonging human life and well-being.
Trace modern society's recognition of the value of statistics to medical advances stemming from responses to the French Revolution and an English cholera epidemic. Identify the origins of medicine as a science with the discovery of anesthesia, antiseptics, and bacteriology.
Video Essay: Fit To Rule (1 page essay)
Analyze the growth of modern geology and biology in relation to the Darwinian Revolution in evolutionary science and how these theories were twisted, perverted, or distorted in three decisive ways: "Survival of the Fittest" Race - leading from Ernst Haeckel to Heinrich Himmler to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust in Germany; "Survival of the Fittest" Individual leading to Social Darwinists William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer in the U.S. and the UK and their prescriptions for laissez-faire capitalism and opposition to the emerging welfare state; and finally, "Survival of the Fittest" Class - leading from Karl Marx to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Marxist-Leninist Socialism in the Soviet Union. All three of these distortions of Darwin clashed in a minor little conflict called World War II.
Video Essay: Marxism : the Theory That Split the World (1 page essay)
Evaluate the role of Karl Marx and his ideas in the course of world history. Marx was responsible for the deaths of over one hundred million victims by Marxist governments murdering their own people in the 20th Century.
400 Point Photocopy Collage Project due Thursday, November 13, 2019
Tulsa Technology Center representatives visit, November 13
Video Essay: The Truth About Slavery (1 page essay)
Outline the truth concerning the history of slavery and its impact on world history.
Video Essay: History of Racism, #1 (2 page essay)
In its first episode the series begins by assessing the implications of the relationship between Europe, Africa and the Americas in the 15th century. It considers how racist ideas and practices developed in key religious and secular institutions, and how they showed up in writings by European philosophers Aristotle and Immanuel Kant.
Analyze the impact of the 16th century slave trade in fostering the development of racist ideas in Europe.
Video Essay: History of Racism #2 (2 page essay)
This second episode examines the idea of scientific racism, an ideology invented during the 19th century that drew on now discredited practices such as phrenology and provided an ideological justification for racism and slavery. The episode shows how these theories ultimately led to eugenics and Nazi racial policies of the master race.
Analyze how the development of 19th century imperialism, scientific racism, and social Darwinism impacted upon the spread of racist attitudes and oppression throughout the world.
Video Essay: History of Racism #3 (2 page essay)
This third episode examines the impact of racism in the 20th century. By 1900 European colonial expansion had reached deep into the heart of Africa. Under the rule of King Leopold II, the Belgian Congo was turned into a vast rubber plantation. Men, women and children who failed to gather their latex quotas would have their limbs dismembered. The country became the scene of one of the century's greatest racial genocides, as an estimated 10 million Africans perished under colonial rule.
Analyze how the development of eugenics and 20th century imperialism impacted upon racist attitudes, leading to the rise of the Civil Rights movement in America and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
Video Essay: The Age of the Nation-States
Describe how the great powers cooperated to quell internal revolts, yet competed to acquire overseas colonies. This period saw the birth of the welfare-warfare state in Europe.
Video Essay: A New Public (1 page essay)
Analyze how public education and mass communications created a new political life and leisure time.
Video Essay: Fin de Siècle (1 page essay)
Describe how everyday life of the working class was transformed by leisure, prompting the birth of an elite avant-garde movement.
Video Essay: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism (1 page essay)
Trace the development of 19th Century art from the Realism of Courbet to the Impressionism of Manet, Monet, Renoir and Degas to the Post-Impressionism of Seurat, Van Gogh and Gauguin. (The information on this video is available here on my MHS teacher website in two videos: Art of the Western World, episodes 13 and 14.)
Video Essay: Modern Art (1 page essay)
Trace the development of 20th Century Modern Art from Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism, Suprematism, Dada, the Bauhaus, Constructivism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism. (The information on this video is available here on my MHS teacher website in two videos: Art of the Western World, episodes 15 and 16).
Video Essay: 1900 - Age of Hope (1 page essay)
The dawn of the twentieth century was steeped in hope and optimism. It was a new age of enlightenment: the extension of education, the emergence of mass communication, and new mobility -- all would revolutionize and enrich modern life. Alexander Briansky, born in Russia in 1882, remembers celebrating New Year's Day in Odessa in 1900: "There were fireworks, there was drinking, there were crowds on the streets. Nobody stayed at home. We had huge hopes." But few could have imagined the magnitude of the changes that were about to overtake them.
