today in history
january 1, 1863
The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect. It frees no one it can reach and everyone it can’t — yet — but it turns the war into a war about slavery, on paper and forever.
american archive // 1865 → now
us history.
reconstruction to right now — the american story is still being argued over.
field reel00:28
world war ii · operation overlord
d-day starts in the dark.
Twenty-eight seconds of D-Day energy: paratroopers gearing up, aircraft over Normandy, and a sky full of silk. Press play—then ask what it takes to step out of that door.
press play. turn it up.
credit: @forgottenframes_in4k on TikTok
normandy // 06.06.44
A fast-cut montage of colorized World War II footage showing American paratroopers preparing for flight, riding in transport aircraft, and parachuting over Normandy.
The Civil War ends; the argument over the country does not. We follow that argument from Reconstruction to right now through the people, choices, disasters, breakthroughs, and strange side stories that made the United States what it is. You will change your mind sometimes. Good.
history is an argument about what the evidence means.
What changes the country faster?
where we are
unit 02 / 10
current unit
The Gilded Age
Railroads, robber barons, and the price of progress.
enter this unit's learning hubthe year
- 01Reconstruction
- 02The Gilded Age (current)
- 03The Progressive Era & Empire
- 04WWI & the Twenties
- 05Depression & the New Deal
- 06World War II
- 07Cold War America
- 08Civil Rights & the Soundtrack of a Movement
- 09Vietnam to Watergate
- 10Reagan to Right Now
the daily desk.
one date, one myth, and one thing worth arguing about.
myth, busted
Myth: everyone thought the Earth was flat until Columbus. Educated people had known it was round since the ancient Greeks — the argument in 1492 was about the ocean’s width, and Columbus was the one who had it wrong.
busted
exhibit of the day
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Banks were failing by the thousands that week. The line was a policy argument, not a pep talk.
fdr, first inaugural — 1933
this day in michigan
january 5, 1914
Ford announces the $5 day — roughly double the going wage. Workers mob Highland Park; the middle class gets a prototype.
argue this
Was the New Deal a success? Defend your answer with one specific program.
make the case
course map
units.
Open a unit for its topics, learning hub, and student-ready materials.
- 01
Reconstruction
The war is over. Now comes the fight over what it meant.
reconstruction case file now live
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·What freedom meant on the ground in 1865 — land, labor, family, the vote
- ·The Reconstruction Amendments: the Constitution gets rewritten
- ·Black political power in the South — real, elected, and short-lived
- ·The retreat: terror, the Compromise of 1877, and the rise of Jim Crow
- ·How Reconstruction gets remembered — and misremembered
- 02
The Gilded Age
currentRailroads, robber barons, and the price of progress.
Who Showed UpFour strikes. Seventeen years. Watch the force used against workers move from neighbors with rifles to two signatures on a court order.enter the storywhat's inside +what's inside −
- ·Captains of industry or robber barons? Make the case
- ·Immigration, cities, and the machines that ran them
- ·Labor vs. capital: strikes, unions, and Pinkertons
- ·The West: railroads, homesteads, and what they cost Native nations
- ·Populists, farmers, and the first revolt against the new economy
- 03
The Progressive Era & Empire
Reformers at home, expansion abroad.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·Muckrakers and the power of a well-aimed magazine article
- ·Progressive fixes: trust-busting, food safety, and the vote for women
- ·Jim Crow hardens — and the resistance organizes
- ·The Spanish-American War and the debate over what America should be abroad
- ·The Great Migration begins: six million people vote with their feet
- 04
WWI & the Twenties
A world war, then a decade with the volume turned up.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·WWI at home — propaganda, dissent, and civil liberties
- ·The 1920s boom: cars, credit, and the first mass culture
- ·Jazz, the Harlem Renaissance, and who the twenties actually roared for
- ·Prohibition: the experiment and the side effects
- ·Nativism and the backlash: immigration quotas and the second Klan
- 05
Depression & the New Deal
The crash, the breadlines, and the argument we still have.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·The Crash of 1929 and why "it will fix itself" didn’t
- ·Life in the Depression: Dust Bowl, breadlines, and Hoovervilles
- ·FDR’s New Deal: relief, recovery, reform — and its critics, left and right
- ·Who the New Deal reached and who it skipped
- ·Did it work? The debate that decides how you see government today
- 06
World War II
Total war, the home front, and the bomb.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·From neutrality to Pearl Harbor: America argues its way into the war
- ·Mobilization: the arsenal of democracy runs through Michigan
- ·The home front: women in the plants, rationing, and war bonds
- ·Japanese American incarceration — the Constitution in wartime
- ·The bomb: the decision, the debate, and the world it made
- 07
Cold War America
Containment abroad, conformity and its cracks at home.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·Containment, Korea, and duck-and-cover America
- ·McCarthyism: the hunt for enemies within
- ·The suburbs, the Baby Boom, and who the boom left out
- ·Sputnik, the space race, and science as national security
- ·Cuba and Vietnam: containment reaches its limits
- 08
Civil Rights & the Soundtrack of a Movement
Strategy, sacrifice, and law.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·Brown v. Board and the long game behind it
- ·Montgomery to Birmingham: nonviolence as strategy, not passivity
- ·The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts — how movements become law
- ·Malcolm X, Black Power, and the debate inside the movement
- ·The movement comes north: housing, schools, and Detroit 1967
- 09
Vietnam to Watergate
The credibility gap years.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·Vietnam: escalation, the draft, and the living-room war
- ·The antiwar movement and the country it split
- ·The Pentagon Papers: what the government knew while saying otherwise
- ·Watergate and what it did to trust
- ·The 1970s hangover: stagflation, oil shocks, and malaise
- 10
Reagan to Right Now
The recent past — where the story meets your lifetime.
what's inside +what's inside −
- ·The Reagan revolution and the conservative turn
- ·The Cold War ends — suddenly, and mostly peacefully
- ·9/11 and the wars that followed
- ·The Great Recession, and what it did to Michigan in particular
- ·The internet age: the story you’re living in, examined like history
everything for this class
class hub.
slides, course links, source collections, and whatever we need next.