Cold War: From Yalta to Malta
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/
Cold War: From Yalta to Malta, brought to you by CNN, explores the Cold War experience from many different angles. This website allows the visitor to explore the culture of the time (represented in movies and books), technology (how the space and arms race gave birth to the digital revolution), espionage of the time, and the bomb (and its consequent effects). Included one can find interactive maps, rare video footage, declassified documents, biographies, picture galleries, timelines, interactive activities, book excerpts, and an educator's guide. In the “Educator’s Guide” section on the website is information pertaining to different aspects of the Cold War, like Geography, Chronology, Maps, Cold War Culture, and Other Cold War Sites. This website was created as a companion site to the CNN documentary series of the same name, and would be an effective teaching tool in the classroom.

Fourteen Days in October: The Cuban Missile Crisis
http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/index.html
“The closest the world has come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missle Crisis of October 1962. The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of the United States. U.S. armed forces were at their highest state of readiness…This site provides as in-depth account and analysis of the Crisis.”
The Cuban Missile Crisis is both an important and compelling event in the history of the Cold War. This student-developed website is an excellent resource in better understanding the events surrounding this near-disastrous moment in history. The contents of this website are divided into many different sections. The “Crisis Center” is the best place to start and gives a fairly good overview of the events surrounding the crisis. ȁThe Players” section gives an equally good overview of the individuals involved. An excellent selection of primary documents can be found in “The Situation Room,” and the “Recon Room” and “Briefing Room” provide important maps, satellite photos and audio clips. In all, this site offers a deep breadth of information in many different forms and media. The primary resources are the most valuable aspect of this site and greatly enhance the already useful text provided. This site could be incorporated into a classroom assignment and a multiple choice Quiz is even provided to test the inquirer’s knowledge of the Cuban Missile Crisis. (BR)

Herblock’s History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/
“From the stock market crash in 1929 through the new millennium beginning in the year 2000, editorial cartoonist Herb Block has chronicled the nation’s political history, caricaturing twelve American presidents from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton.”
An excellent way to help students understand differing viewpoints on complex political issues and historical events is to use political cartoons. They help illustrate (literally) ideas that can otherwise be confusing and fail to interest students. Through poignant humor and wit, political cartoons can help provoke discussion and debate among students and add a valuable learning opportunity to the classroom. Over the past 70 years, cartoonist Herb Block has been at the forefront of this field. He has been awarded four Pulitzer prizes, and now has an entire exhibit dedicated to his cartoons in the Library of Congress. This website features many of these cartoons. They are organized both chronologically and thematically. A wide range of topics is treated and this collection could supplement most major topics in 20th century American history. BR

The History Place – The Vietnam War
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index.html
Thehistoryplace.com has long since proved its value with other history websites. This particular website of theirs presents a detailed timeline of the Vietnam War. Much to its credit, it also includes the years leading up to U.S. involvement. The conflicts of the decades preceding are essential for understanding the nature of the Vietnam War of the 1960’s, and are often over looked. There are also occasional links to primary documents throughout the timelines, but few. The timeline is detailed enough to make it a useful resource for the general trends and events of the conflict. This websites straightforward layout and lack of clutter makes it much easier to use than other similar sites on the Internet. There are a few links on the first page for specific topics and the rest can be simply browsed chronologically. (BR)

A History Teacher’s Bag of Tricks
http://marchand.ucdavis.edu/index.shtml
“This website brings you a collection of assignments Marchand used in his university classroom. These "Documentary Source Problems" encouraged students to become historians and use their own analytical skills to determine what happened in history. The assignments provide students with a collection of primary sources from which they can deduce the events of the past.”
Roland Marchand was a teacher at the University of California-Davis. This website includes lesson plans of Marchand’s as well as numerous other resources. The lesson plans skillfully incorporate primary documents into the classroom. The lesson plans deal with a good variety of topics and are provided for university, high school and middle school levels. The Slide Archive provides thousands and thousands of categorized images that would greatly enhance any lesson. The images cover the full range of U.S. History, culture and life. This site offers high quality information that is well organized and ready for classroom use. (BR)

National Museum of American History: Virtual Exhibitions
http://americanhistory.si.edu/VE/index.htm
This site has many very good features. Its greatest strength lies in its selection of virtual exhibits. The topics are wide ranging and interesting, ranging from "A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the Constitution" and "Photographing History: Fred I. Maroon and the Nixon Years, 1970-1974" to "July 1942: United We Stand" (a collection of the numerous depictions of the American flag in WWII). The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has effectively assembled a website with a lot of interesting historical subjects that can be presented to a classroom in an exciting presentation.