From 1900 to the outbreak of the First World War, Age Of Hope explores the early years of the century and provides a baseline for the tumultuous events that follow. Living witnesses from Europe, Asia, and the United States recount the part they played in the century's earliest history, whether fighting on the barricades of the failed Russian Revolution of 1905 or campaigning for votes for women; attending the first meeting of the African National Congress in South Africa or witnessing the sinking of the Titanic. They remember the progress they lived through and the changes they fought for -- the clash of forces and ideas in the years before World War I.
With an average age of 102, the people interviewed in Age Of Hope are among the oldest in the world -- our last surviving links with the dawn of the modern age. Their remarkable personal testimony is punctuated by equally astonishing contemporary film of many of these events, painstakingly researched in the world's film archives -- much of it never before seen on television.
Video Essay: 1914 -- Killing Fields (1 page Essay)
In 1914, a whole generation is drawn into the world's first global conflict. During its four years, the Great War would call upon seventy million men from twenty countries to do their duty. Nine million would die.
In Killing Fields, soldiers from all sides remember the trenches and the tactics, the food, the fleas, the casualties -- the terrible nature and scale of the slaughter that shattered the old world order.
Killing Fields opens with scenes of the enthusiasm that greeted the outbreak of war in the capital cities of Europe. Soldiers marched off expecting excitement, adventure, and glory. Each nation had alliances to honor -- and old scores to settle. Berlin's Margarethe Stahl remembers that "everyone was wildly enthusiastic. They were all waving flags. People threw flowers at the soldiers. . . . Everyone was singing." Norman Tennant of London also remembers: "The atmosphere, it was certainly electric. Almost unbelievable. We were excited about it and all ready to join in, because everything had been too peaceful almost until that time."
Video: Trench Warfare
This film discusses the significance and techniques of trench warfare on the Western Front in World War I.
Video Essay: The Great War: Christmas Truce 1914 (1 page essay)
Describe the underrepresented Christmas Truce on the Western Front in the Great War in 1914
Video Essay: They Shall Not Grow Old (3 page essay)
Video Essay: The Great War of 1918 (1 page essay)
Discuss the impact of America's participation in the Great War (World War I).
Video Essay: Hatred and Hunger (1 page essay)
Though the armistice was in effect, the Allies continued to wage war against Germany via a naval blockade and to pressure Germany into acquiescence at Versailles. The United States briefly sent troops to Russia to overthrow the Bolsheviks, but this half-hearted and ineffective interference in Russian affairs would only lay the groundwork for the Cold War decades later.
Woodrow Wilson arrived in Paris in December 1918 to negotiate the peace agreements, and to secure a new-world order, but he soon lost his fight for a more lenient, humane settlement. Instead of open-door deliberations he had promised, the negotiations took place behind closed doors. Wilson got the League of Nations he desperately wanted, but paid the price of a harsh peace to get it. As the conference continued, many people in Europe became disillusioned with Wilson, thinking he had betrayed them. In effect, the conference became a sham; from the Balkans to the Middle East, the unresolved issues of the Great War were simply rearranged.
The Treaty of Versailles was finally signed June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The peace treaty proved no real peace. Instead, the seeds were sown for an even more catastrophic war just one generation later.
Video Essay: War Without End (1 page essay)
For the "lost generation" the war became a war without end, one that continued through missing limbs, mutilated faces and shaking bodies. The question that haunted civilians throughout Europe was why so many of their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers had to die? Writers and other artists tried to create an answer. Memorials were established for the fallen, and people visited the battlefields to retrace the footsteps of their loved ones. Millions also searched for hope and messages from the departed through Spiritualism.
In the United States, President Wilson was determined to get the United States Senate to back the League of Nations. He embarked on a national campaign to gain the support of the American people for the League. His efforts were ultimately unsuccessful; in one way, Wilson was also a victim of the war.
While in Germany, the sense of betrayal and dishonor prompted some Germans to seek revenge. Many Germans, especially members of the army, believed that Germany had not lost the war on the battlefield. This was a delusion, but a dangerous one. These people felt that Germany, the army and all those who had lost their lives in the war had been betrayed by traitors at home who had undermined the soldiers at the front. The man who rose up to lead them was Adolf Hitler.
