Everything Everywhere AP World History Curriculum

The following is a list of Everything Everywhere Daily podcast episodes and the corresponding sections of the AP World History Curriculum that they apply to.

Episodes can be shared with students via student learning systems like Canvas.  Teachers can use these episodes to reinforce course content, and students can use them to build their historical literacy and become more engaged with historical content. 

The AP World History: Modern (APWH) course is structured into nine units that span from approximately 1200 CE to the present. The curriculum focuses on broad patterns, connections, and comparisons across different regions

Here is a comprehensive breakdown of the units and the specific topics you’ll encounter, starting with Unit 1.

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Unit 1: The Global Tapestry (c. 1200 to c. 1450)

This unit focuses on how states formed and how religions spread across the globe.

1. Developments in East Asia (The Song Dynasty, Confucianism, and the economy of China)
   • Chinese Dynasties
   • The Voyages of Zheng He
2. Developments in Dar al-Islam (The Abbasid Caliphate and its fragmentation; Rise of Turkic peoples)
   • Islamic Caliphates
   • Al Andalus (Islamic Spain)
   • The Siege of Baghdad
   • The House of Wisdom
3. Developments in South and Southeast Asia (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam in the region)
   • Khmer Empire
4. State Building in the Americas (The Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations)
   • Mayan Civilization
5. State Building in Africa (Mali, Ethiopia, and Great Zimbabwe)
   • Who Was The Richest Person in History?
   • The Great Zimbabwe
6. Developments in Europe (Feudalism, Manorialism, and the Roman Catholic Church)
   • Joan of Arc
   • The Medici Family and Renaissance Florence
   • Hildegaard of Bingen
   • The Knights Templar
   • The Vikings
   • The War of the Roses
   • The Magna Carta
   • Michelangelo
   • Battle of Bannockburn
   • The Crusades
7. Comparison in the Period c. 1200 to c. 1450

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Unit 2: Networks of Exchange (c. 1200 to c. 1450)

Focuses on the trade routes that connected these diverse civilizations.

1. The Silk Roads
   • Zoroastrianism
   • The Silk Roads
   • Smuggling Silk Out of China
2. The Mongol Empire and the Making of the Modern World
   • The Mongol Empire
   • The Mongol Invasions of Japan
   • Marco Polo
   • Prester John
3. Exchange in the Indian Ocean
4. Trans-Saharan Trade Routes
   • Ibn Battuta
5. Cultural Consequences of Connectivity (Spread of religion and technology)
6. Environmental Consequences of Connectivity (Spread of crops and the Bubonic Plague)
   • The Black Death
   • The Little Ice Age
7. Comparison of Economic Exchange

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Unit 3: Land-Based Empires (c. 1450 to c. 1750)

How massive empires in Eurasia and the Americas consolidated and legitimized power.

1. Empires Expand (The Gunpowder Empires: Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal)
   • The Empire that Never Existed
   • The Ottoman Empire
   • Cannons and Artillery
   • The Taj Mahal
   • The Hagia Sophia
2. Empires: Administration (Bureaucracies and tax farming)
   • Miyamoto Musashi
3. Empires: Belief Systems (The Protestant Reformation and the Sunni/Shi’a split)
   • Defenestrations of Prague
   • The Thirty Years War
   • Peace of Westphalia
   • Isaac Newton: the World’s Most Famous Alchemist
   • Did Gutenberg Really Invent the Printing Press
4. Comparison in Land-Based Empires

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Unit 4: Transoceanic Interconnections (c. 1450 to c. 1750)

The “Age of Exploration” and the creation of the first truly global trade networks.

1. Technological Innovations from 1450 to 1750
   • The Fra Mauro Medieval Map
   • Understanding Ocean Currents
2. Exploration: Causes and Events from 1450 to 1750
   • The Northwest Passage
   • The Hanseatic League
   • The Reconquista
3. Columbian Exchange
   • The Columbian Exchange
   • The Great Dying of the Americas
4. Maritime Empires Established
   • Republic of Pirates
   • The Battle at Cajamarca
5. Maritime Empires Maintained and Developed (Mercantilism and Joint-stock companies)
   • The Tensho Embassy
   • The Spice Trade
6. Internal and External Challenges to State Power
   • The Spanish Inquisition
7. Changing Social Hierarchies from 1450 to 1750 (The Casta system)
8. Continuity and Change from 1450 to 1750

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Unit 5: Revolutions (c. 1750 to c. 1900)

The era of the Enlightenment, political revolutions, and the Industrial Revolution.

1. The Enlightenment
2. Nationalism and Revolutions in the 18th and 19th Centuries
   • The Desecration of St. Denis
   • Napoleon’s 100 Days
   • Napoleon Bonaparte
   • The Storming of the Bastille
   • The Haitian Revolution
   • Madame la Guillotine
   • Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia
   • Catherine the Great 
   • The Cult of Reason
3. Industrial Revolution Begins
   • Energy, Work, and Power
4. Industrialization Spreads in the 19th Century
5. Technology of the Industrial Age
   • The War of the Currents
   • The Germ Theory of Disease
6. Industrialization: Government’s Role from 1750 to 1900
7. Economic Developments and Innovations in the Industrial Age
   • The Development of the Steam Engine
8. Reactions to the Industrial Economy from 1750 to 1900
   • The Chartist Movement
   • The Luddites
9. Society and the Industrial Age
10. Continuity and Change in the Industrial Age

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Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization (c. 1750 to c. 1900)

Focuses on Imperialism and the global migration patterns resulting from industrial growth.

