Top 10 YouTube Channels to learn history

This year I set out on a brave new adventure. I’m designing our history curriculum. I knew I wanted to go deeper in some areas and skip lightly over others, so I designed it all. Part of that has been my quest for YouTube videos to share with the kids so they can have an easy reference point. In the process I’ve found several great YouTube history channels for our homeschool history lessons.

My Top 10 YouTube history channels, the only history channels

These channels only have history videos, well except this first one, but it’s all history-related….

1. Overly Sarcastic Productions– My kids watch these when they’re bored or if they need a laugh. The two hosts, Red and Blue, cover mythologies and history. There’s a definite emphasis on ancient history, but there have been some recent videos on more modern topics. Seriously, just go watch their videos.
2. Kings and Generals– This is focused on military history, but it’s got great information on almost every major battle and different ancient army type.
3. Townsends– This is very limited in scope. Townsends is a living history supplier, and he focuses on the 18th century, so most of the videos are about living in 18th century America. Someday I want to try making his portable soup recipe. I should add some of these to my Colonial America unit, now that I think about it.
4. Simple History– These simple animated history YouTube videos are all over the place in topic, but they amuse me.
5. See You in History– Much like OSP, there’s a fair amount of mythology in here, but they’re a bit more serious, and sometimes a bit more adult in content because of the “illustration” style
6. Ten Minute History– We haven’t used these much this year because they’re more focused on modern history, but I used them a fair amount the last couple of years
7. Jazby– He has a great series of 3-minute history videos for most major wars and several major battles that do a nice quick synopsis.
8. Hip Hughes– He does a good job covering the material, but my kids aren’t as big of a fan of his videos. They don’t like his humor quite as much. You also have to check his videos ahead of time because at least his video on Sumeria (like everyone else) was not really kid appropriate.*
9. History Buffs– They’ve got a whole series called “History Buffs Go to the Movies” where they talk the history of several popular movies. You’ll learn there’s not a lot of history going on in those movies… He’s got a couple I should add to my World War 2 movies…
10. The Armchair Historian– I haven’t seen many of these videos yet, so can’t fully endorse the channel, BUT the lists intrigue me
11. Ten Minute Bible Hour– This one’s a bonus because it’s mostly about teaching the Bible, BUT he provides a lot of great historical background to the books he teaches through, and lots of supplemental videos about important historical figures. I watch his videos as soon as I get a notification. He has a great series working through the Book of Acts I should add to my Acts Bible lessons.

Bonus YouTube history channels, not solely history channels

These channels are a bit more of the general educational, but they’ve got an excellent history sub-channel

1. TedEd– My kids love their history videos, as you all know, their videos are not solely history, so this isn’t exactly the best example.
2. Extra Credit– They have nice concise videos on several different topics.
3. Crash Course History– Like other Crash Course videos, these are a nice summation of events.

And because it interests me, a few YouTube history channels for fashion history

These are the videos I go down rabbit holes with, okay most of these channels will cause me to lose hours watching fun videos.

• Black Girl in a Big Dress– This one amuses me more than I can say, it’s not so much historical as it is fun
• Prior Attire– she has some amazing outfits. AMAZING
• Crows Eye Productions– Some amazing videos of HOW outfits are put together
• Stitch in Time– This is a BBC TV show that recreates outfits from famous paintings right down to period construction, or as close as they can get to it, I ADORE this show

That’s my YouTube history channels, do you have any suggestions I missed?

And now for something completely different

• Over 100 books made into movies
• How the Roman Empire is to blame for EVERYTHING
• Ancient Sumeria Unit

*Seriously people, when we were studying Sumeria I could not find decent videos because both Hip Hughes and Crash Course history (or maybe it was another channel) wanted to talk about this one tablet depicting getting drunk and having an orgy. Yep, that’s a thing. It’s apparently a big thing to them.