Students will be able to:

• I can analyze the economic, political, social, and technological factors that led to the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.  

• Evaluate the economic and social impacts of industrialization in England, including rapid population growth, rural-to-urban worker migration, the rise of a large middle class, growing wealth inequality, harsh living conditions for the urban poor, and environmental damage. 

• Analyze how the Industrial Revolution gave rise to new social, political, and economic philosophies, including feminism, socialism, and communism, focusing on the ideas and influence of Robert Owen and Karl Marx.  

• Explain the impact of British economic and political reform movements, such as labor unions, on creating 19th-century changes like the Factory Act of 1833, the Mines Act of 1842, and government-provided social welfare programs.  

• Explain how industrialization spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States, and how this growth affected the political balance of power among nations.  

• Is industrialization ultimately a story of human progress or human exploitation?

• Can we ensure that new societal and technological progress improves all people’s lives?

• Can technological progress be predicted or controlled?

• How does industrial capacity dictate which nations hold power on the world stage?

• How do extreme economic shifts inspire people to reimagine society through new political philosophies?

Students will be able to:

• Analyze the political, social, intellectual, and economic causes of the French Revolution.

• Compare the causes, goals, and outcomes of the American, French, and Haitian revolutions, and analyze their short-term and long-term impacts on world history. 

• Explain how political revolutions led to the abolition of theocratic absolutism and the removal of remaining feudal restrictions and obligations in France. 

• Can people be trusted to govern themselves? 

•  How does society balance protecting people’s rights while allowing people the freedom to act/behave as they choose?

•   What helps tip social unrest into revolution?  

• Why do people start to reimagine their role and status in society?  

• What is the essence of human nature?  

Students will be able to:

• Locate on a map the key global locations outside of Europe controlled by European countries in the 19th century, specifically tracking Spanish control of the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and parts of the Americas, as well as Portuguese rule over Cape Verde and Brazil

• Describe the causes of 19th-century European global imperialism, including historical economic competition dating back to the 15th century and the vital role of slavery and slave-generated capital in fueling the Industrial Revolution.  

• Analyze the impact of Western imperialism in Latin America, focusing on Spanish control of Cuba/Puerto Rico, Portuguese rule in Brazil, the expansionist drive by the United States to annex territories, and the Spanish-American War of 1898. 

• Analyze the cultural impact of colonial encounters on Western nations by drawing on how colonialism was portrayed in literature and journalism 

• Why do people have a hard time differentiating between race and ethnicity?  

• Why is a democratic political system difficult to implement and maintain?

•   How does the legacy of imperialism impact current global politics?  

Students will be able to:

• Locate on a map the territories in Africa controlled by 19th-century European nations, such as British holdings across much of the continent, French control of North and West Africa, and Belgian and German control of central Africa.

• Identify how economic motives, slave-trade capital, and racial ideologies like Social Darwinism drove the European colonization of Africa.

• Analyze the structural impact of European direct and indirect control over existing African political systems, as well as the economic exploitation of African people across various industries.

• Understand how primary and secondary sources can be used to construct a case study explaining the process of decolonization and evaluating the long-term success of an independent African nation.

• Why do some societies succeed in conquering other societies?

• What methods of resistance work and do not work?  

• How do colonizers justify their actions? 

Students will be able to:

• Trace how European powers controlled territories outside of Europe, such as British and Portuguese control over parts of India.

• Analyze the specific political and economic relationship between India and Britain, including the administrative role of the British East India Company and the development of new infrastructure like railways.

• Evaluate Indian methods of resistance and the growth of nationalist movements over time, contrasting the Indian Rebellion of 1857 with the 20th-century non-violent independence philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi.

• Analyze the cultural reflections of the Anglo-Indian colonial encounter through imperialist journalism and literature.

• Is imperial infrastructure built in a colony a gift of "modernization," or merely a tool for more efficient exploitation? 

• What methods of resistance work and do not work?

• How did Indian resistance to British rule evolve from violent uprising in 1857 to non-violent civil disobedience under Gandhi?

• To what extent was British rule in India maintained through military power versus economic control and cultural messaging?

• What connections can be made to imperialism in other societies we have discussed? 

Students will be able to:

• Analyze the impact of Westernperialism in China, focusing on the establishment of European spheres of influence, extraterritorial rights, the British East India Company's control of the opium trade, and the resulting rise of anti-Western nationalist movements.

• Analyze Japan’s unique political response to Western pressures, including the events of the Meiji Restoration, the opening of its borders, and its subsequent rapid modernization and industrialization.

• Contrast the outcomes of Western encounters in China and Japan to understand how different strategies of modernization or resistance impacted sovereignty.

• How does a nation's response to imperialism determine its shift from being a target of global power to becoming a global power itself?

• Why do some societies succeed in conquering other societies?

• What methods of resistance work and do not work?

• How can economic trade—especially in illegal or harmful goods—be weaponized to strip away a country’s independence? 

• What connections can be made to imperialism in other societies we have discussed? 

Students will be able to

• Identify the internal and external political, economic, and military factors that caused the decline and ultimate collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

• Analyze how the rising tide of nationalism affected multiethnic, multinational empires, leading to internal fragmentation and the redrawing of regional borders.