Video Essay: Rasputin (1 page essay)
Analyze the impact of Rasputin on the history of Russia and the world.
Video Essay: Vladimir Illych Lenin (1 page essay)
Analyze the impact of Lenin on the history of Russia and the world.
Video Essay: George Seldes (1 page essay)
Describe the life of George Seldes and his impact on investigative journalism in the 20th Century
200 point comprehensive 1st semester essay examination
Second Semester Essay Assignments
Video Essay: Benito Mussolini (1 page essay)
Evaluate the rise and fall of Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and his place in world history.
Video Essay: Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin: Roots of Evil (1 page essay)
Compare and contrast how the abusive and dysfunctional childhoods of Hitler and Stalin psychologically shaped how they became evil men as adults.
Video Essay: Adolf Hitler: The Artist (1 page essay)
Adolf Hitler: The Artist, is loosely based on the book, The Young Hitler I Knew, by August Kubizek who was Hitler’s best friend when he was in Vienna trying to become an art student at the Academy. It is a perfect companion piece to the outstanding documentary, The Rape of Europa, and the feature films The Monuments Men and Woman in Gold. It has the arrogant boorish young artist Hitler commenting on the Vienna Secession, Van Googh, Klimt, Freud, and more in turn of the century Vienna.
August Kubizek met Adolf Hitler in 1904 while they were both competing for standing room at the opera. Their mutual passion for music created a strong bond, and over the next four years they became close friends. Kubizek describes a reticent young man, painfully shy, yet capable of bursting into hysterical fits of anger if anyone disagreed with him. The two boys would often talk for hours on end; Hitler found Kubizek to be a very good listener, a worthy confidant to his hopes and dreams.
In 1908 Kubizek moved to Vienna and shared a room with Hitler at 29 Stumpergasse. During this time, Hitler tried to get into art school, but he was unsuccessful. With his money fast running out, he found himself sinking to the lower depths of the city: an unkind world of isolation and 'constant unappeasable hunger'. Hitler moved out of the flat in November, without leaving a forwarding address; Kubizek did not meet his friend again until 1938.
His book, The Young Hitler I Knew, tells the story of an extraordinary friendship, and gives fascinating insight into Hitler's character during these formative years.
Video Essay: The Occult History Of The Third Reich - Part 3: Adolf Hitler (1 page essay)
Describe how this film investigates Hitler's own occult beliefs, in particular the German mysticism of Guido von List and Jorg Lanz, and how they informed his upbringing and his political beliefs.
Video Essay: The Enigma of the Swastika (1 page essay)
What are the origins of this infamous symbol of National Socialism which would strike terror in the hearts of millions?
Video Essay: Nazis - The Occult Conspiracy (1 page essay)
Describe the origins of the National Socialist religion of the blood based on pre-Christian and occult mythology.
Video Essay: Triumph of the Will (2 page evaluative essay written on completion of the film)
Compose a two page evaluative essay regarding the propaganda feature film of all time, Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) the 1935 propaganda film directed, produced, edited and co-written by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters.
The film contains excerpts from speeches given by Nazi leaders at the Congress, including Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess and Julius Streicher, interspersed with footage of massed Sturmabteilung (S.A.) and Schutzstaffel (S.S.) troops and public reaction.
When writing your essay imagine you are not a history student in 2020 in Mr. Burris' class watching this film but a enthusiastic young member of the Hitler Youth or League of German Maidens in 1934 (as shown in the film) or a German war veteran from WWI who has lost everything in the Great Depression and have been without a job for four years unable to feed your family. This movie was made five years before WWII began and only a year and a half after Hitler had taken control of Germany.
Video Essay: Hitler: The Whole Story #1 (1 page essay)
Video Essay: Hitler: The Whole Story # 2 (1 page essay)
Video Essay: Hitler: The Whole Story #3 (1 page essay)
This three part profile of the German dictator examines his rise to power, leadership of the Nazi party and eventual World War II defeat. Included: a look at his childhood and schooling; a study of his military conquests in Eastern Europe; and clips from his early speeches.
Video Essay: Hitler and Drugs (1 page essay)
Discuss the pharmacological effects of the 77 prescribed drugs by his doctor on the health and behavior of Adolf Hitler.
