This lesson aims to take advantage of The New York Times as a living textbook - a source that chronicled the Vietnam War as it took place and that continues to look back with the benefit of hindsight. The page offers a curated selection of three types of primary sources: photographs, original articles, and first-person accounts. Scroll down to find accompanying teaching activities that build students' analytical skills while encouraging inquiry.

This lesson pairs a Times article about the historical resonance of Europe's refugee crisis with an excerpt from "Defying the Nazis" that chronicles the Sharp's relief and rescue mission in 1939. Together, these texts raise important questions about whether there are "lessons" of history and invite reflection on how individuals and governments choose to respond to those in need.

This lesson presents two sides of a debate about Magna Carta's significance. Students read an Op-Ed essay in The Times and an essay in the Wall Street Journal, and decide what they think: Is the document worthy of celebrating 800 years later? Or is its importance just a myth?

This lesson compares the moment of euphoria when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 with today's Berlin, a transformed city in which many do not remember the oppressive divisions of the past. In follow-up activities, students can evaluate the choices made since 1989 and decide if the Cold War is really over.

This unit brings together multimedia resources describing the Great War and the Russian Revolution. Multiple documents are available for evaluating conditions and events that led to international conflict and a troubled resolution in the West as well as major regime change in Russia.

This unit brings together multimedia resources describing the period between WWI and WWII. Multiple documents are available for analysis of economic and militaristic conflicts that led to power struggles, alliances, and political transformations, both in the West and Asia.

In this project, students select a modern trend and follow it through various media outlets. By choosing articles, analyzing them, and writing about them, students begin to see how their respective trend influences the modern world. In the second half, students go back through history and research the same trend in the past. After compiling historical data on the trend, students combine the modern and the historical into a research paper that expresses their new understanding of the world.

In 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and changed the course of history, thus a major "turning point" in history. In this lesson from the National Archives, students will analyze the Zimmerman telegraph and evaluate its significance in history.