• Why do powerful empires fail?

• How does nationalism impact multiethnic empires?

• Analyze the compounding long-term and immediate factors that led to the outbreak of World War I, including Germany's emergence as a great power, building nationalism, the weakening of multinational empires, colonial/industrial competition, militarism, and alliance networks. 

• Evaluate how World War I functioned as a "total war," analyzing how industrial weaponry and prolonged trench warfare resulted in unprecedented casualties and psychological trauma. 

•  Trace the global expansion of the war, including the mobilization of Asian and African colonial subjects to support European fronts, the reasons for and impact of U.S. involvement, and the war's consequences for varied ethnic and religious groups.  

• How does technology impact warfare?  

• How are participants in war impacted psychologically?  

• What causes the number of participants in war to grow? 

•  How can governments ensure that ending a war will avoid future conflict?  

Students will be able to:

• Analyze early 20th-century Russian developments within the context of WWI, including social unrest under Czar Nicholas II, the emergence of the Bolsheviks, the political revolutions of 1917, and the Russian Civil War.  

• Trace the consolidation of the Soviet state, explaining the creation of the USSR in 1922, the New Economic Plan (NEP), artistic/cultural experimentation, Lenin’s death, the cult of personality, and the power struggle resulting in Stalin's leadership.  

• Analyze the causes behind the ultimate decline and collapse of the Soviet Union, including costly geopolitical competition with the U.S., weak economic infrastructure, the military toll in Afghanistan, the rise of human rights and nationalist movements (e.g., Solidarity in Poland, Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia), Gorbachev's reforms (glasnost and perestroika), and the fall of the Berlin Wall.  

• Evaluate the global consequences of the breakup of the Soviet Union, including the messy transition to market economies, political instability, the proliferation of technologies of mass destruction to rogue actors, and the consolidation of political power by a modern oligarchy.  

• Why do revolutions occur?  

• What is the ideal way to distribute wealth in society?  

• How do totalitarian regimes come to and maintain power? 

Students will be able to:

• Identify the global causes and consequences of the economic collapse of the 1930s and evaluate how different international governments responded to the Great Depression.

• Identify the defining political and social characteristics of fascism and totalitarianism as exhibited by authoritarian regimes in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s.

• Evaluate the specific conditions that allowed Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin to ascend to power, and analyze the methods each dictator used to repress dissent and persecute minorities.

• I can analyze the unvetted global aggression of Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s, evaluating the failures of the League of Nations and the policy of appeasement.

• How do totalitarian regimes come to and maintain power?

• What is the role of art in society and is it valuable and important?

Students will be able to:

• Analyze the rise of anti-Semitism and racist ideologies in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that laid the groundwork for WWII-era atrocities.

• Analyze the strategic effects of turning-point battles on the outcome of WWII and the nations involved, including the Battles of Britain and Dunkirk (1940), Pearl Harbor (1941), Midway and Corregidor (1942), Stalingrad and the invasion of Italy (1943), Normandy/D-Day (1944), the Battle of the Bulge, the Bataan Death March, Berlin, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa (1945).

• Identify the goals, leadership, and post-war plans of the Allied leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) and explain how wartime diplomacy shaped the post-war global landscape and the emergence of the Cold War.

• Analyze the United States' decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to swiftly end the war with Japan, evaluating its immediate and long-term impact on U.S.-Soviet relations.

• How does one decide when to appease an aggressor?

• Can international organizations maintain peace?

Students will be able to:

• Describe the historical roots of the Holocaust, analyzing its foundations in Christian anti-Semitism, 19th-century pseudoscientific ideas about race and nation, and the Nazi framework of dehumanization.

• Analyze the planning, scope, and implementation of the state-sponsored industrial extermination of European Jews and the systematic persecution of LGBT individuals, Gypsy/Roma people, and other minority groups.

• How do long-standing cultural and religious prejudices evolve into state-sanctioned hatred?

• In what ways did 19th-century pseudoscientific theories transform traditional religious anti-Semitism into a racial and existential doctrine?

• How does language, propaganda, and institutional framing work together to dehumanize a population?

• Why is it essential to understand the historical precursors of a genocide rather than viewing it as an isolated event?

• What responsibility do nations and individuals hold when a state turns its machinery against vulnerable populations?

Students will be able to:

• Evaluate the global consequences of World War II, including the division of Europe, the emergence of the U.S. and the USSR as rival superpowers, and the initiation of the nuclear arms race.

• Analyze the impact of post-war transnational organizations and alliances—such as the United Nations (UN), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Nuremberg Principles, the expanded Geneva Conventions, NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and the non-alignment movement—on global developments.

• Compare and contrast the fundamentally different worldviews and economic/political ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union.

• Do nuclear weapons decrease conflict?

• Is communism destined to fail?

• What are ways countries can fight without attacking each other directly?

Students will be able to:

• Utilize historical frameworks and thematic patterns to analyze and interpret ongoing 21st-century global events, political transitions, and international conflicts.  

• Evaluate the modern socio-economic and political challenges facing modern global societies and hypothesize potential solutions based on historical lessons and precedents.  

• How does history help us understand current events and conflicts? 

•  Does history repeat itself?  

• What are the most pressing issues facing civilization today and can history help us solve them?