Bill of Rights in Action Archives United States History

U.S. History

Pre-Columbian America

Climate Change and Violence in the Ancient American Southwest (18,4:02)
The Kennewick Controversies (14,1:98)

Exploration

Blood and Tribute: The Rise and Fall of the Aztec Empire (14,4:98)
Laws of the Indies: Spain and the Native Peoples of the New World (15,4:99)

English Colonies

The Mayflower Compact (3,1:86)
Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening (20, 4:04)
“A Woman Not Fit for Our Society”: The Anne Hutchinson Story (5,1: 88) (Coming soon)
Whip, Pillory, and Gallows: Punishment in Puritan Massachusetts (7,1:90) (Coming soon)
John Peter Zenger and Freedom of the Press (22:3:06)

Conflict and Revolution

Clash of Empires: The Fight for North America (17,4:01)
Quartering of Soldiers in Colonial America: What Really Happened? (6,1:89) (Coming soon)
Slave Trade: A Numbness of the Heart (4,2: 87) (Coming soon)
John Adams and the Boston Massacre Trials (16,1:99)
The Declaration of Independence and Natural Rights (16,4:00)

Creating the Constitution

The Articles of Confederation (21:4:05)
Shays’ Rebellion: A Massachusetts Farmer’s Account (4,1:87) (Coming soon)
Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau on Government (20,2:04)
The Federalist Papers (3,1:86) (Coming soon)
Alexander Hamilton and George Mason (4,1:87) (Coming soon)

Federalist Era—1789–1801

What Made George Washington a Great Leader? (1,1:84) (Coming soon)
The Whiskey Rebellion and the New American Republic (23:3:07)
The Alien and Sedition Acts: Defining American Freedom (19,4:03)

Jeffersonian Era (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe)—1801–1825

The United States and the Barbary Pirates (18,1:01)
Conspiracy Theories: Attacks on Jefferson Set the Pattern (11,4:95)
Separating Church and State (13,4:97)
Who Voted in Early America? (8,1:91)
John Marshall and the Bank Case (McCulloch v. Maryland) (7,2:90) (Coming soon)
The Election of 1824–25: When the House Chose the President (8,4:92)

Jacksonian Era (Adams, Jackson, Van Buren)—1825–1841

Jackson and Indian Removal Policy (21,1:04)
William Lloyd Garrison and the Boston Mob (5,2:88) (Coming soon)
The Citizen in de Tocqueville’s America (2,1:85) (Coming soon)
How the Woman’s Rights Movement Began (4,2: 87) (Coming soon)

Pre-Civil War Years—1841–1860

President Polk and the Taking of the West (20,1:04)
Night Forever: Slavery In The American South (7,3:91) (Coming soon)
“We Came to Free the Slaves”: John Brown on Trial (9,1:92)
The Transcendentalists in Action (22:1:05)

Civil War and Reconstruction—1860–1877

Slavery, Civil War, & Democracy: What Did Lincoln Believe? (22:4:06)
Lincoln and the “Writ of Liberty” (6,2: 89) (Coming soon)
Black Troops in Union Blue (12,1:96)
The Prize Cases (3,2: 86)
King Andy vs. the Radicals (3,3: 87)
The Black Man and the Fifteenth Amendment (4,2: 87) (Coming soon)
The Southern “Black Codes” of 1865–66 (15,2:99)
The Persecution of the Mormons (17,1:00)
A Hero Betrayed: The Presidency of U.S. Grant (9,2:93)

1877–1914

Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Monopoly (16,2:00)
Social Darwinism and American Laissez-Faire Capitalism (19,2:03)
Pulitzer, Hearst, and the “Yellow Press” (5,3:89) (Coming soon)
The Debate Over Hawaii and an American Empire (18,2:02)
Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal (21:2:05)
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (24:1:08)
Three Visions for African Americans (19,3:03)
"At the Hands of Persons Unknown” Lynching in America (10,3: 94)
Race and Voting in the Segregated South (12,2:96)
Educating European Immigrant Children Before World War I (8,2:92)
Progressives and the Era of Trustbusting (23:1:07)
The Income Tax Amendment (11,3:95) (Coming soon)
One Big Union—One Big Strike: The Story of the Wobblies (17,2:01)

World War I

“Clear and Present Danger” at Home During World War I (4,3:88)
The Palmer “Red Raids” (6,3:90)

The Twenties (1919–1929)

How Women Won the Right to Vote (20,2:04)
Sex, Crime, and Jazz-Age Journalism (Arbuckle) (11,1: 94)
The Scopes Trial (22:2:06)
Sacco and Vanzetti: Were Two Innocent Men Executed? (23:2:07)

Depression and the New Deal

The Dustbowl Migrations (21,3:05)
Free Press vs. Fair Trial: The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Case (10,1:93)
Sit-Down Strike! (1,4:85) (Coming soon)
How Welfare Began in the United States (14,3:98)
FDR Tries to “Pack” the Supreme Court (10,4:94)

World War II

U.S. Immigration Policy and Hitler’s Holocaust (10,2: 94)
Choices: Truman, Hirohito, and the Atomic Bomb (15,3:99)
Wartime and the Bill of Rights: The Korematsu Case (18,3:02)
War Crimes—The Question of Responsibility (1,3:85) (Coming soon)

Cold War Period—1945–1989

Bringing Democracy to Japan (3,4: 87) (Coming soon)
The Marshall Plan for Rebuilding Western Europe (20,3:04)
The Berlin Airlift (4,4:88) (Coming soon)
The Future of NATO (12,3:96)
Seizure! Truman Takes the Steel Mills (4,4:88) (Coming soon)
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War (17,3:01)
Did the Rosenbergs Deserve to Die? (2,4:86) (Coming soon)
Mendez v. Westminster: Paving the Way to School Desegregation (23:2:07)
The Lunch Counter Sit-Ins (5,2:88) (Coming soon)
“Let Us Reason Together”: Lyndon Johnson (9,3&4:93)
Bobby Seale: The Defendant Who Was Bound and Gagged (6,4:90)
War, Treaties, and the Constitution (1,3:85) (Coming soon)
The Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Civil Disobedience on Campus (16,3:00)
Different Visions for Vietnam (20,3:04)
National Security and the “Pentagon Papers” Case (4,3:88) (Coming soon)
Music on Trial: Rock, Rap, and Responsibility (13,2:97)

1990 to the Present

U.S. Involvement in Nation-Building Before Iraq (20,3:04)
Have Women Achieved Equality? (20,2:04)