History and World Cultures AUM

A little syllabus humor as the new semester is about to begin…

"I asked for our objective. He asked me back." — Nikos T.

GREATER AGORA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — Veteran instructor Mr. Socrates received a rating of Needs Improvement following Tuesday's formal observation, after evaluator Mr. Stavrellis found no learning objective posted anywhere in the colonnade. The rubric awarded zero of four points under Domain 1c, noting that when students were asked what they would know by the end of the lesson, all 30 replied that they knew nothing.

At the post-observation conference, Mr. Socrates responded to each of the 11 findings with a question, which Mr. Stavrellis documented as additional evidence of unclear success criteria. Student Nikos told Eyes On Meme he once asked Mr. Socrates directly what the day's objective was, and has spent the weeks since questioning whether objectives can be known at all.

Mr. Socrates declined to sign the evaluation, asking whether a signature can certify understanding, and was logged as refusing to engage in the growth process. A follow-up observation is scheduled for spring, along with a separate hearing on corrupting the youth, which will use the same rubric.

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On August 4, 1944, Anne Frank, her family, and four other Jewish people hiding in the Secret Annex above her father's business in Amsterdam were discovered after an anonymous tip led German authorities to their hiding place. They had lived there in secrecy for more than 25 months, relying on a small group of trusted helpers who risked their own lives to bring them food and supplies.

Just three days earlier, Anne had written the final entry in the diary she received for her 13th birthday. After their arrest, the group was deported through a series of camps. Anne and her sister Margot Frank died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen in early 1945, only weeks before the camp was liberated. Her father, Otto Frank, was the family's only survivor.

After the war, Otto Frank received Anne's diary from Miep Gies, one of the people who had helped hide the family. First published in 1947, The Diary of Anne Frank has since been translated into dozens of languages and remains one of the world's most widely read firsthand accounts of the Holocaust.

This year, our theme is “Animals in History,” and this is just one fascinating example of how animals have been used in war.

During World War I, soldiers discovered that one of their most reliable gas detectors wasn’t a machine at all. It was a garden slug.

Researchers found that leopard slugs, also called great gray slugs, reacted to mustard gas at concentrations lower than humans could detect. When exposed, the slugs compressed their bodies, closed their breathing openings, and made unusual movements with their tentacles.

In 1918, the U.S. Army reportedly began taking these slugs into the trenches. Soldiers watched them closely. If the slugs showed signs of distress, the troops knew that mustard gas might be present and could put on their gas masks before exposure reached dangerous levels.

The slugs did not stop the gas, but their sensitive bodies acted like a living early-warning system.

Henrietta Lacks was born in Roanoke, Virginia in 1920. She is famed for her “immortal” HeLa cells, the most important cell lines in medical history.

At thirty-one years old, Lacks died of cervical cancer. Upon her death, doctors discovered that cells from her body lived long lives and reproduced indefinitely in petri dishes. These “immortal” HeLa cells have since contributed to over 10,000 medical patents relating to polio, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, and other conditions.

Considering the history of medical testing on African Americans without their permission, the fate of Lacks raises questions about ethics, privacy and race. This sentiment is reflected in the visual elements of this portrait painted by Kadir Nelson. The wallpaper features the “Flower of Life,” a symbol of immortality; the flowers on her dress recall images of cell structures; and two missing buttons from her dress allude to the cells taken from her body without permission.
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🖼: “Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine” (detail) by Kadir Nelson, 2017. Collection of the National Portrait Gallery and . Gift from Kadir Nelson and the JKBN Group, LLC. © 2017 Kadir Nelson

Come join us for our August 8th seminar!
In person and virtual tickets are available through https://algensoc.ticketbud.com/august-2026-seminar-29110a57-fe2ff4ebf58a

BREAKING: President Trump signed an executive order Friday directing federal officials to put up signs outside the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History warning visitors that what's inside is "inaccurate."

The signs would be temporary and placed on sidewalks maintained by the National Park Service, and would point visitors toward what the order describes as accurate resources on America's history. The Park Service answers to the Interior Secretary. The Smithsonian, now 180 years old, is an independent institution and does not.

The order cites a 162-page White House Domestic Policy Council report released July 4 that accused the museum of "thinly veiled anti-Americanism" and extreme political activism. That report had recommended the museum post a notice at its own entrance telling visitors the exhibits were prepared by people who don't want them to love their country. In the order, President Trump wrote that current leadership at both the Smithsonian and the museum cannot be trusted to tell the country's story honestly.

Museum director Anthea Hartig and Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch have both said the White House report unfairly characterized the museum's work. Hartig testified before a House oversight subcommittee this week, saying the museum is most powerful when patriotism is inspired rather than instructed. The Organization of American Historians, the largest group of U.S. history scholars in the country, rejected the report's claims. The Smithsonian had no comment on Friday's order.

This is the latest step in a fight that started with the March 2025 executive order aimed at removing what the administration calls improper ideology from the institution. Since then, orders and declarations from the White House have led to the dismantling of slavery exhibits, the restoration of Confederate statues, and formal reviews of museum content. Supporters say it is about removing anti-American ideology. Civil rights advocates say it erases hard parts of the national story.

All of this lands months before the nation's 250th anniversary, with the Smithsonian's own semiquincentennial banners already hanging on the building.

What do you think? Should the federal government be posting warning labels outside a museum it does not control?