Video Essay: The Democrat and the Dictator (1 page essay)
Compare and contrast the childhood and formative years of development of "the Democrat," U. S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with that of "the Dictator," German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, in shaping their distinctive personalities and leadership of their two nations.
Video Essay: The Plot to Overthrow FDR (1 page essay)
Evaluate how former US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler saved the United States from an attempted fascist coup d'etat by Wall Street plutocratic militarists in the early days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.
Video Essay: WWII: The Propaganda Battle (1 page essay)
Analyze how propaganda was used in National Socialist Germany and in the United States to motivate their peoples during World War II.
Video Essay: Why We Fight: Prelude to War (1 page essay)
Discuss the Japanese incursion into Manchuria, the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, and the beginning of the National Socialist German takeover in Eastern Europe.
Video Essay: Why We Fight: The Nazis Strike (1 page essay)
Discuss the relentless advance of Germany's mighty military machine, as Hitler's armies terrorize their victims into submission with their blitzkrieg tactics and spread like a cancer through the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
Video Essay: Why We Fight: Divide and Conquer (1 page essay)
Describe the fall of Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France to the seemingly invincible German army.
Video Essay: Why We Fight: The Battle of Britain (1 page essay)
Discuss the 1940 six-week blitz against England by the German Air force (the Luftwaffe) and the indomitable spirit of the heroic Londoners in what is known as the Battle of Britain during WWII.
Video Essay: The Negro Soldier (1 page essay)
Evaluate the history of Black Americans' participation in America's wars from the American Revolution to World War II.
Video Essay: The Soviet Story (three page essay)
The Soviet Story is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people by the tens of millions on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now…
The film tells the horrific story of the Soviet regime:
- The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932/33) which murdered millions.
- The ideological compatibility of German National Socialism and Soviet Marxism/Leninism and their social engineering attempts to create “a new man.”
- The Nazi SS-Soviet NKVD secret police partnership and collaboration;
- The Hitler/Stalin Non-Aggression Pact and the subsequent joint invasion of Poland in September 1939 as allies;
- The Katyn massacre of Polish officers (1940);
- Soviet mass deportations of millions during WWII;
- Medical experiments in the Soviet GULAG comparable to those in the Nazi concentration camps.
Video Essays: World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West (1 page essay on each episode)
Exceptional six part BBC documentary series based on archival information obtained after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Shows the true barbaric nature of the conflict and the duplicity of all major leaders by dramatic reenactments of behind the scenes meetings.
Episode 1 examines the back story of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, the Battle of Poland together with the planning and start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union of 1941.
Episode 2 explores the relationship between the Soviet Union and Great Britain during the war, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Allied plans for a Western front in Europe.
Episode 3 features the Moscow Conference between Stalin and Churchill and two battles on the Eastern Front: Stalingrad and Kursk.
Episode 4 covers the Tehran Conference, the first between the "Big Three;" the D-Day Normandy invasion in France; and the Warsaw Uprising in Poland.
Episode 5 details the Battle of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, the Yalta Conference, the push to Berlin, and the victory over Germany from the perspective of Allied nations.
Episode 6 focuses on Operation August Storm, the end to the Pacific War, the Potsdam Conference, the fall from grace of Zhukov and Molotov, the 1953 death of Stalin, to the eventual fall of communist influence with the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Video Essay: Selling Murder: The Killing Films of the Third Reich (1 page essay)
Analyze the Nazi Aktion T4 system of "euthanasia" (systematic murder) of the disabled and handicapped in the days leading up to World War II.
Video Essay: Nazi's Secret Killing Squads (1 page essay)
Analyze the Nazi SS Einsatzgruppen (special action squads) murderous activities in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union killing over 1.1 million persons in this first stage of the Holocaust.
Video Essay: Memory of the Camps (2 page reflective essay on what you thought and felt while viewing this powerful documentary)
This is the most important film you will ever see. Filmed by British, American, and Soviet forces in 1945 as the Nazi concentration and death camps were liberated. The searing graphic images are horrific. The wry ironic narration by the late Trevor Howard perfectly magnifies this horror.
Video Essay: One Survivor Remembers (1 page essay)
Describe the ordeal of Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissman Klein in World War II.
