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90,987 items

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770

Art, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

By the beginning of 1770, there were 4,000 British soldiers in Boston, a city with 15,000 inhabitants, and tensions were running high. On the evening of March 5, crowds of day laborers, apprentices, and merchant sailors began to pelt...

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Henry Knox’s Order of March to Trenton, 1776

Geography, Government and Civics, World History

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On Christmas Day in 1776 the American Revolution was on the verge of collapsing. Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American forces had been driven from New York City to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and reduced...

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George Washington on the abolition of slavery, 1786

Economics, Government and Civics

Of the nine presidents who were slaveholders, only George Washington freed all his own slaves upon his death. Before the Revolution, Washington, like most White Americans, took slavery for granted. At the time of the Revolution, one...

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Two versions of the Preamble to the Constitution, 1787

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On May 25, 1787, the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention began meeting in a room, no bigger than a large schoolroom, in Philadelphia’s State House. They posted sentries at the doors and windows to keep their "secrets...

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George Washington’s reluctance to become president, 1789

Government and Civics

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

From 1787 to 1789, as the Constitution was submitted for ratification by the states, most Americans assumed that George Washington would be the first president. In this April 1789 letter to General Henry Knox, his friend from the...

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The duel: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, 1804

Government and Civics

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Alexander Hamilton, former secretary of the treasury, and Aaron Burr, sitting vice president of the United States, had feuded publicly for years. Their long-standing enmity came to a head in the spring of 1804. After an exchange of...

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A map of the Louisiana Territory, 1806

Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

6, 7, 8

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France during Thomas Jefferson’s first term as president more than doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson’s next step was to learn all about this new territory of the United States. He chose...

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Jefferson on British aggression, 1815

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In this letter in defense of American nationalism, Thomas Jefferson denounced the blustering of certain members of the British House of Lords who blamed the War of 1812 on US aggression. Jefferson’s letter followed a report from James...

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John Quincy Adams and the Amistad case, 1841

Government and Civics

On July 1, 1839, fifty-three Africans, recently kidnapped into slavery in Sierra Leone and sold at a Havana slave market, revolted on board the schooner Amistad . They killed the captain and other crew and ordered the two Spaniards...

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John Brown’s final speech, 1859

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a party of twenty-one men into the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the intention of seizing the federal arsenal there. Encountering no resistance, Brown’s...

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The Gettysburg Address, 1863

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On November 19, 1863, four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, a ceremony was held at the site in Pennsylvania to dedicate a cemetery for the Union dead. The battle had been a Union victory, but at great cost—about 23,000 Union...

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The Western Sanitary Commission reports on suffering in the Mississippi Valley, 1863

Government and Civics

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

In 1863 in the war-torn South, thousands were homeless and starving. Some of those most in need of aid were newly liberated enslaved people. The Western Sanitary Commission was organized on September 5, 1861, by General John C....

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Sharecropper contract, 1867

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Immediately after the Civil War, many former slaves established subsistence farms on land that had been abandoned by fleeing white Southerners. President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat and a former slaveholder, soon restored this land to...

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A perspective on the San Francisco earthquake, 1906

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a great earthquake broke loose, with an epicenter near San Francisco. Violent shocks punctuated the shaking, which lasted some 45 to 60 seconds. The earthquake was felt from southern Oregon to south of...

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Eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic, 1912

Geography, World History

6, 7, 8, 9

Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg roughly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Two and a half hours later, at 2:20 a.m., the ship sank with approximately 1500 people still on board. This...

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Herbert Hoover on the Great Depression and New Deal, 1931–1933

Foreign Languages

The stock market crashed on Thursday, October 24, 1929, less than eight months into Herbert Hoover’s presidency. Most experts, including Hoover, thought the crash was part of a passing recession. By July 1931, when the President wrote...

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Japan declares war, 1941

World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On December 7, 1941, two hours after the Japanese attack on American military installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Japan declared war on the United States and Great Britain, marking America’s entry into World War II. The Japanese...

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FDR on racial discrimination, 1942

Government and Civics

On June 25, 1941, almost six months before the United States’ entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 8802, prohibiting racial discrimination by government defense contractors. The...

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Physicists predict a nuclear arms race, 1945

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

This declaration of concern, written after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, offers insight into the Manhattan Project, an atomic development program led by the United States. The "Preliminary Statement of the...

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Victory Order of the Day, 1945

World History

In March 1945 American and British forces moved eastward into Germany in large numbers, stopping at the Elbe River in mid-April in accordance with pre-negotiated agreements with the Soviet Union. The Red Army, meanwhile, had moved...

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President Truman’s Farewell Address, 1953

Government and Civics, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

It has none of the catch phrases or warnings of other, more famous presidential inaugural or farewell addresses, no cautions against permanent alliances or military-industrial complexes, no appeals to better angels or declarations...

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Robert Kennedy on civil rights, 1963

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At the end of 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to compile a report on the Civil Rights enforcement activities of the Justice Department over the previous year. In this report,...

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Civil rights posters, 1968

Government and Civics

Memphis sanitation workers, the majority of them African American, went out on strike on February 12, 1968, demanding recognition for their union, better wages, and safer working conditions after two trash handlers were killed by a...

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Proclamation pardoning Richard Nixon, 1974

Government and Civics

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." Speaking half an hour after Richard Nixon submitted his resignation letter to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on August 9, 1974, and minutes after taking the oath of...

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Washington on a proposed third term and political parties, 1799

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

By 1798, George Washington had led America to victory in the Revolution, helped create the American government, and served two terms as the nation’s first president (1789–1797). He was called back to service, though, by President John...

Site Search

90,987 items

Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770

Henry Knox’s Order of March to Trenton, 1776

George Washington on the abolition of slavery, 1786

Two versions of the Preamble to the Constitution, 1787

George Washington’s reluctance to become president, 1789

The duel: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, 1804

A map of the Louisiana Territory, 1806

Jefferson on British aggression, 1815

John Quincy Adams and the Amistad case, 1841

John Brown’s final speech, 1859

The Gettysburg Address, 1863

The Western Sanitary Commission reports on suffering in the Mississippi Valley, 1863

Sharecropper contract, 1867

A perspective on the San Francisco earthquake, 1906

Eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic, 1912

Herbert Hoover on the Great Depression and New Deal, 1931–1933

Japan declares war, 1941

FDR on racial discrimination, 1942

Physicists predict a nuclear arms race, 1945

Victory Order of the Day, 1945

President Truman’s Farewell Address, 1953

Robert Kennedy on civil rights, 1963

Civil rights posters, 1968

Proclamation pardoning Richard Nixon, 1974

Washington on a proposed third term and political parties, 1799

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