Since my daughter went to Washington DC a few weeks ago, she wanted to rent "National Treasure" again so that she could look at all of the places that she got to see that were in the movie. Once we watched the first movie, we decided to rent the second "National Treasure" movie again, too. Our family finds both of these movies to be quite entertaining.I was thinking about it more this morning and I realized that they could both be good springboards for some American History learning, too. Here are a few ideas that we came up with:
~Who was Charles Carroll? Was he really a Mason?
~What are the Masons and what has been their role in our country's history?
~Was there really such a thing as the Templar Treasure?
~What are the Knights of the Templar and how did they get started?
~How many of the founding fathers were Masons?
~What is the history of daylight savings time?
~Was there such a thing as Cebola?
~What was Queen Victoria's association with the Confederacy?
~Who were the Knights of the Golden Circle?
~Who was Edouard Laboulaye and what was his role with the Statue of Liberty?
~Is there more than one Statue of Liberty?
~Research the HMS Resolute. Were there two desks that were really made out of it? If so, where are they?
~Research the Olmecs and ancient Native American languages.
~Research Mt. Rushmore and Gutzon Borglum.
~What is Area 51?
~Is there really a President's Book?
~What does the FBI do?
And this is just the beginning. What a fun way to brighten up a gloomy old February day. Rent one (or both) of the movies and explore some of the topics above. Who knows where your research will lead you?