Video Essay: America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference (3 page essay)
Complex social and political factors shaped FDR's and America's response to the Holocaust, from "Kristallnacht" in 1938 through the liberation of the death camps in 1945. For a short time, the US had an opportunity to open its doors, but instead erected a "paper wall," a bureaucratic maze that prevented all but a few Jewish refugees from entering the country. It was not until 1944, that a small band of Treasury Department employees forced the government to respond. Analyze how Antisemitism, political opportunism, and bureaucratic inertia were major factors in the United States tardy efforts to rescue the Jews of Europe from Nazi genocide.
Video Essay: Dr. Josef Mengele (1 page essay)
Describe the role of "the Angel of Death" in the Holocaust.
Video Essay: Hitler's American Business Partners (1 page essay)
This documentary uncovers the unholy alliance between Nazi Germany and some of the biggest corporations in the US — companies which were indispensable for Hitler to wage war. Henry Ford, the automobile manufacturer; James D Mooney, the General Motors manager; and Thomas Watson, the IBM boss were all awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle — the Nazi’s highest distinction for foreigners for their services to the Third Reich. Of course, many American corporations were also actively engaged in building up the Soviet military-industrial complex during the interwar period. Describe how War is the health of the State (and its corporatist adjuncts).
Video Essay: WWII Summary (1 page essay)
Summarize and evaluate the impact of World War II in Europe.
Video Essay: Hitler Lives! (1 page essay)
Describe how that as long as racism, intolerance, and hatred exists - Hitler lives
Video Essay: The Rape of Nanking (1 page essay)
Describe "the Rape of Nanking" by Japanese troops in December 1937 murdering over 250,000 persons and raping 60,000 women and girls.
Video Essay: Horror in the East (3 page essay)
Analyze the horrific chain of events throughout Asia and the Pacific by Japanese military forces in their conquests and ultimate defeat in World War II.
Video Essay: The Truth About Pearl Harbor (1 page essay)
Describe the background policies and actions which led to the Japanese attack on the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor.
Video Essay: Japanese War Crimes and Trials (1 page essay)
Evaluate Japanese military and civilian leadership conduct in World War II in relation to the concepts of aggressive war and crimes against humanity.
Standard 17: The student will evaluate post-World War II global and contemporary events.
Video Essay: CNN Cold War: Comrades 1917-1945 - Documentary (1 page essay)
Analyze the growth of communism from the Russian Revolution in 1917 to the end of World War II in 1945.
Video Essay: CNN Cold War: Iron Curtain 1945-1947 - Documentary (1 page essay)
Discuss the beginnings of the Cold War tensions between the Soviet Bloc and the free world.
Video Essay: CNN Cold War: Marshall Plan 1947-1952 - Documentary (1 page essay)
Discuss the origins and consequences of the United States financial plan to aid European Recovery after WWII
Video Essay: The CIA and the Nazis - Documentary (1 page essay)
Analyze the covert US policy of the use of former Nazis for intelligence purposes against the Soviet Bloc after WWII.
Video Essay: CNN Cold War: Reds 1948-1953 - Documentary (1 page essay)
Discuss the domestic consequences in the United States of the Cold War and "McCarthyism."
Video Essay: Messengers From Moscow: The East Is Red (1 page essay)
Discuss the myth of monolithic communism and the rise of the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, the Korean War, and the Sino-Soviet Split between China and the Soviet Union.
Video Essay: Seeds of the Sixties (1 page essay)
Evaluate how this episode establishes the political and social context of the sixties generation. Examines the young parents of the 1950's in pursuit of the American Dream, their values shaped by the Depression, World War II, the Cold War and McCarthyism. Looks at how their children's generation began to bond together in rebellion against a restrictive set of societal rules, shaping the decade to come. Additionally it shows what life was like for blacks as the civil rights movement emerged.
Video Essay: We Can Change the World (1 page essay)
Evaluate how this episode examines the heady idealism of the 1960's when it seemed possible that youth could change the world; when more teenagers entered college than ever before; when John F. Kennedy inspired social and political activism on both the left and the right; and when the civil rights movement reached a peak of influence, involvement and momentum.
Video Essay: JFK: A President Betrayed (2 page essay)
Narrated by Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, “JFK: A President Betrayed” uncovers shocking evidence that reveals how President John F. Kennedy, early in his term as president in 1961, felt entrapment, that he had been misled by his military and intelligence advisors regarding the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Because of this betrayal he was determined to constantly be on guard regarding subsequent strategic advice issued to him.
