Videos
AP United States History
Pick a topic to watch.
9 video lessons
7:47
Topic 1
Period 1: 1491 to 1607
In 1491 North America was not empty and it was not one place. It held hundreds of societies, farming, hunting, fishing and trading, and they differed from each…
8:26
Topic 2
Period 2: 1607 to 1754
Two English colonies, founded within twenty years of each other by people from the same country under the same crown. One grows tobacco with enslaved labour on…
9:07
Topic 3
Period 3: 1754 to 1800
Britain wins the war, takes half a continent, and destroys its main rival in North America. Twelve years later its colonies are in open rebellion. Those two…
8:58
Topic 4
Period 4: 1800 to 1848
In 1825 a canal opens, and a bag of wheat that took three weeks to reach a city now takes eight days at a tenth of the cost. Everything follows from that.…
7:33
Topic 5
Period 5: 1844 to 1877
In one decade a country doubles its territory. That sounds like a triumph and it brings one question with it: will slavery go there? Every compromise from then…
7:17
Topic 6
Period 6: 1865 to 1898
Here is the puzzle at the centre of this period. An American farmer in 1890 grew more wheat than his father ever had, with better machines, on more land…
7:41
Topic 7
Period 7: 1890 to 1945
This is the longest period on the course and the densest, and students drown in it because they try to remember it as one story. It is three. Federal power…
6:46
Topic 8
Period 8: 1945 to 1980
Two arguments dominate this period, and they look unrelated until you see what they share. How far should the United States go to contain communism abroad? And…
5:46
Topic 9
Period 9: 1980 to the present
This period is short in topics and wide in scope, and the exam treats it as the culmination of the whole course. Three arguments that have run since the…