Month: February 2024

World War I

Listening: “Over There,” 1917 (recording by Henry Burr and the Peerless Quartet)

Viewing: Meuse-Argonne Battlefield Experience (12:30)

Viewing: 5-minute clip from 2018 film “They Shall Not Grow Old” using BBC interviews and restored footage

Example of German propaganda aimed at African-American Soldiers

“WWI French Steel Pot Outperforms Modern U.S. Army Helmet in Averting Overhead Blast Injuries, Study Finds,” Stars and Stripes 2/20/20

Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick, 1902-1917

Links for today:

US / World History in Context (need WSU login to use, useful starting point for research on any of the international episodes covered in this chapter)

U.S. Navy from Civil War to the “Great White Fleet”

Quick overview of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” trip 1906-1907

The Schlieffen Plan (i.e. why Germany invaded France through Belgium in 1914, and how that worked out for them)

PBS American Experience, The Great War, Chapter 1

Reconstruction and the West

Some links for your consideration:

Matthew Pearl, “K Troop,” Slate 3/4/16

“Little War on the Prairie,” audio episode of This American Life, 11/23/2012 about the 1862-1863 Dakota War

Pamphlet history on The Army and Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (Army Center of Military History)

Little Bighorn National Monument (National Park Service)

Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) Primary Source Set from Digital Public Library of America

Civil War, Part II (1863-1865)

Links for today:

Armies and Organization in the Civil War (Battlefield Trust)

Magnitude of the Civil War (Ken Burns)

Animated Battle Map of entire Civil War, by year (Battlefield Trust)

Overview of the Western Theater (Battlefield Trust)

Vicksburg Campaign – July 1863 (Battlefield Trust)

Chickamauga Campaign / Battle of Chattanooga – Sept-Nov 1863 (Battlefield Trust)

Atlanta Campaign – May-Sept 1864 (Battlefield Trust)

Sherman’s March – late 1864 (Ken Burns)

Sherman’s Field Order No. 15 – 1865 (Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History)

Fourteenth Amendment, especially Section 3

Historians’ Amicus Brief in the Supreme Court case Trump v. Anderson (Colorado Disqualification case, being argued before the court on 8 Feb 2024).

Historians Jill Lepore and David Blight discuss their Amicus Brief (above) and the relevant history on NPR (31 Jan 2024)