Podcast #69 - The War by PBS and Washington's Birthday at Gadsby's

Hello. Just spent a great day in Washington DC attending a symposium at PBS headquarters on an upcoming project and then celebrating Washington's birthday. A tremendous documentary on World War II by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sara Botstein will be shown on PBS in September of 2007 named "The War". The documentary will be 14 hours in length and has taken over 6 years of work to complete. PBS is currently in the process of developing teacher resources and curriculum connections to accompany the video series. Today PBS had roughly 50 people - teachers, students, professors, and people from the Library of Congress, History Day, NCSS, Teaching American History Grants, Archives - meet to discuss how this documentary can be used in the classroom. It was an amazing day. Producers Lynn Novick and Sara Botstein were also present and gave us some great background on how the video was produced. There will be resources sent to schools in the fall of 2007 and PBS is creating a very complete web site with teaching resources, clips, handouts, curriculum guides, etc. Any teacher who includes World War II as a portion of their curriculum should check it out next fall when it airs on PBS.

After the symposium I traveled to Old Town Alexandria and celebrated George Washington's birthday at Gadsby's Tavern. This tavern is the original building from colonial times and was a favorite place for George Washington to eat after his presidency. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison also ate there from time to time. I had a George Washington favorite - cider glazed duckling. Also included was a very tasty smoked bacon spoonbread. The food was excellent and you can't beat eating by candlelight in a room once shared by several presidents. Check it out the next time you are in the DC area.

If you have any questions or comments please e-mail me at speakingofhistory@gmail.com or leave a comment to this blog post.

Subscribe to the Speaking of History podcast through i-Tunes.

Direct Link to Speaking of History Podcast #69 - The War by PBS and Washington's Birthday at Gadsby's Tavern - MP3 Format - 10:15 minutes

Show Notes for Podcast #69:

- article on upcoming PBS series "The War" by Ken Burns
- official PBS site
- PBS Teacher Source site
- Gadsby's Tavern in Old Town Alexandria