The National Security Archives
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
“Located on the seventh floor of the George Washington University's Gelman Library in Washington, D.C., the Archive is designed to apply the latest in computerized indexing technology to the massive amount of material already released by the U.S. government on international affairs, make them accessible to researchers and the public, and go beyond that base to build comprehensive collections of documents on specific topics of greatest interest to scholars and the public.”
The project provides digital images, primary documents, audio/visual releases, and well-written, well-researched essays on a wide variety of topics. Students and teachers desiring more information on post-World War II events can access the website and examine materials on such topics as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, foreign affairs during the Nixon Administration, United States relations with Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and select topics in the history of modern nuclear warfare.

Truman and Eisenhower—Korean War 1950-1953
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/korea
“This page is a joint project between the Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Libraries developed to provide access to Korean War materials related to the two administrations occupying the White House during that period.”
The Korean War is sometimes referred to as the Forgotten War, the War before Vietnam, or the Unknown War; however, it had a major impact on the Cold War. Truman and Eisenhower—Korean War 1950-1953 informs browsers of the importance of Korea through primary documents, essays, narratives, oral histories, and images, all of which are easily accessed. The Truman and Eisenhower Presidential Libraries work in combination with the National Archives and Records Administration to bring this material to the public. Moreover, the webpage designers included links to other valid sites. Needless to say, if a browser is looking for a solid, comprehensive site about the Korean War, this is an excellent place to start.

United States of America's Commemoration
of the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War
http://korea50.army.mil/welcome.shtml
“Congress authorized the Commemoration to: Provide the people of the United States with a clear understanding and appreciation of the lessons and history of the Korean War. Thank and honor veterans of the Korean War and their families. Pay tribute to the sacrifices and contributions made on the home front from by the people of the United States during the Korean War. Highlight advances in technology, science and medicine related to military research conducted during the Korean War. Recognize the contributions and sacrifices made by the allies of the United States in the Korean War. Highlight the role of the Armed Forces of the United States, then and now, in maintaining world peace through strength.”
As an official congressionally appointed website, this commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Korean War provides quality, reliable information. For teachers, the most valuable resources available on this website can be found under the “For Teachers” section. Within this section there are a series of lesson plans, for both middle and high school, as well as texts, images and visual aids. The lesson plans provide enough detailed information and classroom activities to fill numerous class periods. Whereas some lesson plans lack in historical background, these provide more than enough. Even if not used in their entirety, these lesson plans give ample ideas and information for teachers to incorporate into the classroom. BR

U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/129_usn.html
“The collection is primarily photographs taken by staff of the U.S. News & World Report Magazine between 1952 and 1986; images purchased by the magazine for one-time use were not donated to the Library. The collection depicts local, national, and international news topics, with particular emphasis on Washington, D.C., and the United States.”
Provided by the Library of Congress, the images located in this database reflect the momentous issues of Cold War America. Although browsers do not have full access to some of the images, the selection is still broad. The digitized collection includes images on the Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation rallies, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, presidential campaigns, and even Texas oil pumps. Browsers can access the images in high or low resolution. While the photographs are not listed under subject headings, the captions give visitors a clear understanding of the content, and the search engine can easily locate desired images.

The Vietnam Project—Texas Tech University
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu
“The mission of the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University is to support and encourage research and education regarding all aspects of the American Vietnam experience; promoting a greater understanding of this experience and the peoples and cultures of Southeast Asia. Its functions are threefold: collection and preservation of pertinent source material; education through exhibits, classroom instruction, educational programs, and publications; and encouragement of scholarly research through exchanges, publishing of noteworthy research, symposia, and financial support.”
This project has plenty to offer browsers searching for veterans’ perspectives on Vietnam. Although designed to address all aspects of this conflict, this site contains interviews with those who served in the armed services. Moreover, these interviews provide browsers with a more intimate depiction of this confusing war. In addition to oral histories, this site has digitalized copies of Indochina Chronology, guidelines on conducting oral history interviews, images from the Vietnam War, and a search engine that allows visitors to look up acronyms and operations. Finally, the web team plans to develop classroom resources. For teachers interested in presenting their students with a more comprehensive understanding of the Vietnam War, this site contains ample materials for ideas and information.