Turn to C-SPAN for American History

When the History Channel is showing programs that frankly aren’t history such as UFO Hunters, Top Gear and Ice Road Truckers, what’s a history lover to do? Fortunately, they still have plenty of programming relating to actual history, but with show names like Chasing Mummies and Sex in the Ancient World, they seem to be […]
CSPAN3 American History
Image: C-SPAN.org

Image via Wikipedia, Public Domain

When the History Channel is showing programs that frankly aren't history such as UFO Hunters, Top Gear and Ice Road Truckers, what's a history lover to do? Fortunately, they still have plenty of programming relating to actual history, but with show names like Chasing Mummies and Sex in the Ancient World, they seem to be trying to jazz up history when it usually stands on its own. When the one network we thought we could count on to deliver nothing but history is diluting their schedule with decidedly non-historical stuff, consider adding C-SPAN3 to your viewing rotation.

"C-SPAN?!?" you ask incredulously. Yes, C-SPAN. It's not all Congress, all the time anymore. C-SPAN will now show American History TV on C-SPAN3 every Saturday at 8am to Monday at 8am, Eastern Time. Listen to presidential speeches from history. Sit in on a college American history class. Learn more about events from the past. Travel vicariously to museums and historical sites.

C-SPAN also has a portion of their website devoted to C-SPAN Classroom. It is filled with free primary source materials for teaching history and social studies to your kids. Spend some time on their site and give your kids context for today's events. Learn about John Wilkes Booth's family life. Honor the Navajo Code Talkers. Even compare Hamiltonianism and Jeffersonianism.

If you're looking for history of other parts of the world, C-SPAN isn't going to help you too much. But if you want to learn (or teach) more about American History or Civics, delve deeply into C-SPAN's history resources. It's there and it's free.