1. Rationales for Imperialism from 1750 to 1900 (Social Darwinism)
2. State Expansion from 1750 to 1900 (The Scramble for Africa)
   • Scramble for Africa
   • King Leopold and the Congo Free State
   • Captain Cook
   • The Sinking of the Mignonette and Justified Cannibalism
   • The Crimean War
   • British Imperial Leftovers
3. Indigenous Responses to State Expansion from 1750 to 1900
   • The Boxer Rebellion 
   • The Paraguayan War
   • The Taiping Rebellion
   • The Opium Wars
4. Global Economic Development from 1750 to 1900
5. Economic Imperialism from 1750 to 1900
6. Causes of Migration in an Interconnected World
   • The Irish Potato Famine
7. Effects of Migration
8. Causation in the Imperial Age

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Unit 7: Global Conflict (c. 1900 to present)

The causes and consequences of World War I and World War II.

1. Shifting Power After 1900 (Collapse of the Ottoman, Qing, and Russian Empires)
   • The Great Arab Revolt
   • The Russian Revolution
2. Causes of World War I
   • The Sinking of the Lusitania
   • The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
3. Conducting World War I (Total War)
   • The Eastern Front of WWI
   • The Schlieffen Plan
   • 1917 French Army Mutinies
   • Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe
   • The Maginot Line
   • The Battle of the Marne
   • The Red Baron
   • The Hindenburg Disaster
   • Christmas Truce of 1914
   • The Kiel Mutiny
   • The Last Soldier to Die in WWI
4. Economy in the Interwar Period (The Great Depression)
5. Unresolved Tensions After World War I
   • The Treaty of Versailles
   • The Last Emperor of China
   • The Mukden Incident
6. Causes of World War II
   • Italian versus German Fascism
7. Conducting World War II
   • Hitler and Germany
     • Wilhelm Canaris: Working Against Hitler From the Inside
     • Hitler’s Family
     • The Plot to Kill Hitler
     • The Last Days and Death of Hitler
     • The First, Second, and Third Reichs
     • The Last Germans to Surrender
     • The Children of Nazis
   • Battles
     • The Winter War
     • Operation Dragoon
     • Operation Barbarosa
     • Ramages Rampage
     • Stalingrad the Bloodiest Battle in History 
     • The Siege of Tobruk
     • D-Day
     • The Battle of Midway
     • Operation Tannenbaum
     • Operation Sea Lion
     • Operation Long Jump
   • Technology
     • The Manhattan Project
     • V1 and V2 Rockets
     • The AK-47
     • Project Habakkuk
     • The Nazi Bomb
   • WWII Stories
     • The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
     • Post WWII Expulsions from Germany 
     • Admiral Yamamoto
     • The Kokoda Track
     • Cracking the Enigma Code
     • German POWs in America
     • The Bataan Death March
     • The Axis Powers
     • Operation Fork and Iceland
     • Simo Hayha: The White Death 
   • The Holocaust and Genocide
     • The Warsaw Ghettos
     • The Holodomor 
8. Mass Atrocities After 1900 (The Holocaust and other genocides)
   • The 1994 Rwandan Genocide
   • Francis Macias Nguema
   • Adolph Eichmann and the Banality of Evil
9. Causation in Global Conflict

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Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization (c. 1900 to present)

The ideological struggle between capitalism and communism, and the independence of former colonies.

1. Setting the Stage for the Cold War and Decolonization
2. The Cold War
   • The Marshall Plan 
   • A History of NATO
   • The Romanian Revolution of 1989
   • The Soviet Bomb
   • The Berlin Wall
   • Berlin Wall
   • The B-52
   • Stanislov Petrov: the Man Who Saved the World
3. Effects of the Cold War (Proxy wars)
   • The Vietnam War
   • The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
   • The Korean War
4. Spread of Communism After 1900 (China and Vietnam)
   • The Sino-Russian Border Conflict
   • The Cultural Revolution
   • The Great Leap Forward
   • Chinese Cultural Revolution
5. Decolonization After 1900 (India, Africa, and Southeast Asia)
   • The Great Emu War
6. Newly Independent States (Israel, Pakistan)
   • The Munich Olympics Massacre
   • Indian Partition
7. Global Resistance to Established Power Structures after 1900
   • The Suez Crisis
8. End of the Cold War
9. Causation in the Age of the Cold War and Decolonization

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Unit 9: Globalization (c. 1900 to present)

The modern world: technology, global economics, and environmental changes.

1. Advances in Technology and Exchange after 1900
   • Nuclear Power
   • The Channel Tunnel
   • The Panama Canal
   • The Origins of the Internet
2. Technological Advances and Limitations after 1900: Disease
   • Malaria: The Disease That Shaped History 
   • The Eradication of Smallpox
3. Technological Advances: Debates about the Environment
   • Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Fed The World
   • The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
4. Economics in the Global Age (Free market and globalization)
   • The Honey Hunters of the Sundarban
5. Calls for Reform and Responses after 1900 (Human rights)
   • The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
6. Globalized Culture after 1900
7. Resistance to Globalization after 1900
   • Uncontacted Peoples
8. Institutions Developing in a Globalized World (The UN)
   • The League of Nations
   • The Formation of the United Nations
9. Globalization in the Age of Connectivity
   • Origins of the Internet