The Presidential Timeline of the Twentieth Century

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• Learn more about 20th century, American history, Civics and Government, and presidents.

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“The Presidential Timeline provides a single point of access to an ever-growing selection of digitized assets from the collections of the twelve Presidential Libraries of the National Archives. Among these assets you’ll find documents, photographs, audio recordings, and video relating to the events of the presidents’ lives. The goal of the project is to make these resources readily and freely available to students, educators, and adult learners throughout the world.”

Students can go to the interactive timeline feature and choose a president to research. Each president has a timeline of his life. Students can read about a president’s early life and career, his presidency, and his life after the presidency. Explore the timeline and see how it compares to the other president’s. Photographs and images of documents can be enlarged by clicking on them. Students can also go to the exhibits section for in-depth information on important events in the lives of the presidents. The gallery section has 718 images of the presidents and associated documents.

The site also has educational activities that teachers can use in their classrooms. Each activity uses primary source materials, is aligned with the national standards and has a rubric. Activities cover how the presidents were involved with the following: the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the atomic bomb, integration of schools, the Peace Corps, the war in Vietnam, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, the Challenger disaster, and more.