After his confrontational June 1961 Vienna Summit meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, later that year in September Kennedy under took a bold initiative and introduced at the Sixteenth General Assembly of the United Nations a Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World.
Conversely the national security establishment (particularly the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA) believed, not in disarmament but in a nuclear first strike policy against the Soviet Union, and that JFK was naive and lacked determination and resolve in his opposition to this apocalyptic doomsday scenario. On March 13, 1962 the JCS submitted Operation Northwoods as a pretext for a Cuban Invasion.
This war between JFK and the military intensified following the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Pentagon leaders such as Air Force chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay believed the peaceful resolution of the Crisis was not Kennedy’s finest hour but had been appeasement of the Soviets and the worst disaster in American history.
JFK proceeded to embark on secret back channel peace efforts with Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro and was determined to get out of Vietnam despite intense opposition inside his own government.
“The Peace Speech” — JFK Commencement Address at American University, June 10, 1963.
To the deep state, this was treason.
It all came to an end on November 22, 1963, when an insidious coup d’état by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and the highest echelons of the National Security State was accomplished with the brutal murder of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.
Video Essay: Why Was JFK Assassinated? (1 page essay)
Douglas P. Horne served as head of the military records team on the Assassination Records Review Board, the independent federal agency established by Congress in the 1990s to secure release of long-secret official records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Horne played an instrumental role in locating and securing the release of U.S. military records on Cuba and Vietnam policy from 1961 through 1964. He is the author of the five-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK (2009) and the author of FFF’s bestselling ebook JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated (2014). He also made a 6 1/2 hour video presentation entitled “Altered History: Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination Evidence,” which has now received 240,000 views. Horne, who served as chief analyst of military records at the Assassination Records Review Board, presents his theories of why President Kennedy was assassinated by the top echelon of the national security state.
Video Essay: CNN Cold War: Vietnam 1954-1968 -- Documentary (1 page essay)
Analyze how the French defeat by Vietminh communist forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (which brought an end to the First Indochina War, 1946-1954) created a power vacuum in Vietnam which the United States attempted to fill until peace negotiations began in 1968.
Video Essay: 1968 (1 page essay)
Detail the impact of how events such as the Vietnamese Tet Offensive, the insurgent presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy against incumbent Lyndon Johnson, Johnson's announcement of his refusal to seek re-election, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the rise of the counter-culture and student protests at Columbia University, the Parisian student-led revolution in France in May, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the police riot at the Democratic National convention, the massacre of protesters in Mexico City, the Prague uprising, the insurgent presidential campaign of George Wallace, and the presidential race between Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey, made 1968 the pivotal year which shaped a generation of Americans.
Video Essay: The Secret Government - The Constitution In Crisis -- Documentary. (2 page essay)
This acclaimed PBS documentary is Bill Moyer's 1987 scathing critique of the criminal subterfuge carried out by the Executive Branch of the United States Government to implement covert operations which are clearly contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. This film discusses how the "secret government" has no constitution; the rules it follows are the rules it makes up. It also compares and contrasts the Watergate Scandal and the Iran-Contra Affair as detailed in the film.
Video Essay: Cold War: The Wall Comes Down (1 page essay)
Describe how the pivotal events of 1989 in Eastern Europe began the process of ending the Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Bloc and the Western democracies.
Video Essay: CNN Cold War: The End of the Cold War - Documentary (1 page essay)
Gorbachev and Bush meet at Malta in December 1989 to consider the recent dramatic events. Only the previous week the Communist government resigned in Czechoslovakia; and shortly Nicolae Ceaușescu would be deposed and executed in the bloody Romanian Revolution. Gorbachev permits German reunification and removes Soviet troops from Europe, but fails to secure financial support from the West. As the Soviet economy collapses, Gorbachev faces opposition from both reformers and hardliners.
Video Essay: Hijacking Catastrophe (1 page essay)
Evaluate how the horrific events on September 11, 2001 changed America and the world.
Video Essay: The Iraq War (1 page essay)
Evaluate the information presented in this documentary of interviews with varied U.S officials and intelligence experts who offer a deconstruction of the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq in the wake of 9/11.
Semester Essay Exam