While both the 1918 influenza (aka Spanish flu) and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemics were devastating, the 1918 influenza pandemic was considered worse. Its origins are still debated, but it was first identified in the United States at Fort Riley, an Army base in Kansas. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated…

This lesson prompts students to explore the ways that individuals, groups, communities, and nations define who belongs and who does not. The outlined activities examine what it means to belong by introducing the idea of a "universe of obligation," the term sociologist Helen Fein coined to describe the circle of individuals and groups…

International revulsion at the violation of human rights during World War II helped spark a global movement to define and protect individual human rights. Starting with the creation of war crimes tribunals after the war, this newfound awareness stimulated a concerted international effort to establish human rights for all, both in periods of war…

Capital punishment, still practiced in many countries around the world, represents a highly controversial human rights issue. As citizens of the world, the existence of a diversity of death penalties challenges some of the most cherished and universal values. For social studies educators seeking to move their students toward finding their voice as…

In today's society, film is a part of popular culture and is relevant to students' everyday lives. Most students spend over 7 hours a day using media. With the popularity and availability of film, it is natural that teachers attempt to engage students with such a relevant medium. The method of using film and the method of using firsthand accounts…

Artists today draw on a range of sources--newspapers, magazines, photographs, film, audio, and of course the Internet--to create artworks that serve as visual "texts" of a specific place and moment in time. Using artworks as sources and understanding how to decode them in the service of "drilling down" into difficult topics can create powerful…

For six months in 2008, as a Fulbright Scholar, this author served as a senior researcher at the Centre for Conflict Management at the National University of Rwanda where he conducted research into the lives of survivors of the 1994 genocide. The research comprised lengthy interviews (between seven and fifteen hours) with each survivor. The…

Of the three branches of government, the Supreme Court usually receives the least national attention. Not so this year. In addition to another changing of the guard with the retirement of Justice Stevens and the nomination of Elena Kagan, the 2009-2010 term generated a great deal of controversy. And in a number of instances, the public's keen…

Few had heard of Irena Sendlerowa in 1999. Now, after more than 290 presentations of the student play "Life in a Jar," as well as a website with high traffic, and worldwide media attention, Irena is known to the world. Irena Sendler (as she became known), a social worker, believed in standing up for others. Her father, who was a doctor,…

English legal commentator William Blackstone described the writ of habeas corpus as a second Magna Carta, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall called it the "great writ." It has been part of the Anglo-American common law tradition since the Middle Ages. In the United States, it has been a source of tension between state and…

The Holocaust is now a regular part of high school history curricula throughout the United States and, as a result, coverage of the Holocaust has become a standard feature of high school textbooks. As with any major event, it is important for textbooks to provide a rigorously accurate and valid historical account. In dealing with the Holocaust,…

This article looks at various cases of the Supreme Court's most recent term. In contrast to the 2006-2007 term when the Supreme Court was regularly split 5-4, during this last term, the justices have formed surprising coalitions in cases considered highly controversial. For example, it was the so-called liberal bloc's Justice Stevens who wrote the…

The genocide in Srebrenica was the largest single act of genocide in Europe in 50 years, or since the Naziperpetrated Holocaust. In this article, the author was invited by the Bosnian foreign ministry to attend a 10-year commemoration of the genocide on July 11, 2005. It was followed by an international conference in Sarajevo, "The…

On April 14, 1865, at approximately 10:20 p.m., John Wilkes Booth, a prominent American actor, sneaked up behind President Abraham Lincoln as he watched a play from the presidential box at Ford's Theater and shot him in the back of the head at point-blank range. Of the 14 doctors who attended to President Lincoln on the night of his assassination,…

This article discusses the history of the Armenian genocide and the impact it brought on the Armenians. The author relates his experience attending a two-day memorial commemoration in the desert of Syria for the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide that he became fully aware of how profound the memory of that human disaster is for today's…