Facing History Timeline
| 1976 |
Teacher Margot Stern Strom develops a program that relates her work in moral development to the history of the Holocaust. Facing History and Ourselves evolves from classroom experience and a partnership with William Parsons and other colleagues who offer their expertise and support. |
| 1977 | Margot Stern Strom leaves the classroom to become director of Facing History and Ourselves. The organization’s first offices are established in Brookline, MA. |
| 1981 | U.S. Department of Education’s National Diffusion Network recognizes Facing History and Ourselves as an “exemplary model education project worthy to be disseminated and adopted across the country.” |
| 1982 |
Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc., is incorporated as a nonprofit organization. The organization’s first board of directors is convened. Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, the first nationally distributed edition of its resource book, is published. |
| 1985 | "The Impact of Nuremberg: Today and the Future" is Facing History and Ourselves’s first Human Rights and Justice Conference. |
| 1989 | The National Endowment for the Humanities awards a major challenge grant to Facing History and Ourselves. |
| 1990 | Facing History publishes the Choosing to Participate resource book. |
| 1990-1999 | Facing History and Ourselves expands its operations through regional offices in Chicago (1990), Memphis (1991), New York (1993), Los Angeles (1994), New England (1995), San Francisco Bay Area (1995), and Cleveland (1999). |
| 1992 | New headquarters office in Brookline, MA, allows for an expanded resource library and on-site events. |
| 1996-1998 | A study of middle school students sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York between 1996 and 1998 demonstrates that Facing History students showed increased interest in other ethnic groups and a decrease in stereotyping and racist attitudes. |
| 1997 | The President’s Initiative on Race features Facing History and Ourselves as a “promising practice” on the White House Web site. |
| 1998 | "Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves" multimedia exhibition premieres at the Boston Public Library. The exhibition travels to Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, New York, and San Francisco over several years. Facing History publishes the resource book The Jews of Poland. |
| 1999 | Facing History holds its first higher education institute for faculty of schools of education. |
| 2001 | Facing History launches an Online Campus designed to augment existing professional development by offering services and resources to educators around the world. |
| 2002 |
The Facing History/Goldman Sachs International Fellowship program is created to work with scholars around the world. Facing History publishes Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement. The book, which examines the eugenics movement—a 20th-century effort to rid society of “inferior traits”— significantly expands Facing History resources that focus on the American experience. |
| 2003 | First online course of Holocaust and Human Behavior is offered. |
| 2004 | Facing History publishes the resource book Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians. |
| 2005 | Facing History convenes its first Global Symposium, a landmark gathering of its partners from around the world, to exchange classroom strategies and methods of dealing with histories of mass violence. The Facing History School, a new school in New York City, welcomes its first class of 116 freshmen. The Harvard Law School/Facing History and Ourselves Program presents "Pursuing Human Dignity: The Legacies of Nuremberg for International Law, Human Rights, and Education," a conference to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Tribunals. Facing History publishes Choices in Little Rock. |
| 2006 | With a staff of over 130, Facing History and Ourselves reaches teachers and students around the world in its 30th year. |
