We all learned about American history in junior high (or middle school) and high school. But how much do you remember? How much did you pay attention to at the time? Unless you are a history buff or majored in history college, chances are not much. After all, American History was that boring subject you were forced to learn, but you doubted it would have any relevance to your day-to-day life as an adult. But that’s where you were wrong.

Everything we are dealing with right now, from racial equality to states’ rights to patriotism, is what this country has had to deal with repeatedly. And the reason for that because no one learned from the history of what happened in the past.

There is a reason for this quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~ George Santayana

And they don’t learn it because people don’t know about the history and don’t learn from past mistakes and successes.

One of the pluses of being a family genealogist is learning the history of what was going on when our ancestors were alive.

But it’s not too late to learn. I have found some great sources that help that learning process while also being “entertaining”:

“America The Story of Us”; a 12 part documentary from 2010 by the History channel. I found it on Amazon Prime https://www.amazon.com/America-The-Story-of-Us/dp/B07BX8K5GS, but you can get it from the History channel https://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us

To mirror that, I highly recommend John Jakes’s series of books, The Kent Family Chronicles, about American history; you can get these as an ebook on Kindle, on Audible, in paperback or hardback versions.

The Bastard

The Rebels

The Seekers

The Furies

The Titans

The Warriors

The Lawless

The Americans

I read the books first and then watched the documentary, but you do it the other way around or watch the documentary, read the books, and watch the documentary again.

Other sites to learn more about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States (which will take you to lots of other links)

https://www.historycentral.com/USHistory.html

https://www.thoughtco.com/american-history-4133354 (not in chronological order but lots of interesting stories)

https://www.loc.gov/collections/?fa=subject:american+history (historical documents and photographs)

https://www.infobase.com/product/schools/american-history-online-3/ (I’m still exploring this site, but so far, it looks good.)

Books and movies I would also recommend:

Book

Don’t Know Much About History https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-About-History-Anniversary-ebook/dp/B08K92SCMQ/

Book and Movie

North and South by John Jakes

Dances with Wolves

Movies 

Last of the Mohicans 

The Crossing

The New World 

The Patriot 

The Rebels (based on the book of the same name by John Jakes)

12 Years a Slave

The Alamo

Amistad 

Beloved

Burying My Heart at Wounded Knee 

Cold Mountain

The Conspirator 

Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower

Django Unchained

Far and Away 

Gangs of New York

Gods and Generals 

Glory

Lincoln

Little Big Man 

Ride with the Devil 

Roots

And wonderful documentaries:

https://watch.historyvault.com/